1,000 signatures reached
To: Richard Sparaco, Ned Lamont, Angel Quiros, Patrick Clifford
Free Jamira Myers!
Content warning: violence against incarcerated women.
Jamira Myers is incarcerated at York Correctional Institute. She is a New Haven resident, mother of four beautiful children, and part of the Connecticut Bail Fund family. Due to extreme medical violence, she fears for her life. She is asking for community support to make sure she can come home alive.
Jamira is experiencing several life-threatening medical crises at once. Presently, she is suffering from Covid, MRSA staph infection (contracted in the Covid unit), asthma, obesity (her weight has increased to nearly 400 pounds at York), depression, anxiety, and relentless, excruciating back pain resulting from ongoing spine and nervous system damage. Jamira has applied twice for Compassionate Release — both times denied. Her applications included a letter from a UCONN physician based on a 9/25/2020 MRI of her back. The letter states clearly that Jamira’s spine is deteriorating beyond repair, requiring emergency surgery that UCONN and DOC are not equipped to offer. ( “She will need surgery as soon as possible or risk irreversible damage where she may never be physically able to walk again.”) Until Jamira is free, she will experience excruciating pain, and she will become permanently disabled.
On top of Jamira’s health crisis, Jamira has been the target of extreme abuse by correctional officers. For many weeks, they deprived her wheelchair access so the only way she could get her medication was to lean on the rolling trashcan while she walked — then, when she fell to the ground and couldn’t get up, correctional staff would mock her, call her racial slurs, and make degrading sexual comments. While in the Covid unit, Jamira was physically assaulted by an officer who lashed out at her verbally and then slammed a door on her hand. These incidents reflect Jamira’s daily experience as someone who the correctional staff have chosen to gang up on.
Jamira will be halfway-house eligible this summer. But she needs emergency surgery now. The following four men each have the power to release Jamira from incarceration with the stroke of a pen:
1. Richard Sparaco, Executive Director of Board of Pardons and Parole, could grant Jamira “Compassionate Parole.”
2. Angel Quiros, Commissioner of Department of Correction, could grant Jamira a Furlough.
3. Ned Lamont, Governor of CT, could grant Jamira a Reprieve from Conviction.
4. Patrick Clifford, the Sentencing Judge, could grant Jamira a Sentence Modification.
Why is this important?
In Jamira’s own words (12/10/2020):
Governor Ned Lamont,
Hello, How are you? My name is Jamira Myers #278506 Inmate Number, and I am currently an inmate at York Correctional Institution. My reason for reaching out to you is because I really need your help. I’ve written to counselors, captains, social workers, the warden, the commissioner, Action 8 News, ACLU, American Disabilities Act. I’ve tried speaking with different attorneys, reporters, and now I’m writing to you because all those people I named I either never got any response or was threatened with a disability ticket if I kept writing them.
I’m a 37-year-old black female with 4 children, single mother who has a lot of health problems. I have high blood pressure, chronic asthma, sleep apnea, legally disabled at home due to my chronic back problems and my mental health issues. I’ve had my attorney put in for a (sentence) modification on my behalf which was denied. I filed a Habeas petition to attack the conditions of my confinement, no luck.
After a full year I just got a wheelchair and put in a handicapped room so I can be transported back and forth to Medline so I can get my medication because for a while I was off my meds due to me being immobile and the doctor made it seem like I was just refusing when that wasn’t the case - I literally had to push a big trash bin around the compound filled with trash to get around and when I couldn’t do that anymore they would call codes on me and 7 or 8 CO’s had to pick me up off the ground because my legs and my back kept giving out on me. I got laughed at and called Black Bitch and Trash Pusher by CO’s.
Please can you help me? I would never have written to you if I didn’t really need your help. 50% of my time will be January, and I will be eligible for a Halfway House two months after that. I’m not asking to be let out in the street but at least put in a hospital or a rehabilitation center so I can get my surgery. I don’t want to die from being obese because I’m immobile due to my back issue. I can’t go to a halfway house like this. I know you receive tons of letters from inmates asking for freedom. I’m willing to be in a locked facility in my hometown so staff can at least get me back and forth to the doctors so I can get some type of pain management and get my surgery scheduled, then go to a halfway house as soon as they have a bed for me.
I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart, I don’t want to die here. I’m only 37-years-old, and my kids need their mom. Please can you respond to my letter even if you refuse to help me as well? I’m so desperate and it took me a lot of courage to write you, but I decided to give it a shot and see if there really is a God out there because I’m literally suffering. You got to see it to believe it. Anyways, I’ll end the letter in good faith and hope I receive a response back. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my letter. God bless you and have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Jamira Myers