From Corcoran PSU SHU: ‘I am a mentally-challenged man’

Denied medical and mental health care, he seeks help with his lawsuit

by Christian Lownes

Mentally-ill-prisoner-Eddie-Joe-Lloyd-exonerated-after-17-years-for-murder-in-Michigan, From Corcoran PSU SHU: ‘I am a mentally-challenged man’, Abolition Now! I have done almost half my sentence and I know that I’m wrong for what I did. I’m paying my debt to society. So I will not mention my crime because I do not want to be convicted all over again.

Now what I will let you know: I am a very mentally-challenged man. I am now writing you from a mental health PSU (Psychiatric Services Unit) SHU segregation program. When I first came into the prison system, I had to go through a cleansing of cocaine and booze and all kinds of drugs. Even after my body was cleansed, I still suffer mentally from the emotional changes a drug addict and boozer goes through for up to three to four years, depending on how long the person was using.

I can write, and I can count dollars but not change. I was taken from regular school and placed in special ed after repeating the seventh grade. My Black teacher friend told me I can learn but I’m a slow learner. I am from North Carolina, Winston-Salem.

I was raised up in my childhood with the Black Panthers doing what you do. Another inmate here in the SHU with me gave me the Bay View to read and all I have been doing is writing down information. I ended up here in L.A. and did crime there. My story is long and there is no time to tell it all now. I have written you to ask for help as a Black man from the South, which I call the Motherland, where many of our people died for me and you to be who we are today.

I have come into contact with scabies, microscopic mites, three times since I have been here. They refused me medical attention for nine and a half years. I am now trying to get into the courts. I have my medical file here with me at this prison where I just arrived, and it’s in my property that I’m patiently waiting for them to give me.

They refused me medical attention for nine and a half years.

People in power are sometimes a mess, but I am 51 years old so I now live in wisdom. Wisdom tells me if somebody hits me and draws blood, get them. That’s why I am here. Yet actually the reason I am here was for nine and a half years of getting bitten when this guy hit me. All the rage was finally released.

I have records wherein three prison doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists denied me medical treatment, saying, “You were treated at Lancaster prison in 2000.” This story they held to for years. It’s true, but I got into a situation again and this is where I came into contact with them again.

The doctors told me I already been treated in 2007. I was totally out of it and I quit asking for help. All this time day and night I’m being bitten. By now the scabies have multiplied in numbers on me. They reproduce right on a human’s body. All the time I’m writing poison control centers learning about parasitic mites.

Then here in February 2011 I get into this fight while in Seg (Administrative Segregation). I had already noticed before Seg that the mites had once again multiplied in numbers on me. In March 2011 all of a sudden these big pus-like sores swelled up all over my legs like little mountains. My ankles swelled up and my feet. I showed them to the nurse, then to the doctor. I told him I had scabies.

My body was infested. They had to treat me five times. But my nostrils are still attacked by mites. An inmate friend of mine who is from Oakland, much more intelligent than me, told me the mites could be in my brain or in my blood. Docs are once again saying, “We have treated you,” and they’re no longer trying to find or even thinking about finding out why I am being attacked in my nostrils.

We have a process for appeals. I am having a hard time with trying to hold on to the little bit of sanity I have left. My nerves and emotions are already in total confusion and they have already said my stories are not lining up or I’m saying two different stories.

So they’re now trying to deny my first appeal. It’s been long overdue for them to send it back. There are three levels of appeal before the courts. When I got into second level this is when they started challenging my brain. I also have a ADA disability appeal I filed in my property, and they sent it back saying I needed to take off the most important documents to my complaint and put the remainder of my story on one of the system forms for appeal. So soon I should get my property, hopefully next week.

Today is Friday, Sept. 16, 2011. I arrived here on Sept. 1, so I counted the days and made me a calendar. See, I’m a little bit smart.

They keep saying at legal firms that I have to exhaust my appeals before they can get me into the courts. I am seeking $6 million compensation. I am trying my best to help myself, but I am greatly suffering from traumatic psychological emotional breakdowns. Sometimes I have to stop doing everything and sing to myself for an hour or I break down and start crying or I start eating when I do not want to eat.

What I’m saying is I’ve been in Seg almost a whole year. It’s loud – noisy, shouting, screaming inmates arguing all the time, doors slamming loud, bad, bad food. After nine and a half years – my emotions already in total psychological emotional trauma – I’m all of a sudden dumped into a world of emotional-enhanced hell before I can even get a chance to heal from the first trauma.

Now I see bugs when they’re not even there. The doctors have on my records that I was mentally feeling like I was being bitten and that I was delusional. I am trying the best I can but I need some real psychological help. And I am not getting it here. I have requested several times to be sent to one of the psychiatric state hospitals where prisoners are, but they’re telling me because of my level of custody they cannot send me to a place where I can get professional mental care.

I do not have anyone to help me do my suit and I wrote you this letter asking if you can get one of the smart people you have there through research. Can they find out how I can get my case into the courts? Even if the state will not let me exhaust my appeals, there has to be a way for me to get justice.

I have medical records to prove everything I have written concerning this case is true. No human being should ever have to go through what I suffered. If you have ever seen a flea bite a dog, this is the same kind of reaction it is when a scabies mite bites a human.

I lived in a world for almost 10 years by myself. I could not tell another inmate what was happening to me. They would have beat me to death. I made sure I did not touch all of my cellmates’ clothes, their bunks, or rub up too close by them because if they would have caught something with me in the cell with them God knows what would have been next.

I lived in a world for almost 10 years by myself. I could not tell another inmate what was happening to me. They would have beat me to death.

I got into a fistfight with inmates, arguments with cellmates, and I had to put up with the daily life of prison staff and the guards. I have a case here. Nobody had to exhaust any appeals to lock me up for my crime. Now here I have a crime committed against me by at least 10 people and now the white man has rules in order for me to take him to court.

What do I have to do to get somebody to hear my cry? I want the world to know what has happened to me and I do not want to settle out of court unless they settle for $6 million and my freedom and no parole.

It’s a small price to pay for what they have done to me. If you get this letter, can you please give me some Black feedback. I am ending this letter by telling you I have my prison medical file, I have over 50-something documents with doctors’ names calling me delusional, and I have documents to show when they treated me. So if my documents come up missing, I wrote you this letter as a witness.

If I have no court case, why are they fighting me even before I can get into the courts. Most people if they knew you didn’t have a case they will let you go ahead with your appeal, my appeal. They won’t answer it or return it back. So how do I get into the courts if they won’t give me the appeal? You can put me in the Bay View. I’ll tell you the whole story. I just want justice and I want some mental help to be able to regain my life or who I used to be.

If you can help or if you want simply to send our brother some love and light, write to Christian Lownes, P-29035, FA1-111, P.O. Box 290066, Represa CA 95671-0066.