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Rebecca J. Kavanagh
@DrRJKavanagh
, 6 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Today on Rikers Island, a guard retaliated against people taking off their shirts due to the blazing NYC heat by turning off a fan.

People die in prisons and jails due to excessive heat. And due to deliberate cruelty and neglect by corrections officers.
Seth Donnelly, age 29, died of severe heat stroke in a Texas prison 3 weeks ago. His core body temperature was 106% at the time of his death; the outside temperature 100%. ktxs.com/news/local/pre…
Texas spent $7 million to fight a lawsuit that would require it to install air conditioners in its prisons. It recently settled - the cost of installing air conditioners is $4 million. At least 23 prisoners have died in Texas from heat stroke since 1998. texastribune.org/2018/08/29/tex…
Turning off a fan may seem petty and insignificant. It's not. Corrections officers killed Terrill Thomas by turning water off to his cell so he died by dehydration. nytimes.com/2018/02/12/us/…
Corrections officers can show brutal and callous disregard for people's lives. When Kelly Coltrain suffered a seizure and asked to go to the hospital, a guard instead made her mop up her vomit. She died, but he didn't report it till the next day. wusa9.com/article/news/n…
I could go on to give a thousand examples like this. But the point I most want to make is that things that should not cause people to die (like the heat) do because of horrific jail conditions and abject human cruelty.
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More from @DrRJKavanagh see all

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Rebecca J. Kavanagh
@DrRJKavanagh
"It’s almost made for TV and is ideal for social-media shares."

I'm sorry what? Mueller was testifying before Congress. He's not a politician and he's not trying to give people sound bites for any purpose.

This is becoming ridiculous.
Those on the left commenting on his "halting performance" don't seem to have a problem with what he said.

That is someone being a careful witness, being accurate and not speaking outside the scope of the report.

If you are a lawyer, he is exactly the sort of witness you want.
Witnesses are not supposed to perform.
Read 6 tweets
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Rebecca J. Kavanagh
@DrRJKavanagh
So the person who allegedly threw a bucket of water on a Brooklyn cop is a "known gang member." Because like who else would do that?

Seriously tho, prosecutors do nearly always describe our clients as "known gang members" at arraignments, regardless of the offense.
So something as trivial as throwing a bucket of water becomes that much more ominous sounding if the person is alleged to be in a "gang."

It happens with all minor charges, even something like turnstile jumping, where "gang" membership could never be relevant.
It's so problematic. First the prosecutor will state it as a fact, when what it means is our client is in an NYPD gang database.

And even tho we ask the judge not to consider it, it's been put on the record with the same certainty as the time & place where the incident occurred.
Read 8 tweets
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Rebecca J. Kavanagh
@DrRJKavanagh
Give me an example of a case where a prosecutor was criminally charged for misconduct.
Prosecutors also have absolute immunity from civil suit. So, yeah, there's that.
PS Yes I know there are a handful of cases where prosecutors have been charged for misconduct. It almost never happens, even in the most egregious cases. And they don't go to jail.
Read 3 tweets

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Rodney Howard-Browne
@rhowardbrowne
Heat Wave
Headline July 25, 1936

Over 12 000 dead in 86 cities in 1936

Compared to 7439 deaths from heat in 1935

Compared to 8851 in 86 cities in 1934 years

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The drought of 1930 created the great dust bowl & the migration to CA by 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land had been rendered useless for farming, another 125 million acres, an area roughly 3/4 the size of Texas—was rapidly losing its topsoil.
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Nnennaya
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One of the main goals of the end cash bail movement is to highlight that people should NOT be incarcerated in the first place. And to highlight how people are profiting off of individuals being in cages.
Question why people are being incarcerated in the first place before assuming that everyone who is currently incarcerated deserves to be in a cage.
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