Dear Editor,
I, James F. Gaitanis, am an inmate at the Clarke County Jail. I have been here since September 20, 2019. I’m charged with felon fleeing and vehicle motor taking.
I, along with every other inmate here, is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not their jail. I was here about four months when Mr. Barry White, jail administrator and chief deputy, made me a trustee. They needed this jail fixed up because it looked like a mid-evil dungeon.
I worked 80 and 100 hours a week scraping, primming, and painting the jail, along with buffing and waxing floors. They knew the Grand Jury was going to do their walk-through and wanted to get it all fixed up before they had a chance to see it. After I helped with this, I went on the road crew picking up trash on the county roads.
The morning of January 25, 2021, I was in the extended cab backseat of an old 96 F-250 road crew truck on Hwy. 513 at the Stonewall city limits. When we were turning around, we were broadsided by a woman in a Toyota Camry. Mr. Neil Hester was the officer driving the truck. None of us were in a seatbelt. I was slammed into the cab hurting my neck.
After an hour of waiting for the wreck to be cleaned up and us dropping off the trash trailer at the jail, then I was taken to the Clarke County hospital where I was talked to and treated horribly; they put a neck brace on me upside down. Officer Brewer got their attention, and they came in and fixed it. They said I was fine, and I requested a second opinion. They brought in a monitor with a camera on top of it and a nice lady from UMC in Jackson said I was going to be brought there by ambulance to see them. Officer Brewer told the lady to let him call his boss, Mr. White. They diverted me to Rush in Meridian by ambulance.
Now, I’m thrown into a two-man cell and now being treated horribly and denied medical treatment. I have filed suit as have six other inmates. Clarke County needs to do something with their jail and staff. I will really get treated bad now since I’ve exposed them, but you should know that a lot of your tax dollars are fixing to be spent paying off lawsuits. I ask only for us to be treated fairly. The 8th and 14th Amendments Constitutional Rights – cruel and unusual treatment is against federal law. Please help.
Sincerely,
Inmate James F. Gaitanis
