John Hackworth and Brian Gleason of Sun Newspapers

OUR POSITION: An investigation into the death of an inmate at Charlotte Correctional Institute has dragged on far too long.

On April 11, 2013, Matthew Walker, an inmate at Charlotte Correctional Institute just outside Punta Gorda, died.

Today, almost two years later, we don’t know the exact cause of his death or any real details of that fateful confrontation between Walker and the prison guards who were later dismissed or put on suspension because of their role in the incident.

Recently, some of the 10 guards who were either dismissed or suspended, with pay, after Walker’s death have been cleared to return to work. Just last week, a Public Employees Relation Commission hearing ruled Officer Mestely Saintervil should join others who have returned to work. That recommendation was made to Teamsters Local 2011, the union representing the suspended corrections officers.

The Florida Department of Corrections has yet to decide if Saintervil will be allowed to return.

The ruling is just another step in a long, secretive process that followed Walker’s death.

Days after Walker died, Lt. Tyler Triplett was dismissed. Then, about five months later, FDOC let nine other guards go during a statewide purge of the prison system by former FDOC head Mike Crews. The statewide cleansing was made in reference to several suspicious deaths of inmates that were eroding confidence in the system.

The CCI guards were let go because of “inappropriately (participating) in a use of force that resulted in the death of an inmate,” according to the FDOC letter each received.

Attempts by family members and the news media to get a clear picture of what happened have met with a stone wall of silence. Public records are heavily redacted (blacked out) and no one has ever said exactly how Walker died or revealed actions that led to his demise.

After the suspensions, nine of the 10 officers who were let go appealed the decision. Two have been reinstated to paid-leave status and Saintervil may soon join them.

“The whole incident is regrettable,” said Bill Curtis, a spokesman for the Teamsters union. “The full truth of the matter will eventually be told.”

When? That is what we want to know.

Two years seems a ridiculously long time for an “open” investigation to continue. It’s not like there weren’t numerous witnesses to whatever took place.

A Tampa attorney who represents three of the CCI guards still suspended said FDOC should have completed the investigation before firing anyone.

However, as of today, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement still calls the case an open investigation.

No details have been released.

The ongoing secrecy only adds to the questions about the actions of the guards and the processes and policies employed by CCI administration.

Crews has resigned as head of the FDOC since the investigation began.

CCI Warden Thomas Reid has remained mum on the investigation and on anything that happened between Walker and the guards.

Now, the State Attorney’s Office is involved, opening its own study of the incident on Oct. 31.

With details still shrouded from the public and the media, it opens the door to all kinds of rumors and gossip regarding the case. Walker’s family has been left to wonder how such a tragedy unfolded and who, if anyone, is responsible.

It has taken far too long for this case to be resolved.

It is time to open the records on the case so the family and the public can learn exactly how Walker died.

OUR POSITION: Delays in prison death investigations and prosecutions raise concerns about extent of dysfunction.

There are six open investigations into deaths of Charlotte Correctional Institution inmates since 2013. One of those, the April 11, 2014, death of Matthew Walker, led to the dismissal of 10 prison staff, but no charges against anyone in connection with Walker’s death. This week, two of those employees joined seven others who have returned to work at CCI following appeals of their dismissals.

In October, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement turned over the results of its investigation of the death to the state attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit, which has not announced whether charges will be filed.

Somebody knows what led to Walker’s death.

Whether it was the result of a criminal act is something the public deserves to know. If other CCI employees committed criminal acts or violated Department of Corrections policies following the incident, that should be determined and released. The same goes for the five other deaths. Anything short of disclosure conveys a perception that Florida’s corrections system is dysfunctional and that our justice system is incapable of determining who is responsible for a wave of inmate deaths.

None of the inmates at CCI, which houses many of the state’s most hardened criminals, were given death sentences. Without doubt, there are some very bad people there. Keeping them in line is a dangerous, low-paying job. We appreciate the work corrections officers do under grave circumstances.

That said, there are accepted parameters for doing that job and those don’t include killing inmates. Across Florida, too many officers are doing just that.

Compounding the crisis are the actions of fellow officers, supervisors and others who have covered up potential crimes, impeded investigations and failed to prevent recurrences. Delays in prosecution, botched firings, a revolving door of DOC leadership and the seeming indifference of Gov. Rick Scott to the issue exacerbates a deadly problem. The fact is, Scott is at least partly responsible for the situation, spearheading the privatization of prisons in the state, letting private corrections companies cherry-pick better-behaved prisoners and leaving the worst of the worst in state prisons.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation of Florida’s wave of prison deaths, now in the hundreds statewide. Even efforts at reform have raised new questions, such as an inmate mortality database, dubbed a “transparency database” by former COD Secretary Mike Crews, which is so heavily redacted even families of deceased inmates can’t determine the circumstances of their family members’ deaths.

There is a cruel irony in the idea of prison guards “getting away with murder” within the walls of Florida’s prisons. We welcome the DOJ investigation, despite the fact it will undoubtedly expose even more unwelcome news about the state of the state’s corrections department. Already, we have seen a slowdown in the rate of unexplained deaths. It’s troubling that it took federal oversight to convince prison officials of the seriousness of the situation. But the longer the public has to wait for answers and the longer families of victims have to wait for justice, the more we need a definitive picture of what went wrong inside Florida’s prisons.

OUR POSITION: Lack of justice compounds tragedy of inmate’s murder.

Appalling.

That’s the only appropriate reaction to a grand jury report that concluded corrections officers inflicted a deadly beating on Charlotte Correctional Institute inmate Matthew Walker in April 2014, but that conflicting testimony, a botched crime scene and “questionable responses” to the incident by the Florida Department of Corrections render it unable to indict anybody involved.

The 45-year-old Walker, who was serving 20 years for burglary and assault, was handcuffed during the beating, which the grand jury report said resulted from him not complying with an order to put away a cup and magazine in his cell. He died from asphyxiation caused by a crushed and swollen larynx compounded by blunt force trauma to the head, neck and torso. His autopsy found he has suffered at least 11 separate traumas. Yet the report noted that almost all of the witnesses testified they saw nobody hit or kick Walker.

Somebody — possibly everyone involved — lied to the grand jury. There’s no other conclusion to reach from such bald-faced denials of the physical evidence. Yet all nine employees linked to the incident were rehired after being fired and none of the five officers identified as criminal suspects in the death were charged with anything.

We sympathize with the members of the grand jury, who had to make their decision based on incomplete information, evidence tampering and stonewalling witnesses. “Testimony was conflicting regarding which officers were delivering blows to Walker, how many, and where each officer was located while those blows were delivered,” the grand jury concluded in its report.

The DOC’s inspector general has begun an investigation into whether any department policies were violated and DOC Secretary Julie Jones has pledged to “aggressively address” recommendations made by the grand jury. Among the recommendations are expanding the use of video cameras and ensuring adequate medical care, equipment and staffing levels are in place. In addition, the jury recommended better crime scene and evidence handling training for officers.

Absent from yet another crisis in his administration, Gov. Rick Scott declined to comment on the grand jury findings, demonstrating a “duck-and-cover” leadership style that has defined his governorship. Despite hundreds of inmate deaths over the past several years, including many involving gruesome circumstances, Scott has merely rotated corrections secretaries, sidestepped any questions or accountability and adopted a “see no evil” attitude that raises serious questions about his personal character, not just his political or policy skills.

As we have stated before, the job of corrections officers is difficult and often dangerous under the best circumstances. Officers are paid poorly and prisons are understaffed. Scott’s prison privatization policies have allowed for-profit companies to cherry-pick less dangerous inmates for their prisons, while the rest remain in underfunded state prisons.

None of the above excuses what happened that night. Whatever crimes landed him at CCI, whatever his behavior that April 2014 night, none warranted the death penalty. What happened that night was murder, plain and simple. That nobody will be held accountable only compounds the tragedy of Walker’s gruesome, horrifying death.

OUR POSITION: Latest CCI death questions add to litany of deadly failures.

Another day, another death at Charlotte Correctional Institution.

On June 4, CCI inmate Robert Peterkin was found hanging at the prison and was later removed from life support by his family. The 51-year-old Palmetto man, who was serving a life sentence for the 2001 murder of his neighbor, had told his family he feared for his safety at CCI, to which he had been transferred.

“My brother had said to me and my eldest sister that if anything should ever happen to him that we should go after them,” his sister Cecelia Martin told the Bradenton Herald on Thursday. “He said nothing will be like it appears to be.”

That conversation came a month before his death.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation is underway and Peterkin’s cause of death is listed as pending. According to the Herald report, his family was told Peterkin hanged himself. But Martin said she was told a corrections officer had left her brother and other inmates alone for 13 minutes after he discovered a cellphone while the inmates were working on a plumbing detail. When the officer returned, Peterkin was found hanging, according to Martin.

Peterkin’s death occurred about a month before a grand jury report failed to find probable cause to indict prison staff for the 2014 death of inmate Matthew Walker, who was beaten to death after a confrontation sparked by an overnight cell check. The grand jury concluded that conflicting testimony, a botched crime scene and questionable responses left it unable to indict any of the nine employees involved in the beating death.

Peterkin is the seventh CCI inmate to have died of unexplained causes since 2013. Last week, CCI warden Thomas Reid, who has served as warden since 2012, was reassigned to Suwannee Correctional Institution in Live Oak in what the state Department of Corrections claims is a routine transfer.

“This decision was made more than a month ago, and is in no way related to the Walker grand jury announcement,” FDOC Communications Director McKinley Lewis told Sun Staff Writer Adam Kreger. “Wardens moving around is pretty common.”

The Sun first reported Peterkin’s death on June 24 after it was added to the DOC’s online inmate mortality listing. Neither the DOC nor the FDLE would comment on the circumstances of his death.

Prisons are dangerous places, but it is the job of prison staff and administrators to do their utmost to ensure the safety of those in their custody. Reid and his staff clearly failed in that duty. The fact he has merely been transferred to another prison confirms that Gov. Rick Scott and his lieutenants at the DOC have a total disregard for prisoner well-being.

While the circumstances surrounding Peterkin’s death remain to be determined, allowing a prisoner to hang himself is a complete failure on the part
of prison staff. Failing to stop other prisoners from hanging a fellow inmate — as Martin is implying — would be even worse.

Judges and juries hand down sentences for convicts. Nobody serving time at CCI has received a death sentence. But somehow — either through gross dereliction of duty or criminal acts by corrections officers or inmates — people keep dying there. We look forward to the conclusion of an ongoing federal Department of Justice investigation into CCI. We have lost faith in the ability or desire of the DOC or Scott to address the crisis. The repeated deaths — both here and around the state — represent an utter failure of leadership.

OUR POSITION: Area prosecutors, according to a member of the grand jury, sabotaged a decision whether or not to indict corrections officers in the death of Matthew Walker at Charlotte Correctional Institution. We find that reprehensible.

Matthew Walker died a horrible death.

According to the Charlotte County medical examiner, “in an altercation with prison officials” Walker was beaten so badly that his larynx was crushed, his head bashed to the point there were imprints in his skull from corrections officers’ radios and, according to a medical assistant, Walker’s head “felt like Jell-O.”

The confrontation happened in April 2014 during a bed check that was against state prison policy. Corrections officers decided to punish Walker, who was serving a sentence for burglary, for not putting away a cup and/or a magazine and tidy up his cell.

According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, 19 inmates, and some prison guards, heard Lt. Tyler Triplett threaten to kill Walker. A dozen witnesses said they saw Triplett slam his radio against Walker’s head. And, according to the report, a higher-ranking officer had to restrain Triplett to keep him from going after Walker, who was face down on the sidewalk, possibly already dead.

Prosecutors for the State Attorney’s Office presented this and more to a grand jury.

The grand jury, however, failed to return any indictments in the case. No indictment means no case against the guards.

The grand jury said they could get no answers from witnesses as to who administered the beating on Walker. They said evidence was tampered with. They said they were frustrated they could not seek justice for a lack of evidence.

The ensuing publicity of the case moved one grand jury member to break the silence — even at the threat of prison.

Louise Salcedo, 85, contacted the Sun newspaper because “We all knew (the guards) were guilty and should have been prosecuted, but we were talked out of indicting them. This man was beaten to death.”

Salcedo said representatives of the 20th Judical Circuit State Prosecutors Office, “told us the chances of convictions were very slim.”

She said members of the jury were persuaded the case could not be successfully prosecuted in court.

Instead of seeking an indictment and forcing corrections officers to prove their innocence in court, the legal advisers decided to let it go.

We find this action, if true, to be a pathetic negligence of their duties to seek justice for all.

Stephen Russell, State Attorney for the circuit, defended his employees. He said he could not comment on a specific case, but said he has all the confidence his delegates did their job.

When told of Salcedo’s accusations, however, one of Russell’s attorneys told Sun staff writer Adam Kreger to read Florida Statute 905.10 — which says a member of a grand jury takes an oath to not reveal anything that goes on during deliberations upon penalty of committing a felony. It was a shot across the bow that the juror, an 85-year-old woman, could be prosecuted if her story was published.

Statute 905.395, however, lists information that is confidential and it does not include instructions from legal advisers.

We believe state prosecutors made a terrible mistake by leading this grand jury. We believe they tried to hide behind the grand jury, and any action taken against Salcedo would be in retribution for her brave decision to reveal why Matthew Walker’s killers remain free today.

Salcedo’s heroic decision to come forward paints a scary picture of how state prosecutors can control who is punished and who goes free.
 

OUR POSITION: A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report on the death of Matthew Walker at Charlotte Correctional Institution shows a system that is corrupt, dangerous and in need of immediate attention.

Shameful.

Disgusting.

Pathetic.

That is how we would describe the lack of action against Charlotte Correctional Institution corrections
officers after a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation presents strong evidence they beat inmate Matthew Walker to death in April of 2014.

But we should not be surprised.

There have been 164 charges of “use of force,” “excessive force” or “physical abuse” filed against the
10 officers who, according to the FDLE report, were involved in the altercation with Walker.

Yet not once, not once in 164 reports of abuse, did the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of
Inspector General find cause to bring disciplinary action against any of the corrections officers.

The recently released report contains the testimony of 12 CCI workers and about 75 inmates who saw,
heard or were involved in the beating and/or emergency care for Walker that night.

It is incredible that none of the 12 CCI employees interviewed — mostly corrections officers and some
of whom were involved in the altercation — saw anything out of line. Some officers even claimed
they saw nothing — at least one because pepper spray temporarily blinded him to an assault that
lasted 20 to 30 minutes.

Many of the inmates interviewed testified to the grand jury that they heard the beating. They said they saw numerous guards on top of Walker or holding Walker.

More than one said they heard Lt. Tyler Triplett tell Walker: “You don’t know who I am, M .....F.... I’ll
kill you.”

There was also testimony about how officers went back and picked up hand radios — at least one or
more used to beat Walker.

They testified to the sounds of plastic hitting a face. They said they saw Walker’s lifeless body being
carried by guards away from the crime scene.

As inmates pleaded for guards to stop the beating, they were threatened to “shut the (expletive) up or
we’ll take you down to Y dorm and do the same to you,” according to the FDLE report.

Co-workers and inmates described Lt. Triplett as a man who was enraged during the attack. The report says Triplett was screaming at Walker after he was dead and that other guards had to restrain him. These allegations by inmates are nothing new.

One inmate told investigators he feared for his life and that guards were abusive at CCI. If you believe the testimony of dozens of inmates and the word of one inmate who has served his time at CCI and has been released, the lack of control over corrections officers is astonishing.

We are not blinded to the dangers of guarding some of the state’s toughest criminals. It is a dangerous job.

But common decency, not to mention laws, should prevent the type of beating that killed Matthew Walker.

The FDLE report, outlining evidence presented to a Charlotte County grand jury, strongly indicates someone was out of line. Prison policy was broken by the mere fact officers rousted Walker in the middle of the night to inspect his cell.

The aggressive action against Walker and the apparent attempts to cover up what happened — all according to the FDLE — should have resulted in an indictment of one or more corrections officers.

We find it baffling that the state attorney’s office said there was not enough evidence to convict in
Walker’s death.

OUR POSITION: We believe removing the burden of indictment from grand juries in cases involving law enforcement officers and placing it with the state attorney’s office would be a good move.

Criticism of a local grand jury for failing to move to indict any of 10 Charlotte County Correction Institution corrections officers in the 2014 death of Matthew Walker has swelled since more details in a Florida Law Department of Law Enforcement report were published in the Sun.

A member of the grand jury seated to review evidence in the murder of Walker came forward recently, at the threat of being charged with a felony, and said she regretted no indictments were tendered. She told the newspaper she believes someone should pay for what was an obvious homicide of the CCI inmate.

Her criticism of legal advisers from the 20th Circuit State Attorney’s office for telling members of the grand jury there was not enough evidence to get a conviction has ruffled some feathers. State Attorney Steve Russell wrote a guest column in the Sun that was critical of the juror and said the newspaper’s editorial undermined the grand jury system — where jurors are sworn to secrecy.

There is one easy solution to avoid similar scenarios in the future.

We propose that Florida adopt a law mirroring one recently passed in California that would eliminate seating of a grand jury in cases involving law enforcement — which should include correction officers.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that bans “secret” deliberations in criminal cases. It made California the first state, according to a Huffington
Post article, to ban the use of grand juries to decide if law enforcement officers should face charges in use-of-force cases.

The law was initiated by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, after national publicity over grand juries failing to indict police officers who killed unarmed men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y. The senator correctly said that presenting evidence to a panel of civilians in secret creates an air of distrust in the system.

The Sun, is reprinting an op-ed from The Republican newspaper in Springfield, Mass., today that has writer Rhonda Swan also calling for the end of grand juries being convened in cases involving law enforcement in Massachusetts. Swan used the Charlotte County case to make her point — even calling and interviewing the grand juror who spoke to the Sun, Louise Salcedo.

The Matthew Walker case is getting national attention.

The revelations by Salcedo of the overwhelming evidence that Walker was murdered and the lack of indictments that would give prosecutors an opportunity to prove a case against any of the 10 corrections officers involved are strong evidence that changes need to be made.

State attorney staffs have too much control and influence in these secret deliberations. It would be interesting to know how often grand juries failed to indict law enforcement officers and other state- and city-employed servants compared to the percentage of other private citizens.

We asked the state attorney’s office for numbers of “failures to indict” in cases similar to the Matthew Walker death but were told that information could not be gleaned from files because the person’s job description is not included in records. The information could only be divulged if a request was made for a specific person and/or case.

Taking the burden off private citizens and dropping it in the lap of state attorneys — who have to answer to voters — would be a positive step for the
state of Florida to take.

OUR POSITION: It is a slap at justice that corrections officers — especially some the state attorney said were suspected of “wrongdoing” in Matthew Walker’s murder — are still on the Charlotte Correctional Institution payroll.

All of the 10 corrections officers involved in battering inmate Matthew Walker to death in 2014 were able to retain their jobs as corrections officers.

It just doesn’t seem right.

The account of Matthew Walker’s death has been well-documented in a Sun and Miami Herald series of stories published in both newspapers. Walker was in a confrontation with as many as 10 officers. His face was beaten beyond recognition and his skull crushed. It all started because he was awakened late at night — a bed check that was against prison policy — and ordered to put away a cup and magazines.

A grand jury was convened and was presented telling evidence of the bludgeoning of Walker. There was never any doubt that guards killed him.

But, because evidence was destroyed and because no prison official who was interviewed would admit to seeing anything that happened, no indictments were returned. Advisers from the State Attorney’s Office, according to one juror, said there was not enough evidence to convict anyone of Walker’s murder.

The guards were all reinstated pending an open administrative investigation of the prison. Eight returned to CCI; one was reassigned to Fort Myers and one left the profession.

This past year, three of the eight guards who returned to CCI quit. Five still draw a paycheck at the prison, although they have, thankfully, been given jobs that do not allow them to interact with prisoners.

Those guards were directly involved in Walker’s death, according to evidence, and most have had several complaints of violence or abuse of inmates made against them in their career.

Tyler Triplett was the person who, according to grand jury testimony and evidence, stomped on a near-lifeless Walker during the altercation. He denied striking Walker. He has been working in the prison system since 2006 and has had 39 complaints related to abusing inmates filed against him. None were ever sustained. He is working now in Fort Myers.

Daniel Lynch was another of the five officers accused of causing Walker’s death. He has had 31 complaints, none sustained, filed against him since he began working at CCI. He works at the traffic control entrance at CCI.

Thomas Weidner was another of the five officers “suspected of criminal wrongdoing” in Walker’s death. He also works at the CCI entrance checkpoint. He has had 35 complaints filed against him. None were ever sustained.

Mestely Saintervil held Walker around the waist during the struggle that killed the inmate, according to testimony. He won his job back but quit in June without giving a reason. He had 13 complaints filed against him related to use of force against inmates.

None were ever proven.

Edward Sinor was the fifth of five officers singled out for “criminal wrongdoing” in Walker’s death. He also was rehired but quit just last month. He had 24 complaints related to use of force against inmates filed against him. Again, none were ever sustained.

The idea that no one has paid for Matthew Walker’s death is difficult to fathom. We hope the ongoing FDOC investigation will right the situation.