I am writing regarding the situation at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) with Austin T. Burke who is currently on suicide watch and a hunger strike for the past 7 days or so.
I’m making you aware that he has filed proper grievances about the lack of medical care for the 3 boxer fractures in his right hand, where there is documented evidence that no nurse saw him for an entire 30 days, as no logs were signed by any nurse. This prevented him from being able to make a formal request for care for his open wound and multiple fractures.
He was in the slammer cell as a result of a fight on 8/12/2023 (where he had to defend himself against an Arizona “Mexican Mafia leader”, who threatened to kill him). This Ruben Melendez has brutally killed at least one other prisoner in the past stabbing them 47 times and has stabbed others in OSP). This prisoner unfortunately met his demise three days later, from an unknown etiology.
Austin Burke was administratively punished with 10 years of solitary confinement which arguably is unconstitutional. He filed a proper appeal to the warden and later to Columbus.
Within 6 hours he received a notice back from Columbus denying his appeal based on events that never actually occurred. It reads that he “assaulted a correctional officer and tried to kill him. This never happened. The statements from the correctional officers on the day of the fight were not indicative of any assault on themselves, and Austin stopped fighting when his name was called. Please see the statements from the correctional officers who were present.
Since this fight happened and media involvement, there have been correction officers at the SOCF who have made insidious comments and threats to Austin. Despite the fact that he has maintained his innocence, they now are biased against him and believe that he was responsible for the murder of a fellow correction officer’s son.
Austin wrote letters to the deputy director and the director from the prison pleading for help and asking for a transfer for his safety.
I am worried about my son’s continued health and mental health as a result of the lack of proper procedures and the torture and torment that he is being subjected to. I am starting with this letter pleading that somebody take appropriate measures and look into the problems with these circumstances and save my son.
There are many other issues with this fist fight including why both of the doors were rolled when the correction officer named Butler knew that Melendez had threatened to kill Austin. This would be able to be viewed on the body camera within the 20 minutes prior to the fight. And why did he roll both doors and go lock himself in the bubble and allow these two prisoners to fight without any mace or attempts to stop it?
I have tickets from Ohio State Penitentiary where Ruben Melendez has stabbed prisoners there and somehow still earned a transfer to Lucasville, which is a lower-security prison. He never should have been in this prison to be able to threaten my son and he never should have had access to my son by having the doors rolled after there was a clear and obvious threat made to him in front of a correction officer. Why was Melendez not thrown in the hole for threatening to kill my son?
I need somebody to answer this letter immediately with information about the well-being of my son and his health. There are serious problems with how this whole situation has been handled. Cruel and unusual punishment is supposed to be unconstitutional in The United States. Prisoners are supposed to have rights, especially in a state where there are so many wrongfully convicted!!!
