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Article Launched: 02/23/2005 07:49:22 AM 

Release inmate to his family
Reporter Editor:
 

The recent story of a brain dead California inmate Daniel Provencio is just a prime example of how cold, callous and monetarily wasteful our penal system really is. It's a perverted group of people who revel over the power to control the lives of inmates and their families. It's a system without morals or conscience. 

I believe any inmate who's brain dead or terminally ill automatically should be released to the custody of their family. That's the proper Christian thing to do,   yet this never happens, except on rare occasions when the families have gone to the media and cast a dark shadow upon the penal system. To save face and make themselves look good, the California Department of Corrections released the dying inmate to their family. 

Inmate Ed Ristor has been in a brain-dead state for about one year now. He still hasn't been released to his family. I'm sure all California taxpayers can fathom the enormity of the costs of his hospital care and the overtime pay   of the guards to watch over this inmate. 

Leonardo Covarrubias, Vacaville The author is a member of United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect, or UNION - Editor. 

 http://www.thereporter.com/search/ci_2598152

Article Launched: 03/06/2005 08:50:04 AM 

Mentally ill inmates should not be caged
Reporter Editor:
 

How much longer is the state going to pay correctional officers to watch over yet another brain injured California Department of Corrections inmate? Edward Rister, who was beaten to the point that he no longer responds to the outside world, is still in custody and is watched over by correctional officers who earn time and a half for doing their job. 

Mr. Rister is severely brain damaged. Our tax dollars are being used to pay   those correctional officers and I am tired of my tax money being wasted like this. Mr. Rister was beaten in October 2003; 16 months of paying correctional officers time and a half? No wonder why the correctional system is in a financial mess. 

If the mentally ill inmates weren't caged like animals for committing crimes that are indicative of their mental illness and were instead placed in hospitals where they can get the   treatment they need, the correction system wouldn't be forced to double celled inmates and enabling them to hurt themselves and others. 

Patricia St. Peter, Victorville

 http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/12491077p-13346880c.html

Unlife prison sentence 

If death is the total cessation of brain function, what is it when you have been beaten so badly that the neuropathways have not only been severed, but shifted so there is no hope of ever connecting the brain stem with the rest of the brain? 

What do you call it when a feeding tube keeps a person alive, and the only function is purely anatomical? When there is no recognition behind the eyes that blink merely to moisten? When there is no other movement of the body except involuntary twitches?This is merely the shell of a man who was serving a 12 year sentence - a sentence that became a life sentence. This is the man who was beaten inside Solano Prison in October 2003. This is the story CDC has tried to cover up. And I am the sister who fights to understand.- 

Peggy Rister, Yuba City

What Price Life? 

My brother lies in a hospital bed, unaware of anything around him. He doesn't know he is fed by a tube, nor that his hygiene is seen to by others; neither does he see the guards that watch him day and night. 

In October of 2003, Ed was beaten in his cell at Solano Prison. Three days later, it was discovered. Never known to be hostile, Ed was serving a term that was supposed to last several years for a drug related mistake. That term became a life sentence. The neurologist likened Ed's head injuries/brain damage to those sustained by a helmet-less motor-cyclist in a high speed crash. 

Still mourning the loss of her youngest son to heart failure not ten months prior, my mom was devestated and could not bring herself to elect to discontinue care. She felt she would be finishing the job of murder that someone else had started. I heard that the guards for Ed alone cost over $1,000.00 per day. And what of the hospital? Expensive? You can bet! 

And a full day's drive from family.  They didn't do a good job guarding him in life. Now that he is little more than dead, the job is being done. Where is the sense in this? He should be released. 

Peggy Rister February 2, 2005

Bizarre Indeed

If death is the total cessation of brain function, then what is it when you have been beaten so badly that the neuropathways have not only been severed, but shifted, so there is no hope of ever connecting the brain stem with the rest of the brain? What do you call it when a feeding tube keeps a person alive, and the only function is purely anatomical? When there is no recognition behind the eyes that blink merely to moisten? When there is no other movement of the body except involuntary twitches? 

This is merely the shell of a man who believed he was serving a 12 year sentence--a sentence that became a life sentence. This is the man who was beaten inside Solano Prison in October of 2003. This is the son, brother, father of a family who has never been able to know who attacked their 
loved one. This is the story CDC has tried hard to cover up. And I am the sister who fights hard to understand.

Peggy Rister, February 16, 2005

Letter to the Editor, 

In regards to the brain dead inmate Ed Rister, how can a group of people who are supposed to be protecting people become so harden to life that they now cause the extreme mental cruelty to families of inmates? 

This inmate, Mr. Rister has been declared brain dead for about a year, but the CDC and others refuse to release this man to his family who could give him love and care during his last hour or days?  Why??? Could it be because they say that he can breath on his own without the help of a ventilator.? 

Just because he still breathes on his own doesn't make him any the less dead. 

By keeping him form his family no longer injures this inmate, but places extreme abuse to his mother and other family members who only want their loved one to be placed in their care and not left in a cold, uncaring, sterile room where he has no human contact or touch, which makes our passing so much easier. Please take it in your hearts to release this man and his family, for the are truly as much prisoners as their son. 

Malissa Silveria 
--------------------
GREAT ONE BY ROBIN 

3/9/05 Dear Editor, Mark Gladstone: 

I have read your story from the, Mercury News, several times trying to make sense out of the senseless things that are happening in prison.  I am referring to your story about Edward Rister a prisoner who is brain dead after being injured by another inmate and left untreated in his cell for almost a week! However, now! Rister is being watched around the clock by prison guards at a staggering cost of more than 1 million dollars! Can a comatose man get up and escape??  A comment in your article stated that George Kostryko "emphasized that sworn officers must be used to guard comatose inmates such as Rister because of the state's labor contract with the influential California Correctional Peace Officers Association. 

" My question to both George Kostryko and the C.C.P.O.A. is what mechanism has been implemented by  C.C.P.O.A in preventing such incidents as opposed to subsidizing them? It seems to me that this horrific nightmare could have been avoided simple if institutional procedures were improved and followed. It is outrageous that Rister has had his sentence changed to a death sentence without a judge or a jury. I think about  Rister's family and their suffering.  I can truly relate to the anguish and pain his family must be experiencing. 

The way I see it is Rister is a not only their loved one but a human being!  Yet, when I think it over, I am not so sure about prisoners being considered as humans in prisons. How else can one explain such inhumanity and callousness of ignoring a dying man! So many questions are unanswered.  How can guards count an unconscious prisoner for days at a time? Every prison has a head count several times a day.  This is effective for alerting guards to any problems such as a dying man.  In most secure housing units prisoners have a system of communication among themselves. 

An alert "Man Down" is usually sounded by inmates when another is injured. Was there such a warning? Was it ignored by guards? Why isn't anyone fixing this broken down prison system? Why are we as tax payers forced to pay millions of dollars for a correction system that needs serious corrections in their policies and in their procedures of treatment of prisoners! Robin Goods

Rough time for a local convict 
 

By Harold Kruger/Appeal-Democrat 

There's a moral to the story of Edward Rister, but maybe not the one the San Jose Mercury News intended. 

A few weeks ago, the paper recounted the unfortunate events surrounding Rister's stay in state prison. 

In May 2002, a Sutter County judge sentenced Rister, 44, of Yuba City, to 12 years for child molestation. 

Local prosecutors said Rister committed serious sexual offenses on a young girl who was mentally challenged. When officers went out to arrest Rister, they found a methamphetamine lab at the home. 

Rister's sentence came after he was initially deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to Atascadero State Hospital, where he was, as they say, "returned to competence." 

Things went from bad to worse for Rister in October 2003 when his cellmate allegedly beat him up, leaving Rister comatose and now shackled in a private hospital bed, according to the San Jose paper. 

The issue raised by the Mercury News is one of dollars and cents. California taxpayers have shelled out more than $1 million to pay guards to watch over inmate Rister in his hospital bed and to cover his medical expenses, the paper said. 

Rister is but another example of what the Mercury News cites as the high amount of violence behind prison walls and the resulting huge bills. 

Prisons aren't very nice places, as everyone knows, and bad things happen there. 

Rister had been punished once with a 12-year term. He didn't deserve a second punishment at the hands of another inmate. 

But the Mercury News story does prove one thing for sure. 

You can criticize the state Department of Corrections for all its ills - and they are plentiful - but poor Ed Rister got himself in this mess all by himself. 
 

Harold Kruger's column, Off Beat, appears on Sundays. E-mail him at hkruger@appeal-democrat.com ; call him at (530) 749-4717; or fax him at (530) 741-0140. You can also write him at the Appeal-Democrat, P.O. Box 431, Marysville, CA 95901-0431. 

---------------
Ed Rister had a twelve year sentence not a death sentence. 

As "child molesters" go this 12 years is quite light as most alleged child molesters  get hundreds of years.  Remember the accuser was also mentally ill and most likely easily manipulated by the prosecution. 

Ed Rister was severely mentally ill himself and had exhibited signs of mental illness since childhood.  Like so many who are mentally ill he turned to substance abuse to self medicate. Ed Rister was a mentally ill man with a drug problem.  But the mental illness came first. 

Harold Kruger is on the UNION newsletter list and he should have seen the multiple descriptions of the events that took place at  CSP Solano that claimed Ed Rister's life forever. 

Both Rister and Rigoni were classified as Enhanced Outpatient Psychiatric inmates. 

That is a classification for the most severely mentally ill - E.O.P. 

So by CDC's own admission, Rister needed help. He was not returned to "competence" as Kruger's story states.   What he got was careless double celling with another inmate known to be much more violent but still mentally ill.  So both inmates were mistreated with improper handling when they  were put together. At the time of this careless double celling, (intentional?) Rister received a death sentence. 

Even worse, their mental illness was extremely aggravated with extensive cruel lockdowns for 23 hours a day in cells no larger than a bathroom.  In short, this was psychological torture.. 

And there is no excuse for anyone mortally wounded to be left for days before being discovered when CDC's own policy demands a standing count several times a day!. 

Rister's  family was wronged when they weren't called as soon as Ed was mortally wounded.  Then they were made to re-apply for visits and WAIT for a couple of weeks in their darkest hour just to be able to see him. 

Then they shipped him off to a hospital far away and despite his mother, sister and other family members desperately trying to find Ed, CDC engaged in a huge cover up by hiding him for more than one year.  Then they lied about it, even after Pat Rister came in a wheelchair to the October 4 press conference with pins sticking out of her back and begged most of the key print and broadcast journalists in the state ON FILM to help her locate her son. 

Legislative aides were present at this press conference as well as family members of THREE other inmates murdered by medical neglect - Anthony Shumake, Ersel Ware, Donald Swisher.  Two from CSP Solano and one from the prison next door CMF Vacaville. 

Kruger fails to recognize there is a problem at that prison  that the taxpayers are subsidizing this brutality with millions for the mentally ill to be maimed and murdered. Rister is gone.  It is monstrous that he still lies in shackles and is guarded around the clock when all he can do is blink. It isn't just a small amount that the State has paid out, it's well over a million and counting. 

The Risters have grounds for a multi million dollar lawsuit in my opinion and I hope that we can find them a lawyer.  Not even the legislative aides who tried to find Rister after the October 4 press conference could locate him.  Finally a journalist found the prison he was out of and it took threats of a UNION picket from me before they would give up the hospital location. 

So why is CDC lying?  Because they broke the law in a number of ways, that's why.  And they're trying to cover up as usual 

I believe that Mr. Kruger needs an education, don't you.  Be certain to copy his editor on anything that you write. 

We want Rister out of the shackles, out of prison and close to his family so that they can visit him in the days he has left, even though he won't know that they are there, the family has suffered too much. 

How can Kruger defend that bloodhouse CSP Solano and the actions against Ed Rister by saying "he got himself into it."   There is no evidence anywhere that prisons, jails, juvenile halls and harsh laws which overpunish the mentally ill who cannot follow rules have done anything to reduce or prevent crime.  The mentally ill should be in heaing facilities not endangered in prison. 

Anyone who can condone this type of abuse is as sick as those who perpetuate it.  All in the taxpayer's name and with our tax dollars.  Every news outet has advertisers and a front door that can be picketed with bereaved family members.  The Rister's are a fine family, Peggy is a school teacher in the community where this awful piece has appeared.  Do they need or deserve further torture such as this offbase, insensitive and cruel column? 

Obviously the reporter believes there is actual justice in the courts and that everyone convicted is guilty of the crimes they committed.  Again, Kruger is living in la. la, land if he thinks this is true.  I do not trust any convictions but Rister's crime, whatever it was, in human rights the crime is unimportant when someone is murdered by neglect in prison, had to have been relatively minor.  The mentally ill predictably act out their illnesses yet what are we doing as far as prevention and healing in a better and more appropriate environment? 

At no time in the Bible did they ever kill the mentally ill for acting out, except during the wars when everyone was acting mentally ill and it was impossible to tell the difference. 

B. Cayenne Bird 

Here are some sample letters about Ed Rister, I'd like to see a response to this one above and more letters to editors.  Sorry Harold, you screwed up on one of the most important topics in California right now and we're going to respond.  If we don't care, nobody else is going to care either and some might even go as far as you did today - off the deep end into blackness and support of torture and abuse.  Can't have that ! 

The Opinion Editor is Joe Calderone 

 appeal@syix.com

Dear Editor and Harold Kruger,

First off, Ed Rister was not capable of knowing what is right and wrong due to his mental illness and drug problem.  Ronald Reagan swung the gates of mental institutions wide and put all those needing help out into the streets.  Now they are behind bars with no medical care, being mistreated and improperly handled by prison guards. 

Secondly, Ed Rister's original sentence was 12 years, but he was sentenced to death by the uneducated, unprofessional, untrained guards who celled him with another mentally ill inmate. 

And thirdly, CDC attempted to cover up his injuries by refusing to divulge his whereabouts to family or the press for over a year.  His family has been tortured first with the crime and then by the treatment of CDC.  The lies and cover ups in this case are inexcusable. 

It is the taxpayers of California who got him into this, not Ed Rister, who is incapable of even knowing what he was getting into.  It is the taxpayers who give CDC full reign to do as they please with the people most misfortunate to be behind bars.  It is the taxpayers who are footing the bill for guards to sit idly by day after day drawing full pay, and overtime to guard Ed Rister who is now brain dead and incapable of moving, much less posing a threat to society. 

Put responsibility where it belongs,  not on the head of a mentally ill inmate.

Shirley Wetherwax, Voting taxpayer seeing red on this one

To:  hkruger@appeal-democrat.com

CC: "B. Cayenne BIRD"  rightor1@yahoo.com
 

Dear Harold Kruger, 

I just read a piece that you did on Ed RISTER,  an inmate who is classified as Brain Dead,  and I find it rather disturbing. 

This man was convicted of a sexual crime, he was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, was sent to Atascadero State Mental Hospital,  the CDC declared him as being 'returned to competence'. You did not mention how long Mr. Rister spent time at the mental hospital, or  how this ''miraculous'' recovery came about.  If this is true, why haven't more mentally incompetent people sent there for recovery?  I wonder if the national Mental Health Organization has heard of this miracle cure? 

When Mr. Rister was eventually sent to a prison, he was then classified as "Enhanced Outpatient Psychiatric" inmate.  This being a classification for a most severely mentally ill person. In essence, the prison officials still felt he was mentally ill.  And they placed him in a cell with another mentally ill inmate. who in turn bludgeoned Mr. Rister to death, but wasn't found by guards for several days. 

You mentioned that Mr. Rister "got himself into this mess all by himself".  By that I assume that you meant that he did by committing a crime.  Well, on this I have to agree with you, BUT, once he was himself committed by the courts, he no longer was in a position to place himself into this mess 'all by himself '.  This was done by the CDC and prison personnel who took it upon themselves to play "doctor" with this man's life and thus put him in a place where he was murdered.  I find that the prison personal is more at fault for this mans death than the mentally ill inmate who did the beating. 

Mentally ill inmates can't be placed in cells together and locked up for days at a time and not expected to finally act out their illness on the only person available, their cell mate. 

Prison personnel and guards are not trained to properly care or define mental illness, and the ill person should by housed where he can get proper care from professionals, not wannabees who feel they can play God with inmates lives. 

Susan Lutinski

More Tax Money Wasted!
Patricia St. Peter
 
 

The writer, Patricia St. Peter, is a member of U.N.I.O.N. United for No Injustice Oppression or Neglect www.1union1.com

 By Patricia St. Peter

March 14, 2005

How much longer is the State of California going to pay guards to watch over yet another brain injured inmate? Mr. Edward Rister who was beaten to the point that he no longer responds to the outside world is still in custody and is watched over by guards who earn time and a half for doing their job. Mr. Rister is severely brain damaged. Our tax dollars are being used to pay those guards and I for one am tired of my tax money being wasted like this. Mr. Rister was beaten back in October of 2003. 16 months of paying guards time and a half? No wonder why the correctional system is in a financial mess! If the mentally ill inmates weren't caged like animals for committing crimes that are indicitive of their mental illness and were instead placed in hospitals where they can get the treatment they need they wouldn't be double celled and able to hurt themselves and others!

Prison cells are not designed to aid the mentally ill. Prison guards are not trained medical staff yet the prisons are housing mentally ill inmates and often double cell these inmates which places the mentally ill and other inmates in great danger. Mr. Edward Rister is just one example of what happens in such a case. Not only was he housed with another mentally ill inmate who beat him severely back in October of 2003, his life threatening injuries that left him comatose were not even discovered until his mentally ill cell mate called the attention of a guard days later. Ever since, Mr. Rister has been guarded in community hospitals at a cost so far of about $600,000. His medical bill alone has been estimated at $474,000. Where is the accountability in any of this mess? How much longer is the abuse of the mentally ill going to continue and how much longer are we going to pay the guards who are watching over Mr. Rister? 

Patricia St. Peter

CC:  rightor1@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: ROUGH TIME FOR A LOCAL CONVICT 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 08:36:56 -0800 
 

Dear Writer and Editor, I don't think the intent of the Mercury News story about Rister was to prove that "Rister got himself into this mess all by himself." If anything it was to prove the incompetence of a broken system that has sucked the budget dry, has little accountability, calls it's own policies absurd, yet continues on a ruinous course. The death policy in place is outrageous, without common sense, or human decency.  Keeping a brain dead person shackled for almost year and a half is extremely cruel and unusual punishment. 

Rister should be released to the family on a compassionate release. Once someone enters the prison doors responsibility shifts to the CDC.  They are the ones calling the shots and to blame for the "mess" Rister is in. Maybe the real problem is CDC doesn't want to be responsible for Rister's death and face another lawsuit, because he should have been protected while in custody. 

Sincerely, Cheryl Knutsen tax payer/concerned citizen United for No Injustice Oppression or Neglect

Dear Mr. Kruger,

Poor Ed Rister became a ward of the state when he was sent to prison. He might have gotten into that mess himself; however, there is more than a rumor that he had some help. Some day I will know the whole truth, but that is not the issue here. 

The issue is that he was not guarded in a place where he never should have been. Ed had mental issues, he was incompetent. That's why he was  sent to Atascadero. He was only "returned to competency," as the letter says, with psychotropic drugs. 

Said miracle having taken place, Atascadero sent him back to Sutter County. Then he was sent to Solano, a prison designed to hold less than half of its current population. There, he was placed with the mentally ill. Why is that? When he had been miraculously returned to competency? 

He was put into a cell designed for one with a cellmate who was known to be violent. Whatever happened--whomever it was who beat him, the fact is that he was beaten--a beating that went unnoticed while it was happening, and continued to go unnoticed for several days--a beating that left the neuropathways in his brain irreparably severed and shifted--a beating that included stab wounds from a weapon inmates are not supposed to have. 

Those stab wounds became gangrenous in the days Ed was left without care. Days--long days--days when he should have been counted by the guards, when he should have been alert and responsive...but was not. Yes, he might have gotten himself there for that 12 year sentence given to him by the judge, but he did not deserve the life sentence dealt him by his attacker(s) and condoned by a system that cannot--or will not--do the job they are supposed to do. 

Peggy Rister

Subject: Your Commentary On Ed Rister 

Mr.Kruger,

You obviously KNOW VERY LITTLE about mental illness. People who suffer from any form of mental illness or severe brain damage "DO NOT" behave in any manner of that's perceived as "NORMAL BEHAVIOR" by the medical community or the general public. Fact!! 

When a person's in a mental facility and is charged with a crime, they are "told" what to say in a court room. Once this individual is capable of "memorizing" these responses he is sent to court for a hearing. It doesn't matter if the person "DOES NOT COMPREHEND" the meaning of his responses, just as long as the person give the right "programed" answer to the question they're asked by the judge. 

Mentally ill people "act out" in many ways and unfortunately, their behavior most times gets them a permanent place in our judicial system! These people "DON'T CHOOSE" to be put in jail, most probably have no idea as to why this has happened to them. 

It's wrong on your part to suggest a mentally ill person is "completely responsible" for their actions!! I suggest you might try working for about one year in a mental hospital, then you will see just how damaging mental illness is to a person. 

Bev

To:  letters@mercurynews.com
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:00:08 +0000 

Dear Editor, 

On March 3rd you ran a story on Ed Rister written by Mark Gladstone. Mr. Rister was an inmate at Solano Prison. The story was about how he had been beaten severely, and how for a year and a half now he has been guarded in a hospital bed at a huge cost to the taxpayers. This inmate has no brain function and cannot possibly represent any sort of threat to the hospital staff. Why the guard? Furthermore, what good does it do to keep him as a prisoner? He should be released. 

What good does prison do when the inmate doesn't even know where he is? Besides, the cost to the state, even if he were on Medi-Cal, wouldn't include the cost of round the clock guards. It  would be way less. He has more than done his time. 

K. Riley

 letters@mercurynews.com ,  dthompson@ap.org
 

Editor, 

When will the human being inmate,named Edward Rister be unshackled ? I don't believe he's going anywhere in his comatose condition !!!! New implementation of death bed policies,needs to be demanded! This inmate is truly incapacitated, he should be paroled, on compassionate release. Why continue to torture his family, they are totally helpless & powerless. 

The families of prisoners have absolutely no place to go for help in these, life & death emergencies. Their requests to the Superiors, fall upon the deaf ears of the Department of Corruptions. When the Media,becomes involved,then politicians become interested. Civilian oversight is highly needed !! Arnold, make your moves,so you don't become, THE REAL LAST ACTION HERO !!! YOU ARE GREATLY NEEDED,TO HELP THESE FAMILIES IN DISTRESS & PAIN. CAN YOU TERMINATE THEIR SUFFERING ????????????????? SO FAR, THE MEDIA ARE THE HEROES!!! 

THANK YOU JOURNALISTS!!!!!! 

Love & Blessing's, Alexis