Leonard Peltier Pleads For Help Amid Constant COVID Lockdowns In Prison

Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPostNever mind that he shouldn’t be in a federal prison at all.Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist whom the FBI put behind bars decades ago without any evidence that he committed a crime, tells HuffPost that his facility’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and failure to provide at least some inmates with booster shots has left him ― and likely others ― unbearably isolated and preparing for death.“I’m in hell,” Peltier said in a Friday statement, “and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can.”Peltier, who is 77 and has serious health problems including diabetes and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, said “fear and stress” from the prison’s intense coronavirus lockdowns are taking a toll on everyone, including staff. But when lockdowns mean being denied human contact for weeks at a time and no details on when a COVID-19 vaccine booster will be available, the situation feels untenable for inmates like Peltier.“They are turning an already harsh environment into an asylum,” he said.It’s hard to know how many people within the massive federal prison system have not received their booster shots. Those numbers include the two-dose vaccines offered by Pfizer and Moderna, and the one-dose vaccine offered by Johnson & Johnson.As for the conditions Peltier described at the Coleman facility, Murphy declined to comment on “anecdotal allegations” or on “conditions of confinement for any particular inmate.”He did say that the Coleman facility “is currently administering COVID booster vaccinations for inmates,” despite the fact that Peltier has not been offered one and has seen no signs of it being offered to other inmates on his cellblock.Murphy also said the Bureau of Prisons follows Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance with regard to COVID-19 quarantine and medical isolation procedures.Here’s Peltier’s full statement on the conditions inside Coleman, provided to HuffPost:COVID has turned Coleman Prison back to the Dark Ages.