New video shows how inmates pass drugs from cell to cell in the Barton st jail inquest

A former inmate at the Barton street jail says “any type of drugs you wanted, it was in there.” He testified today at the inquest into the drug overdose deaths about what it’s like inside and how drugs are smuggled in and passed around. The former inmate didn’t want to speak to us on camera because he didn’t want to be identified but says there’s a lot of drugs in there that are smuggled in by inmates, even with the body scanners in place or he says they sometimes get them from staff. He says there’s nothing else to do inside so they do drugs to pass the time.

Inmates will pass drugs to one other by making a “fishing line” out of bedding. They attach a weight, like a tube of tooth paste and use it to pass drugs between cells. Security video from the jail the night before 42-year old Bill Acheson died of a heroine overdose in September 2012, shows these “fishing lines” being passed between cells for several hours. At one point a guard is seen stepping over one while doing rounds.

The inquest today heard from Ahceson’s cellmate, Kenneth Albert about what happened in this cell that night. He said an inmate who had just been admitted to the jail that day smuggled heroine inside his rectum. That new inmate was put in a cell with Acheson and Albert. Albert telling the inquest that Acheson and that inmate each snorted a line of the heroine but he only smoked a joint. Acheson was found dead on the floor of the cell the next morning.

Acheson died while correctional officers were on strike and managers and volunteers were filling in. Albert telling the inquest “things were out of control” and they hadn’t had a search of their cells in a while.