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GWOT IV - Intake
Oct. 30th, 2024 10:09 amGWOT IV - Intake
"US Armed Forces never will torture, maltreat or purposely place detained persons in positions of danger. There is never a military necessity exception to violate these principles." - US Army infantry training manual, Detainee Operations
I was legally and morally responsible for every operation conducted at Alviso Prison.
As a member of the California Military Commission, as well as a California commissioned officer (two very different things!), I could be held personally accountable for any failure or mishap, with punishment ranging from censure and dismissal to imprisonment and even death.
So in addition to supervising my command teams, I made personal inspection of every part of the process.
Personal. Inspection.
That means me, with my Mark I eyeball and birth issued hearing system, and olfactory sensor as installed at point of manufacture.
I still carried a pair of nitrile medical gloves. Not because I had to do medical care myself anymore, but because I would sometimes have to touch things as well as see, hear and smell them.
Today I was visiting the Intake section. This is where we gave our detainees a proper welcome to Alviso Prison.
It had been a shambling clusterfuck at first. The ad hoc detention facilities were all full with convoys arriving every few hours with more.
By now we had gotten it all down to a routine.
First of all was the sally port.
It was deliberately difficult to bring any large vehicle into the prison. There were many reasons for this that all boiled down to "security."
So trucks and buses had to unload their detainees in a large open fenced area adjacent to the prison but several hundred yards away.
As detainees were unloaded, they were separated into sorting pens.
It was our duty under international humanitarian law and California military law to keep them safe. That included from each other.
This often involved separation. Men from women, apparent soldiers from apparent non-soldiers, young from old.
We weren't handling migrants or displaced persons - that would be later in my career.
We were handling persons captured in active combat operations with California military forces.
In theory they should have been processed prior to arrival here. In fact we never trusted that.
So first priority was not letting them kill us or each other.
So one at a time, they were taken from their transport to behind a privacy screen, so that others still on transport could not see what was happening.
All were handcuffed with their hands in front, sometimes with multiple handcuffs and always gently and with attention to detail. Properly fitted cuffs, hinged, of appropriate sizes.
Anyone who physically resisted was chained, with handcuffs behind their backs. This was a ready tell for later in the process.
A medic was on standby at all times while the vehicle was being unloaded. Detainees who appeared ill or hurt were immediately triaged. If appropriate, we could either take them to our infirmary or divert them via our own ambulance to Valley Medical City.
A full tactical team was also on standby. Just in case.
Next was a personal but thorough non-penetrative body search by gloved soldiers, paying careful attention to what they were doing.
I required that any touching of a detainee's chest or between the thighs be with the backs of the hands. But these areas were checked.
Personal items were placed in individual numbered bins as discovered.
Prisoners were then permitted (and required) to keep hold of a piece of folded paper in a zip lock transparent bag. One side was a print from scan of whatever identity document(s) they had, if any, and a statement NO ID if none. The other side was a just-taken digital camera face and body photo, as arrived, with whatever they had chosen to say their name and rank and affiliation was, and a picture of the numbered bin that held their items.
A disposable numbered vinyl printed bracelet, of the type once used in hospitals and concerts and amusement parks, was fastened around their right wrist. This number also matched their documents and could be correlated back to the date and time of processing and their bin.
The entire process was video recorded by the cameras in the room.
Wearing their clothes and holding their proof of who they were, awkwardly if they had resisted, or by the soldiers carrying them if they were that resistant, they were made to cross the no man's land between the intake building and the main prison. This was a narrow path, deliberately too narrow for anything bigger than a small forklift or large golf cart. (The latter carried in the personal effects bins later.)
Once actually in the prison, they would be measured for clothing, made to shower, issued their prison-owned and marked clean clothing with their unique prisoner number. The clothes they had been wearing would be laundered and packaged for inclusion with the rest of their stored effects, except in the handful of cases where what they were wearing had direct evidence value.
(The one wearing black fatigues that smelled of gasoline later hung for it. He was lucky.)
They would also be issued their numbered prison identity card, be given a brief orientation lecture, and fed with carefully packaged sack lunches regardless of the time, day or night. We had a special rest area for them to guarantee that they would get a good twelve hours of rest in individual cells with policed toilet access.
Tired people don't track well. A good rest and time to think, with basic needs met, created a psychological break between their pre-capture experiences and life at Alviso. Also, as many had been trained to expect interrogation and torture, the fact that we did neither puzzled them greatly.
The next morning, they would attend an orientation and safety lecture, have the rules of the prison read to them, and only then those personal effects they were allowed to have in the prison would be given back. Identity card, religious items, issued dog tags, personal jewelry. Then they were further classified and assigned to forty person dormitories according to their characteristics.
From there, they would be summoned to individual interviews as appropriate, and based on all the information we had, either assigned directly to a detainee category when the evidence one way or another was overwhelming, or remanded to a classification hearing in one of our four courtrooms when it was not.
By far, most of the detainees we processed were unlawful combatants, criminals, mercenaries and Homeland associates.
Any POW in Northern California credibly accused of war crimes was transferred to Alviso. (We had a sister facility in Riverside. Not my problem.)
What is a POW?
A prisoner of war.
How could we recognize that they were a POW?
A member of the United States Armed Forces was a POW. No exceptions ever.
How could we tell?
They would be very quick to tell us. Name, rank, armed service and serial number. The ones who remembered their training only gave us that information.
We didn't advertise the fact, but we could look them up too.
Most also had their dog tags, small pieces of metal on lanyards around their necks that had their basic information, for identifying them if they were badly hurt or killed.
We took those during the shower, after one detainee tried to strangle another with a set, but gave them back after processing.
A person fighting for the United States, who wore a uniform and was under operational control of the Untied Snakes, was presumptively a POW. The laws of war allow for spontaneous resistance and for partisans. Under certain conditions, we would accept that civilians among and/or fighting alongside US Forces were also POWs, if the situation did not permit them to have been issued uniforms or other distinguishing marks.
Why does it matter?
Prisoners of war have to be handled differently. They have a lot more rights. Even if they are accused of war crimes.
So we had two different housing areas. A small POW barracks to keep the honorable separated from the dishonorable. All the rest of the housing, for the others.
Two infirmaries as well, same reason. We treated the POWs in the same infirmary we used for our own camp staff.
One of the many rules posted in the "UC" or unlawful combatant area was the process for demanding a classification hearing and claiming POW status.
Once a POW held at Alviso was cleared of suspicion of committing a war crime, or so adjudicated after a hearing, we immediately sent them off to the larger POW camp at Sunnyvale. POW processing was our first priority as a justice center. We only wanted criminals here.
Unlawful combatants had two bars to hurdle.
The first is that most were guilty as hell of war crimes, the vast majority of those crimes being the murder of noncombatants.
If they were found not guilty, or their cases were "remanded" for later prosecution at a time when California wasn't fighting a war against her biggest neighbor, they were still unlawful combatants. We had a standard sentence.
A person who unlawfully carries arms at war against California gets five years in correctional custody.
That applied to non-POW partisans, criminals, former employees of Homeland, and with prejudice to mercenaries, who liked to style themselves "contractors" but could not point to a valid contract to perform services for the US Armed Forces.
But they could serve that sentence elsewhere. That bus left for Petaluma weekly, and the prisoners waiting for that bus were the happiest people at Alviso. They got to leave standing on their own two feet.
Once in a while, they were in more trouble than that. Some war crimes, such as armed robbery with wounding but not murder, were a "tenner" or 10 years. A few, mostly death penalty offenses with substantial mitigating circumstances, caught a "twenty" or 20 years. We spread the rumor that you could get a twenty by cooperating. Flat lie. Unless your original offense had a mitigating factor _at the time you committed it_, you still got to dangle no matter how many others you ratted out.
Those convicted of war crimes carrying the death penalty ... most of them ... they simply never got to leave.
They had a date in the yard with a noose or a bullet.
There was no third category. Fives, tens and twenties - or change. The two coins that traditionally cover the eyes of the dead.
That was why intake was so important.
Gather all sorts of intelligence.
Set the standard for humane treatment and appropriate behavior.
Prevent weapons from entering the prison.
Prevent weapons from entering the prison.
Did I mention weapons?
Whether or not they knew it, every UC and some POWs were on Death Row just by being here.
This wasn't pre-War justice.
This was military justice under wartime conditions.
A roach motel for war criminals.
No path to freedom through work here.
"US Armed Forces never will torture, maltreat or purposely place detained persons in positions of danger. There is never a military necessity exception to violate these principles." - US Army infantry training manual, Detainee Operations
I was legally and morally responsible for every operation conducted at Alviso Prison.
As a member of the California Military Commission, as well as a California commissioned officer (two very different things!), I could be held personally accountable for any failure or mishap, with punishment ranging from censure and dismissal to imprisonment and even death.
So in addition to supervising my command teams, I made personal inspection of every part of the process.
Personal. Inspection.
That means me, with my Mark I eyeball and birth issued hearing system, and olfactory sensor as installed at point of manufacture.
I still carried a pair of nitrile medical gloves. Not because I had to do medical care myself anymore, but because I would sometimes have to touch things as well as see, hear and smell them.
Today I was visiting the Intake section. This is where we gave our detainees a proper welcome to Alviso Prison.
It had been a shambling clusterfuck at first. The ad hoc detention facilities were all full with convoys arriving every few hours with more.
By now we had gotten it all down to a routine.
First of all was the sally port.
It was deliberately difficult to bring any large vehicle into the prison. There were many reasons for this that all boiled down to "security."
So trucks and buses had to unload their detainees in a large open fenced area adjacent to the prison but several hundred yards away.
As detainees were unloaded, they were separated into sorting pens.
It was our duty under international humanitarian law and California military law to keep them safe. That included from each other.
This often involved separation. Men from women, apparent soldiers from apparent non-soldiers, young from old.
We weren't handling migrants or displaced persons - that would be later in my career.
We were handling persons captured in active combat operations with California military forces.
In theory they should have been processed prior to arrival here. In fact we never trusted that.
So first priority was not letting them kill us or each other.
So one at a time, they were taken from their transport to behind a privacy screen, so that others still on transport could not see what was happening.
All were handcuffed with their hands in front, sometimes with multiple handcuffs and always gently and with attention to detail. Properly fitted cuffs, hinged, of appropriate sizes.
Anyone who physically resisted was chained, with handcuffs behind their backs. This was a ready tell for later in the process.
A medic was on standby at all times while the vehicle was being unloaded. Detainees who appeared ill or hurt were immediately triaged. If appropriate, we could either take them to our infirmary or divert them via our own ambulance to Valley Medical City.
A full tactical team was also on standby. Just in case.
Next was a personal but thorough non-penetrative body search by gloved soldiers, paying careful attention to what they were doing.
I required that any touching of a detainee's chest or between the thighs be with the backs of the hands. But these areas were checked.
Personal items were placed in individual numbered bins as discovered.
Prisoners were then permitted (and required) to keep hold of a piece of folded paper in a zip lock transparent bag. One side was a print from scan of whatever identity document(s) they had, if any, and a statement NO ID if none. The other side was a just-taken digital camera face and body photo, as arrived, with whatever they had chosen to say their name and rank and affiliation was, and a picture of the numbered bin that held their items.
A disposable numbered vinyl printed bracelet, of the type once used in hospitals and concerts and amusement parks, was fastened around their right wrist. This number also matched their documents and could be correlated back to the date and time of processing and their bin.
The entire process was video recorded by the cameras in the room.
Wearing their clothes and holding their proof of who they were, awkwardly if they had resisted, or by the soldiers carrying them if they were that resistant, they were made to cross the no man's land between the intake building and the main prison. This was a narrow path, deliberately too narrow for anything bigger than a small forklift or large golf cart. (The latter carried in the personal effects bins later.)
Once actually in the prison, they would be measured for clothing, made to shower, issued their prison-owned and marked clean clothing with their unique prisoner number. The clothes they had been wearing would be laundered and packaged for inclusion with the rest of their stored effects, except in the handful of cases where what they were wearing had direct evidence value.
(The one wearing black fatigues that smelled of gasoline later hung for it. He was lucky.)
They would also be issued their numbered prison identity card, be given a brief orientation lecture, and fed with carefully packaged sack lunches regardless of the time, day or night. We had a special rest area for them to guarantee that they would get a good twelve hours of rest in individual cells with policed toilet access.
Tired people don't track well. A good rest and time to think, with basic needs met, created a psychological break between their pre-capture experiences and life at Alviso. Also, as many had been trained to expect interrogation and torture, the fact that we did neither puzzled them greatly.
The next morning, they would attend an orientation and safety lecture, have the rules of the prison read to them, and only then those personal effects they were allowed to have in the prison would be given back. Identity card, religious items, issued dog tags, personal jewelry. Then they were further classified and assigned to forty person dormitories according to their characteristics.
From there, they would be summoned to individual interviews as appropriate, and based on all the information we had, either assigned directly to a detainee category when the evidence one way or another was overwhelming, or remanded to a classification hearing in one of our four courtrooms when it was not.
By far, most of the detainees we processed were unlawful combatants, criminals, mercenaries and Homeland associates.
Any POW in Northern California credibly accused of war crimes was transferred to Alviso. (We had a sister facility in Riverside. Not my problem.)
What is a POW?
A prisoner of war.
How could we recognize that they were a POW?
A member of the United States Armed Forces was a POW. No exceptions ever.
How could we tell?
They would be very quick to tell us. Name, rank, armed service and serial number. The ones who remembered their training only gave us that information.
We didn't advertise the fact, but we could look them up too.
Most also had their dog tags, small pieces of metal on lanyards around their necks that had their basic information, for identifying them if they were badly hurt or killed.
We took those during the shower, after one detainee tried to strangle another with a set, but gave them back after processing.
A person fighting for the United States, who wore a uniform and was under operational control of the Untied Snakes, was presumptively a POW. The laws of war allow for spontaneous resistance and for partisans. Under certain conditions, we would accept that civilians among and/or fighting alongside US Forces were also POWs, if the situation did not permit them to have been issued uniforms or other distinguishing marks.
Why does it matter?
Prisoners of war have to be handled differently. They have a lot more rights. Even if they are accused of war crimes.
So we had two different housing areas. A small POW barracks to keep the honorable separated from the dishonorable. All the rest of the housing, for the others.
Two infirmaries as well, same reason. We treated the POWs in the same infirmary we used for our own camp staff.
One of the many rules posted in the "UC" or unlawful combatant area was the process for demanding a classification hearing and claiming POW status.
Once a POW held at Alviso was cleared of suspicion of committing a war crime, or so adjudicated after a hearing, we immediately sent them off to the larger POW camp at Sunnyvale. POW processing was our first priority as a justice center. We only wanted criminals here.
Unlawful combatants had two bars to hurdle.
The first is that most were guilty as hell of war crimes, the vast majority of those crimes being the murder of noncombatants.
If they were found not guilty, or their cases were "remanded" for later prosecution at a time when California wasn't fighting a war against her biggest neighbor, they were still unlawful combatants. We had a standard sentence.
A person who unlawfully carries arms at war against California gets five years in correctional custody.
That applied to non-POW partisans, criminals, former employees of Homeland, and with prejudice to mercenaries, who liked to style themselves "contractors" but could not point to a valid contract to perform services for the US Armed Forces.
But they could serve that sentence elsewhere. That bus left for Petaluma weekly, and the prisoners waiting for that bus were the happiest people at Alviso. They got to leave standing on their own two feet.
Once in a while, they were in more trouble than that. Some war crimes, such as armed robbery with wounding but not murder, were a "tenner" or 10 years. A few, mostly death penalty offenses with substantial mitigating circumstances, caught a "twenty" or 20 years. We spread the rumor that you could get a twenty by cooperating. Flat lie. Unless your original offense had a mitigating factor _at the time you committed it_, you still got to dangle no matter how many others you ratted out.
Those convicted of war crimes carrying the death penalty ... most of them ... they simply never got to leave.
They had a date in the yard with a noose or a bullet.
There was no third category. Fives, tens and twenties - or change. The two coins that traditionally cover the eyes of the dead.
That was why intake was so important.
Gather all sorts of intelligence.
Set the standard for humane treatment and appropriate behavior.
Prevent weapons from entering the prison.
Prevent weapons from entering the prison.
Did I mention weapons?
Whether or not they knew it, every UC and some POWs were on Death Row just by being here.
This wasn't pre-War justice.
This was military justice under wartime conditions.
A roach motel for war criminals.
No path to freedom through work here.
