Washington v. Massachusetts Department of Correction, et al.

RBB represents Derrick Washington in a lawsuit in federal court seeking accountability for brutal assaults that Mr. Washington experienced January through March 2020 at the hands of Souza Baranowski Correctional Complex guards.

Souza is a maximum-security prison with a long history of racism and violence.  In January 2020, in response to an altercation between a small number of prisoners and guards, administrators and guards at Souza and in the Department of Corrections launched a campaign of retaliatory violence against many people incarcerated at the prison.

Mr. Washington, a long-time advocate for racial justice and rights of incarcerated people, was one of many prisoners who suffered during that campaign. On three separate days, Souza guards beat and tased Mr. Washington, causing lacerations and contusions, while calling him racial slurs and other insults. Twice, guards sprayed Mr. Washington with chemical agents, despite the fact that Mr. Washington is asthmatic and well-documented as such at Souza. The chemical agents provoked severe asthma attacks and made Mr. Washington unable to breathe. The attacks were so brutal that Mr. Washington was at times knocked unconscious and three times hospitalized. Mr. Washington’s case is just one example of the systematic problems at Souza, where violence is common and often racialized.

Mr. Washington is represented by Rights Behind Bars and Amber Ashley James. The complaint names as defendants the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Superintendent Kenneway (the previous Superintendent of Souza), and over 20 lieutenants, corrections officers, and medical providers who assaulted Mr. Washington and failed to provide him with proper medical care afterwards.

Read the complaint.