FLORIDA INMATE WAS GASSED TO DEATH WHILE LOCKED IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

The cell where Randall Jordan-Aparo was sprayed with mustard-colored gas until he died. A stain still covers the wall.

FRANKLIN COUNTY, FL — An inmate was locked in solitary confinement and repeatedly sprayed with mustard-colored gas until he died, an investigation has uncovered. Officials then allegedly covered up the death and claimed it was due to natural causes.
The case has been buried for four years, until four Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) investigators came forth as whistle-blowers to reveal allegations of multiple cases of torture, abuse, corruption, and homicide.
Veteran DOC investigator Aubrey P. Land is one of four speaking out, and claims to have been “bullied” through official channels. Of the corruption uncovered, Land found the death of 27-year-old Randall Jordan-Aparo particularly disturbing.
“I’ve done this for 30 years. My skin don’t crawl very often,” Land said. “They killed that damn kid. He laid there for five days begging for help.”
The inmate was being held in the Franklin Correctional Institution and was experiencing cold-like symptoms caused by a pre-existing blood disorder that was documented in his prison medical file. Instead of giving him proper medical treatment, guards showered him in poisonous gas. The Miami Herald reported Land’s findings:

Randall Jordan-Aparo was gassed to death in a Florida prison cell.

[Randall Jordan-Aparo] had been ill for weeks prior to his death, begging for medical attention as he increasingly grew weaker.
When he could barely breathe, walk or talk, he demanded that the prison’s nurses take him to the hospital. They allegedly refused, even after consulting by phone with doctors and other medical staff.
Jordan-Aparo became angry, and cursed the nurses, threatening “to sue their asses’’ if they didn’t get him to the hospital, records show.
The nurses called the guards, claiming Jordan-Aparo was being “rude.” The guards placed him in a steel-walled solitary-confinement cell.
“The next day, the captain comes down there and gasses him, and gasses him and gasses him,’’ Land told Miguel.
He was sprayed so much that photographs show the outline of his body surrounded by mustard-colored gas all over the cell walls.
The prison’s supervisors and guards fabricated reports saying that their use of chemical agents was justified because Jordan-Aparo was “causing a disturbance.’’ Land, who said he viewed video footage of the inmate’s last hours, said the inmate was too sick to cause a disturbance and that all he wanted was to go to the hospital.

Mr. Jordan-Aparo was found dead in solitary confinement with a Bible next to his head, covered in yellow residue from the gas. He was serving an 18-month sentence for fraud and drugs.
The death took place in September of 2010, and has been buried for years. At the time, the inmate’s father was told by prison officials and the Franklin County medical examiner that his son died from natural causes — an “infection.”
As such, the incident was never treated as a homicide and no investigation took place. No one was ever disciplined or held criminally responsible.
Investigators Aubree Land, John Ulm, Doug Glisson, and David Clark have filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida, alleging systematic abuse, corruption, and brutality inside the Department of Corrections. The lawsuit states that they were retaliated against for uncovering official misdeeds.
This news comes as the warden of the Dade Correctional Institution, Jerry Cummings, wassuspended as investigators probe the suspicious death of another Florida inmate who wasallegedly cooked to death by torturous prison guards in a scalding shower until his skin began to peel off.