U.S.DepartmentofJustice
Office oftheInspectorGeneral

Supplemental Report on September 11
Detainees’Allegations of Abuse at the
Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn, New York

Office of the Inspector General
December 2003

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1
A. Background ............................................................................................2
1. Detainee Arrival and Confinement at the MDC .....................................2
2. Atmosphere at the MDC Following September 11 .................................4
3. The OIG Investigation...........................................................................5
B. Report Outline ........................................................................................7
II. PHYSICAL AND VERBAL ABUSE ................................................................ 8
A. Physical Abuse........................................................................................8
1. Slamming, Bouncing, and Ramming Detainees Against Walls...............8
2. Bending Detainees’ Arms, Hands, Wrists, and Fingers........................ 16
3. Lifting Detainees, Pulling Arms, and Pulling Handcuffs ...................... 18
4. Stepping on Detainees’ Chains ........................................................... 20
5. Improper Application and Use of Restraints........................................ 22
6. Rough or Inappropriate Handling of Detainees ................................... 26
7. Conclusion......................................................................................... 28
B. Verbal Abuse ........................................................................................ 28
III. SYSTEMIC ISSUES RELATING TO THE MDC .......................................... 30
A. Issues Addressed in the Detainee Report ............................................... 30
B. Video and Audio Taping Detainees’ Meetings with Their Attorneys......... 31
C. Strip Searches of Detainees................................................................... 33
D. Banging on Cell Doors .......................................................................... 35
E. T-Shirt with Flag and Slogan................................................................. 37
F. Obtaining Videotapes from the MDC...................................................... 39
G. Some Staff Members Lacked Credibility During OIG Interviews ............. 42
IV. OIG RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................................... 43
V. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 46

I.

INTRODUCTION

This report details the investigation conducted by the Office of the
Inspector General (OIG) concerning allegations that staff members of the
Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in
Brooklyn, New York, physically and verbally abused aliens who were detained
in connection with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.1 In June 2003,
we issued a broader, 198-page report evaluating the treatment of 762 detainees
who were held on immigration charges in connection with the investigation of
the September 11 attacks.2 In that report, we examined how the Department
of Justice (Department) handled these detainees, including their processing,
their bond decisions, the timing of their removal from the United States or their
release from custody, their access to counsel, and their conditions of
confinement.
In Chapter 7 of the Detainee Report, we described the treatment of
September 11 detainees in the MDC, and we concluded that the conditions
were excessively restrictive and unduly harsh. Those conditions included
inadequate access to counsel, sporadic and mistaken information to detainees’
families and attorneys about where they were being detained, lockdown for at
least 23 hours a day, cells remaining illuminated 24 hours a day, detainees
placed in heavy restraints whenever they were moved outside their cells,
limited access to recreation, and inadequate notice to detainees about the
process for filing complaints about their treatment.
We also concluded in the Detainee Report that evidence showed some
MDC correctional officers physically and verbally abused some September 11
detainees, particularly during the months immediately following the
September 11 attacks. However, we noted in our report that our investigation
of physical and verbal abuse was not completed, and we stated that we would
provide our findings in a separate report. This report details our findings and
conclusions from the investigation.
We have provided the results of our investigation to managers at BOP
Headquarters for their review and appropriate disciplinary action. In the report
to the BOP, we include an Appendix identifying those staff members who we
believe committed misconduct or exercised poor judgment and setting forth the

In this report, “staff members” refers to MDC employees, including correctional officers,
lieutenants, management officials, and other personnel.
1

2 See “The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on
Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks”
(“Detainee Report”), issued June 2, 2003. The report is located on the OIG’s website at
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/03-06/index.htm.

1

specific evidence against them. In the Appendix, we also describe the
allegations against specific officers that we did not substantiate.
As discussed in detail below, our investigation developed evidence
substantiating allegations that MDC staff members physically and verbally
abused September 11 detainees. In the Appendix referenced above, we
recommend that the BOP consider taking disciplinary action against ten
current BOP employees, counseling two current MDC employees, and
informing employers of four former staff members about our findings against
them.
A.

Background
1.

Detainee Arrival and Confinement at the MDC

As discussed in detail in the Detainee Report, the Department used
federal immigration laws to detain aliens in the United States who were
suspected of having ties to the September 11 attacks or connections to
terrorism, or who were encountered during the course of the terrorism
investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the
first 11 months after the attacks, 762 aliens were detained in connection with
the FBI terrorism investigation for various immigration offenses, including
overstaying their visas and entering the country illegally.
A total of 84 of these aliens were confined at the MDC on immigration
charges in the 11 months after the attacks. The facility at which a
September 11 detainee was confined was determined mainly by the FBI’s
assessment of the detainee’s potential links to the September 11 investigation
or ties to terrorism. The FBI assessed detainees as “high interest,” “of interest,”
or “undetermined interest.”3 Generally, those labeled of “high interest” were
confined at the MDC.
The MDC is a 9-story high-security BOP prison in Brooklyn, New York,
that generally houses men and women either convicted of criminal offenses or
awaiting trial or sentencing.4 The majority of the MDC inmates are housed in
the facility’s General Population Unit. Some inmates are confined in the
Special Housing Unit (SHU), which normally holds inmates who are disruptive,
pose a security risk, or need protection as witnesses. When MDC officials
learned that they would receive aliens deemed potential suspects in the FBI’s
As we described in our Detainee Report, we concluded that the FBI in New York
indiscriminately applied these labels to aliens and that the FBI took much longer than
Department officials expected to clear these aliens of any connection to terrorism.
3

4 During the period reviewed in our Detainee Report, the MDC housed 2,441 men and 181
women.

2

terrorism investigation, the MDC modified one wing of the SHU to
accommodate these “high security” detainees and labeled the modified wing the
“administrative maximum” or “ADMAX” SHU. The ADMAX SHU was designed
to confine the detainees in the most restrictive and secure conditions permitted
by BOP policy.
The detainees began to arrive at the MDC on September 14, 2001. They
were transported often in armed convoys and generally by federal agents from
the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The transport vehicles
holding the detainees entered the MDC through the U.S. Marshal’s sally port,
which is similar to a large garage and is connected to the Receiving and
Discharge (R&D) area of the MDC. Once inside the sally port, the transport
vehicle was met by four to seven BOP staff members who removed the detainee
from the vehicle. The staff members then put the detainee next to a wall
directly adjacent to the transport vehicle and performed a “pat search” during
which the detainee was frisked and the restraints in which the detainee arrived
were exchanged for BOP restraints. The BOP officers then walked the
detainees up a ramp in the sally port through a set of doors leading to a
holding cell in R&D.
In R&D, the detainees were taken one at a time from the holding cell to be
fingerprinted, photographed, examined, and then strip searched with restraints
removed.5 They received prison clothes, were once again fully restrained in
metal handcuffs attached to a waist chain that was connected to ankle cuffs,
and were taken up the elevator to the ninth floor of the MDC.
On the ninth floor, the detainees were taken to the ADMAX SHU, where
they were strip searched again and locked in their cells alone or with one other
detainee. Detainees remained in their cells at least 23 hours a day. Until late
February 2002, the cells were constantly illuminated.
The ADMAX SHU range was shaped like a rectangle, with cells down one
side of two long corridors. Four recreation cells separated by chain-link walls
and with chain-link, open-air ceilings were located in the middle of the
rectangular range. MDC staff members used a multipurpose room located at
the end of the ADMAX SHU range for medical examinations, strip searches,
and meetings. A room adjacent to the multipurpose room was used as a
lieutenant’s office.
The ADMAX SHU was separated from the regular SHU by an area
containing a holding cell, the SHU lieutenant’s office, and a visiting area where
attorneys and family members met with the September 11 detainees. These
5 The BOP technically refers to strip searches as “visual searches,” but every MDC staff
member we interviewed referred to them as “strip searches.”

3

visits occurred in “non-contact” rooms, meaning a clear partition precluded any
physical contact between parties.
As described in the Detainee Report, the MDC confined the September 11
detainees under highly restrictive conditions. For example, the MDC instituted
a four-man hold restraint policy with respect to moving the detainees. This
meant that whenever a detainee was taken from his cell, he was escorted by
three officers and a lieutenant at all times. During routine escorts on the
ADMAX SHU, the detainees also were handcuffed behind their backs and
placed in leg restraints. When they were escorted to visits, interviews, or out of
the MDC, the detainees were handcuffed in front, restrained in a waist chain,
and placed in leg restraints.
On approximately October 5, 2001, as a result of an incident involving a
detainee who alleged that he was injured by MDC staff members, the MDC
instituted a policy requiring officers to videotape detainees with handheld video
cameras whenever they were outside their assigned cells, including when they
first arrived at the MDC.6 As described below, however, we found that staff
members did not always adhere to this policy.
2.

Atmosphere at the MDC Following September 11

As we discussed in the Detainee Report, we recognize that the impact of
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was particularly pronounced for
people living or working in the New York City area. Some of the MDC staff
members lost relatives, friends, and colleagues in the attacks. Moreover, the
staff was working under difficult conditions on the ADMAX SHU, with many
working 12-hour shifts, six or seven days a week, for extended periods of time.
In addition, based on the vague label attached to the detainees by the FBI, the
MDC staff initially was led to believe that the detainees could be terrorists or
that they may have played a role in the September 11 attacks.
Many of the staff members we interviewed described the atmosphere at
the MDC immediately after September 11 as emotionally charged. One of the
lieutenants currently at the MDC said the staff “had a great deal of anger” after
September 11 and that it was a chaotic time at the MDC. Another lieutenant,
one of the lieutenants responsible for escorting detainees, stated that upon
entering the institution the detainees were handed over to teams of five to
seven officers who were “spiked with adrenaline.” He said that there were some
officers on the escort teams who were “getting ready for battle” and “talking
crazy.” Another lieutenant responsible for escorting detainees similarly
described the officers as “high on adrenaline.”
6 Later in October 2001, the requirement of videotaping all detainee movements became a
BOP-wide policy.

4

Even though the atmosphere was emotionally charged, none of the
current or former staff members we interviewed suggested that the terrorist
attacks justified engaging in abusive behavior towards the detainees. To the
contrary, nearly all of the MDC staff members we interviewed asserted that
they and other staff members always behaved professionally with the
detainees.
Yet, as we describe below, these staff members’ depictions of their actions
were undermined substantially by the consistent allegations of the detainees,
the statements of several other MDC staff members, the statements of senior
BOP officials, and the videotapes we reviewed.
3.

The OIG Investigation

In mid-October 2001, the BOP’s Office of Internal Affairs (OIA) first
referred to the OIG several allegations of physical abuse at the MDC. The OIG’s
New York Field Office (NYFO) initiated a criminal investigation into allegations
that several detainees were slammed against walls by MDC staff members
when they first arrived at the MDC. The NYFO interviewed the detainees who
made allegations, obtained their medical records, and interviewed several MDC
staff members. In conducting this investigation, the NYFO consulted with
prosecutors from the Department’s Civil Rights Division (CRT) and the United
States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Eastern District of New York.
In addition to the allegations investigated by the NYFO, the detainees
made other allegations of physical and verbal abuse against MDC staff
members. The CRT assigned some of these additional allegations to the FBI for
investigation, and the OIG referred several allegations to the BOP OIA for
investigation.
On September 25, 2002, the CRT and the USAO declined criminal
prosecution of the MDC staff members who were the focus of the NYFO’s
investigation. However, even if a matter is declined criminally, the OIG can
continue that investigation to determine if there was misconduct that should
result in disciplinary or other administrative action. The OIG therefore
pursued this investigation as an administrative matter after prosecution was
declined.
Other allegations of detainee abuse assigned to the FBI and the BOP OIA
also were considered and declined for criminal prosecution. In March 2003,
the OIG took over all of the cases that had been referred to the FBI and the
BOP OIA and consolidated them into a comprehensive administrative
investigation into allegations that some MDC staff members physically and
verbally abused some September 11 detainees. This administrative
investigation was led by two OIG attorneys, one of whom is a former federal

5

prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section of the Department. This report
describes the results of our investigation.
The relevant time period under review was from September 2001 to
August 2002, when the detainees were housed in the ADMAX SHU of the MDC.
Our review focused solely on complaints at the MDC.
After consolidating approximately 30 detainees’ reported allegations
against approximately 20 MDC staff members, we sorted the allegations of
physical abuse into the following six categories:
1.

Slamming detainees against walls;

2. Bending or twisting detainees’ arms, hands, wrists, and fingers;
3. Lifting restrained detainees off the ground by their arms, and pulling
their arms and handcuffs;
4.

Stepping on detainees’ leg restraint chains;

5.

Using restraints improperly; and

6. Handling detainees in an otherwise rough or inappropriate manner.
The detainees also alleged that MDC staff members verbally abused them
by referring to them as “terrorists” and other offensive names; threatened them;
cursed at them; and made offensive comments during strip searches.
In the OIG’s review of these allegations, we conducted more than 115
interviews of detainees, MDC staff members, and other individuals. The staff
members we interviewed primarily were correctional officers and lieutenants
who had been assigned to the ADMAX SHU after September 11, 2001, or were
involved in escorting the detainees on and off the ADMAX SHU. Almost all of
the interviews of the current staff members were administratively compelled,
meaning that the employees were required to appear and answer questions.7
In many cases a union representative, who also was a staff member at the
MDC, attended the interview with the employees.
In addition to the correctional officers and lieutenants, we interviewed
MDC management officials, internal affairs investigators, and the physician’s
7 In a compelled interview, Department employees are required to answer questions from
the OIG. Compelled interviews normally occur after criminal prosecution of a subject is
declined, or if a witness does not voluntarily agree to cooperate. The statements in a compelled
interview cannot be used against the person in a criminal proceeding. If an employee refuses
to answer the OIG’s questions or fails to reply fully and truthfully in an interview, disciplinary
action, including dismissal, can be taken against the employee.

6

assistant who was responsible for the detainees’ medical needs and
evaluations, including examining injuries and monitoring detainees’ health
during hunger strikes. We also interviewed a senior BOP official who until this
year oversaw correctional operations at the BOP during the relevant period,
and a senior BOP official who has been responsible since 2000 for training new
BOP officers on restraint and escort techniques.
We also interviewed federal officers, mostly from the former INS, who were
involved in transporting the detainees to the MDC. In addition, we interviewed
an attorney for one of the detainees who visited his client at the MDC and said
that he witnessed abuse.
We reviewed medical records and incident reports for the detainees from
the MDC’s files. We also reviewed MDC videotapes, including hundreds of
tapes showing detainees being moved around the facility, tapes from cameras
in the detainees’ cells, and several tapes depicting officers using force in
specific operations against certain detainees. As will be detailed later in this
report, MDC officials repeatedly told the OIG that videotapes of general
detainee movements no longer existed. That information was inaccurate. In
late August 2003, the OIG discovered more than 300 videotapes at the MDC,
primarily spanning the period from early October through November 2001, and
we reviewed all of those tapes. While these tapes substantiated many of the
detainees’ allegations, detainees indicated to us that abuse dropped off
precipitously after the video cameras were introduced.
B.

Report Outline

This report is divided into three main sections. First, the report discusses
the evidence regarding allegations that the detainees were physically and
verbally abused at the MDC. Second, the report describes several issues of
concern relating to the systemic treatment of the detainees at the MDC.
Finally, the report offers recommendations to address the issues discussed in
this report.
In an appendix to this report, we provide to the BOP our findings on
specific MDC staff members, current and former, who handled the detainees.
That section of the report will not be released publicly because of the privacy
interests of those individuals as well as the potential of disciplinary
proceedings against them. In the Appendix, we recommend that the BOP
consider taking disciplinary action against ten current BOP employees,
counseling two current MDC employees, and informing employers of four
former staff members about our findings against them. We also recommend
that the BOP take appropriate disciplinary action against several unidentified
staff members who we observed on videotapes physically abusing detainees or
behaving unprofessionally.

7

II.

PHYSICAL AND VERBAL ABUSE

Our investigation developed evidence that approximately 16 to 20 MDC
staff members, a significant number of the officers who had regular contact
with the detainees, violated BOP policy by physically or verbally abusing some
detainees. For the purposes of this report, we consider “physical abuse” to be
the handling of the detainees in ways that physically hurt or injure them
without serving any correctional purpose. Under BOP Program Statement
(P.S.) 5566.05, improper handling includes instances when staff members use
more force than necessary on the detainees or cause the detainees unnecessary
physical pain or extreme discomfort. Similarly, we consider “verbal abuse” to
be insults, coarse language, and threats to physically harm or inappropriately
punish detainees, all of which violate BOP P.S. 3420.09, “Standards of
Employee Conduct.”
We discuss in this section the general evidence that staff members
physically and verbally abused some detainees.
A.

Physical Abuse
1.

Slamming, Bouncing, and Ramming Detainees Against Walls

Most of the detainees who made allegations of abuse specifically alleged
that MDC staff members slammed them into walls. Several detainees also
alleged staff members slammed them into doors and the sides of the elevator
that took them up to the ADMAX SHU. According to approximately ten
detainees, staff members slammed them against walls on their first day at the
MDC while they were in R&D. Detainees also alleged staff members sometimes
slammed them into walls in the ADMAX SHU during escorts to and from
attorney visits, doctor visits, or recreation, but not as frequently as in R&D.
The detainees alleged that these slamming incidents occurred when they were
being fully compliant with the officers and were not resisting.
For example, one detainee told us that immediately after he arrived at the
MDC, staff members took him out of the van, “slammed” him against a wall,
and warned him that they would break his neck if he moved. Another detainee
also stated that officers repeatedly “slammed” him against the wall in R&D on
the day he arrived. Another detainee stated that on his first day at the MDC,
officers painfully “slammed” him back and forth against walls in the ADMAX
SHU all the way to his cell. In addition, another detainee stated that he was
“slammed” against the wall in the sally port and that the experience was very
painful. In all of these cases, the detainees claimed that they were fully
compliant with staff members’ instructions.

8

Detainees said they were slammed into walls much more frequently
before the handheld video cameras were introduced in October 2001 than after.
One detainee stated staff members told him things like, “If the camera wasn’t
on I would have bashed your face,” and “The camera is your best friend.”
Detainees also told us that their treatment by the staff at the MDC was worse
than their treatment by officers at other institutions. Few made complaints of
mistreatment by other officers outside of the MDC.
Our efforts to substantiate or refute allegations that staff members
slammed detainees against walls were hindered to some extent because:
(1) detainees’ escorts were not videotaped until early October 2001, after many
of the detainees already had arrived; (2) even after the MDC instituted the
policy requiring all detainee escorts be taped, some detainees’ escorts were not
taped;8 and (3) a significant number of detainee videotapes were recycled or
destroyed, in accordance with a regional policy directive issued in December
2001 that allowed the tapes to be re-used or destroyed after 30 days. These
issues are discussed more fully below under section III (F), “Obtaining
Videotapes from the MDC.”
BOP policy prohibits staff members from using more force than necessary
on inmates. BOP P.S. 3420.09, “Standards of Employee Conduct,” states, “An
employee may not use brutality, physical violence, intimidation toward
inmates, or use any force beyond that which is reasonably necessary to subdue
an inmate.” Similarly, BOP P.S. 5566.05, “Use of Force and Application of
Restraints on Inmates,” authorizes staff members to use force on inmates only
as a last alternative after all other reasonable efforts to resolve a situation have
failed. It states that even when force is authorized, staff members must not
use more force than necessary on the inmates, or cause them unnecessary
physical pain or extreme discomfort.9
We spoke with two senior BOP officials concerning slamming or bouncing
inmates against the wall. One of the officials, who had oversight
responsibilities for correctional operations during the relevant time period,
stated that unless an inmate is combative or resisting, slamming the inmate
into a wall is improper and violates the BOP’s policy on “use of force.” The
other official, who is responsible for training new BOP officers, confirmed that
slamming a compliant inmate against the wall is not an appropriate control or
An officer confirmed to us that not all escorts were recorded. He stated that some
movements were not recorded because the officers were unable to find a camcorder. He said
that even though seven camcorders were purchased for the ADMAX SHU, over time the
camcorders started to disappear.
8

9 BOP P.S. 5566.05 provides: When authorized, staff must use only that amount of force
necessary to gain control of the inmate; to protect and ensure the safety of inmates, staff, and
others; to prevent serious property damage; and to ensure institution security and good order.

9

escort technique. Both officials stated that slamming, bouncing, and firmly
pressing compliant inmates against the wall violates BOP policy.
A former MDC lieutenant, who was one of the lieutenants in charge of
escorting the detainees to and from the ADMAX SHU (hereinafter
“Lieutenant 1”), corroborated detainees’ allegations of slamming. He stated
that before the MDC began videotaping all detainee movements, which was on
or about October 5, 2001, almost all of the detainees were slammed against
walls, particularly in the sally port. He also stated he witnessed staff members
“bounce” detainees against the wall. Lieutenant 1 explained that “slamming” a
detainee against the wall was when officers shoved the detainee into the wall
and held him there, and “bouncing” a detainee off the wall was when officers
shoved the detainee into the wall and then quickly pulled him back.
Lieutenant 1 said “pressing” a detainee against the wall was when officers used
physical force to keep a detainee’s chest against the wall.
Lieutenant 1 said he witnessed officers unnecessarily slam, bounce, and
forcefully press detainees against the wall. Lieutenant 1 told us that some
officers took detainees off transport vehicles and bounced them against the
wall every time they could get away with it. Lieutenant 1 asserted the only
time it would have been appropriate for an officer to press, bounce, or slam a
detainee against the wall was if the detainee was aggressive, combative, or
violent. However, Lieutenant 1 said he never saw a detainee act in these ways.
According to Lieutenant 1, he confronted another lieutenant who was
responsible for escorting detainees (hereinafter “Lieutenant 2”) after seeing
Lieutenant 2 slamming detainees against the wall. Lieutenant 2 also
supervised many of the officers who Lieutenant 1 witnessed slam detainees
against the wall. Lieutenant 1 stated that Lieutenant 2 told him that slamming
detainees against the wall was all part of being in jail and not to worry about it.
When interviewed by the OIG, Lieutenant 2 maintained that his officers
did not slam detainees against the wall, but he stated that it was possible an
officer could have slipped by mistake and slammed a detainee into the wall. He
also stated that if the lieutenant supervising an escort was not paying “very,
very close attention” and actively controlling the officers while trying to
communicate with the detainee, then “anything could have happened.”
Moreover, one current MDC officer implied, although did not state, in an
affidavit that some staff members bounced detainees off the wall. He wrote,
“There were some lieutenants like [Lieutenant 1] who would [rein] in an officer
for bouncing a detainee against the wall, but there were probably other
lieutenants who would let more slide.”
A federal agent who served on the INS’s Special Response Team that
transported many detainees to the MDC said he witnessed MDC staff members

10

briskly walk compliant detainees into walls without slowing them down before
impact. During two escorts we viewed on videotape, we observed officers escort
detainees down a hall at a brisk pace and ram them into a wall without slowing
down before impact, just as the INS agent described.
Further, an attorney for one detainee said he observed MDC staff
members slam his client against the wall. The attorney said that after his visit
with his client in February 2002, MDC officers escorted his client out of the
visiting room and threw him up against the wall face first. The attorney stated
that the officers then removed his client’s shoes and banged them against the
wall right by his face, clearly intending to intimidate him. According to the
attorney, this incident was not recorded by a video camera.
In our review of the videotapes, we saw staff members slam one detainee
into two walls while he was being escorted from a recreation cell to a
segregation cell. In another incident, we saw staff members forcefully ram a
second detainee into two walls while he was being escorted from the recreation
deck to a segregation cell. On several videotapes leading up to and following
these incidents, we did not observe any conduct that would justify staff
members using this amount of force on either of these detainees. Instead, the
videotapes show that both men were compliant before and during the escorts
when staff members slammed and rammed them against walls.10
Many of the detainees also alleged that they were slammed against the
wall in the sally port at the bottom of a ramp where a t-shirt was taped to the
wall.11 The t-shirt, which is discussed below in greater detail under “T-Shirt
with Flag and Slogan,” had a picture of the U.S. flag and the phrase “These
colors don’t run” on it.

These incidents are discussed below in detail under “Improper Application and Use of
Restraints.”
10

11 Several officers and two INS agents stated that when the detainees were removed from
their transport vehicles, they were pat searched against the wall, right where the t-shirt was
located. One officer who worked in R&D said that when staff members pat searched detainees,
they leaned the detainees into the wall and placed their faces on the t-shirt.

11

Image 1: The t-shirt in the sally port.

Two staff members, Lieutenant 1 and a staff member from R&D, told us
they observed blood on the t-shirt. Lieutenant 1 stated some of the bloodstains
looked like a couple of bloody noses smudged in a row, and other stains looked
like someone with blood in his mouth spit on the t-shirt. None of the current
or former staff members we interviewed said they knew how blood got on the
t-shirt. Moreover, none of the INS agents who brought the detainees to the
MDC recalled any of the detainees being bloody before they arrived at the sally
port. While we cannot say definitively whether the blood was from the
detainees, the fact that two staff members saw blood on the t-shirt where
detainees were “placed” provides some evidence that detainees were slammed
into the t-shirt, as many alleged.
In addition, our investigation revealed that at least one detainee likely
received a bruise on his arm from being slammed into a wall.12 In his
interview, the detainee said his bruise was caused by officers who repeatedly
slammed him against the wall in R&D. According to Lieutenant 2, who
examined the detainee when he arrived at the MDC, the detainee did not have
any bruises when he entered the MDC during the evening of October 3, 2001.
However, when the detainee left for court the following day, he had a large
bruise on the side of his right upper arm. A videotape of the detainee’s bruise
showed that it was very dark, circular, and about the size of a tennis ball.
Lieutenant 2 said that when he observed the bruise on the detainee’s arm the
next day, he concluded that the bruise was caused in the MDC, but he did not
know how.

12 Two other detainees also maintained they developed bruises after being slammed into
the walls.

12

The detainee’s bruise was examined by an MDC doctor on October 5,
2001, but the detainee’s medical records do not indicate what caused his
injury. On a videotape of his medical examination that we reviewed, the
detainee told the doctor that his bruise “happened here,” but the doctor did not
ask how he got the bruise and instead said he only wanted to confirm which
bruise he was supposed to examine.
The OIG obtained medical records for seven other detainees who alleged
MDC staff members slammed them against walls. These records do not
indicate that the detainees were bruised or otherwise injured from being
slammed against the wall.13 It is possible that the detainees were not injured.
However, if they were injured, there are several explanations for why their
injuries may not have been recorded in the detainees’ medical records. First,
some detainees did not seek medical treatment for their bruises because they
would have been required to request treatment from the same officers who they
alleged injured them. Second, detainees generally received their intake medical
assessments shortly after they arrived, before bruises would have developed
from being slammed against the wall in R&D. Third, MDC staff members who
observed the bruises did not always offer detainees the opportunity to visit
medical personnel, as one detainee alleged happened when he showed a
lieutenant a bruise he obtained following a “use of force” incident on April 2,
2002. Fourth, some MDC medical personnel may have failed to examine
detainees’ injuries or discern how they were injured, as shown on the videotape
of the medical examination of the detainee who had a bruised arm.
In our interviews of MDC staff members, most of them denied detainees
ever were slammed or bounced against the wall. A few staff members did state
that detainees were slammed against the wall, but only when they were
noncompliant.14 Almost all of the staff members we interviewed described the
detainees, with the sole exception of Zacarias Moussaoui, as fully compliant
and non-combative.

13 One detainee alleged his chin was injured by officers who slammed him into a wall, but
we did not find sufficient evidence to substantiate this allegation. The detainee obtained a two
millimeter long laceration on his chin the day he arrived at the MDC. He alleged that MDC
staff members slammed him into the wall while escorting him into R&D. According to staff
members who were involved in the escort or who witnessed the incident, the two staff members
escorting the detainee tripped over the feet of another staff member who was holding the door
open at the top of the sally port ramp. The detainee’s medical records indicate that at the time
of the examination, he stated that his injury occurred when he “tripped going up.”
14 One lieutenant stated that he observed several detainees not complying when they
resisted getting out of transport vehicles, refused to walk up the sally port ramp, or were
unresponsive to staff members’ commands, such as to lift their arms up during pat searches.
This characterization was contradicted by most other witnesses we interviewed.

13

But many of the staff members who told us the detainees never were
slammed against the wall or who said that the detainees were slammed against
the wall only when they were violent, also told us the detainees never were
pressed against the wall, the detainees’ heads never touched the wall, or there
never was a t-shirt with an American flag on it hanging in the sally port. These
claims were contradicted by numerous videotapes showing that staff members
routinely pressed detainees into walls, regularly instructed detainees to place
their heads against walls, and directed the detainees to face the t-shirt
prominently displayed for months in the sally port.

Image 2: Officers face detainee towards t-shirt with flag.

Image 3: Officers press detainees against walls.

14

Furthermore, nearly all of the staff members we interviewed stated that
the detainees were compliant, only a few of them were argumentative, and none
of them were violent or hostile.15 For example, a current lieutenant at the MDC
said that when the detainees arrived they were scared and visibly afraid. He
said it became apparent to him that the detainees were not terrorists.
In addition to alleging that they were slammed against walls, five
detainees alleged MDC staff members used force on their heads or necks. For
example, one detainee stated that when certain officers pressed him against
the wall, they put a lot of pressure on the back of his head and pressed his
forehead against the wall. He said whenever he moved his head away from the
wall, the officers banged his head on the wall. Similarly, another detainee told
us that on the day he arrived at the MDC, one officer grabbed the back of his
head in the elevator, pushed his whole face against the elevator wall, and
squeezed his head behind his ear as hard as he could. The detainee said, “It
was very, very painful.”
The two senior BOP officials we interviewed stated that pressing a
compliant, non-combative inmate’s head or neck against the wall is not an
appropriate control technique. The official responsible for training BOP officers
said it never was acceptable to touch or use force on an inmate’s head or neck
unless the inmate was violent and staff members were trying to defend
themselves. As noted above, BOP policy prohibits staff members from using
more force than necessary to control inmates, or causing them unnecessary
physical pain or extreme discomfort. See BOP P.S. 3420.09 and BOP P.S.
5566.05.
Lieutenant 1 identified two officers who regularly pressed detainees’
heads against the wall. He said one officer put detainees’ faces against the wall
and screamed at them, and the other officer frequently put his hand on the
back of detainees’ necks and put their heads on the wall.
When we interviewed the two officers Lieutenant 1 identified, however,
both denied ever pressing detainees’ heads into the wall or ever witnessing any
officer touch a detainee’s head or neck. One of the officers commented to us
that, “there could be serious damage” if officers put detainees’ heads on the
wall.
Similarly, nearly all of the other current and former staff members we
interviewed maintained they never saw or heard of staff members touching
detainees’ necks or heads, or pressing detainees’ heads against walls. One
15 While the detainees were largely compliant, staff members occasionally had to enter a
few detainees’ cells and use force to prevent detainees from engaging in conduct that violated
ADMAX SHU rules, including peeling paint off the walls, injuring themselves, hiding from
cameras, or refusing to come to the cell door to be handcuffed.

15

former officer stated, “we don’t put hands on their heads,” and another former
officer said officers specifically told the detainees not to place their heads
against the walls.
However, several videotapes showed officers pressing detainees heads
against the wall. One tape showed an officer controlling a detainee by his head
and firmly pressing his head and neck against the wall until a lieutenant,
noticing the video camera, slapped the officer’s hand away. On another
videotape, we saw an officer grab a detainee by his hair and his neck, and
firmly press his head against a wall. (Image 4) This particular incident was
witnessed by one of the officers who told us that he never saw any staff
member touch a detainee’s neck or head, or press a detainee’s head to the wall.

Image 4: Officers firmly press detainee’s head against the wall.

In sum, we concluded based on videotape evidence, detainees’
statements, and staff members who corroborated allegations of abuse, that
several MDC staff members slammed and bounced detainees into the walls
when they first arrived at the MDC and sometimes in the ADMAX SHU, without
justification and contrary to BOP policy. We also concluded that some staff
members, contrary to their denials, inappropriately used force on detainees’
necks and heads, and pressed their heads against walls.
2.

Bending Detainees’ Arms, Hands, Wrists, and Fingers

Ten detainees alleged that while their hands were cuffed behind their
backs, MDC staff members inappropriately twisted or bent their arms, hands,
wrists, or fingers during escorts on the ADMAX SHU or to and from R&D,
causing them pain. The detainees said staff members bent their arms up into
the middle of their backs, pulled their thumbs back, twisted their fingers and

16

wrists, and bent their wrists forward towards their arms (referred to by MDC
staff members as “goosenecking”).
As noted above, BOP policy prohibits staff members from using more
force than necessary to control an inmate. Similarly, BOP P.S. 5566.05, “Use
of Force and Application of Restraints on Inmates,” authorizes staff members to
use force on inmates only as a last alternative after all other reasonable efforts
to resolve a situation have failed. In our interviews with two senior BOP
officials, they indicated that twisting or bending hands, wrists, or fingers of
compliant inmates is an inappropriate control technique. The BOP official who
is responsible for training new BOP officers on restraint and escort techniques
stated that staff members should not use pain compliance techniques, such as
bending fingers or twisting wrists, unless the inmate is noncompliant or violent
and confrontation avoidance through communication has failed. He stated
that using pain compliance methods under any other circumstances would be
using more force than necessary on an inmate and thus would violate BOP
policy.
Two lieutenants and an officer told us that MDC staff members twisted
and bent detainees’ hands, wrists, and fingers. Lieutenant 1 stated that one
officer always twisted detainees’ hands during escorts, even when they were
being compliant. He said that he had to correct this officer not to hold
detainees’ fingers or hands “in a manner which causes unnecessary pain.”
Lieutenant 2 told us he saw officers unnecessarily gooseneck detainees’ wrists
and said he had to correct them. In addition, an R&D staff member told us he
saw officers control detainees by bending their wrists down in “modified
gooseneck holds.” He stated that these holds were “modified” because the
officers were not bending detainees’ wrists in order to hurt them, unlike the
gooseneck hold. However, he said that the modified gooseneck holds made the
detainees uncomfortable and caused some detainees to complain that they
were in pain.
Other current and former MDC staff members we interviewed told us
different things with respect to whether they or other officers bent detainees’
thumbs and goosenecked their wrists. Some said officers never were supposed
to hold or bend detainees’ thumbs, and they never saw or heard of staff
members bending detainees’ thumbs or goosenecking their wrists. Others said
it was appropriate to bend detainees’ thumbs, gooseneck their wrists, or use
pain compliance methods if the detainees were being noncompliant or
combative, although many of them said the detainees never were noncompliant
or combative. One lieutenant told us that it was possible that officers
intentionally twisted the injured hand of one detainee who argued with the
officers, “just because it’s human nature.”
Moreover, contrary to some officers’ denials that staff members ever bent
detainees’ hands, wrists, or fingers, in our review of videotapes we observed

17

several instances when MDC staff members bent compliant detainees’ arms,
hands, wrists, and fingers for no apparent reason. For example, we saw a staff
member gratuitously gooseneck a detainee’s wrist during a routine escort, even
though the detainee was fully cooperative and compliant. (Image 5)

Image 5: Officer uses thumb to gooseneck compliant detainee’s wrist.

Based on the consistency in the detainees’ allegations, witnesses’
observations, and videotape evidence, we believe some staff members
inappropriately twisted and bent detainees’ arms, hands, wrists, and fingers,
and caused them unnecessary physical pain, in violation of BOP P.S. 5566.06.
3.

Lifting Detainees, Pulling Arms, and Pulling Handcuffs

Several detainees alleged that MDC staff members carried them, pulled
their handcuffs or waist chains, dragged them, or lifted them off the ground by
their restraints and arms. Some detainees also alleged staff members pulled
their arms up while their hands were cuffed behind their back, which exerted
great pressure on their handcuffs and hurt their wrists. Many of these
allegations related to the detainees’ first day at the MDC.
For example, one detainee stated staff members dragged him along the
ground from R&D to his cell on the ADMAX SHU the day he arrived at the
MDC. Similarly, a second detainee alleged MDC staff members pulled him by
his arms from R&D to the ADMAX SHU. Furthermore, a third detainee told us
that staff members linked their arms through his cuffed elbows to lift him off
the ground every time they moved him for the first three days he was at the
MDC, even though he was compliant. Another detainee said that staff
members lifted him off the floor by his chains and ran with him, even though
he was fully restrained and compliant.

18

According to the senior BOP official responsible for training BOP officers
on restraint and escort procedures, it is unnecessary and inappropriate for
staff members to lift compliant inmates’ restrained arms up behind their backs,
even to pat search their lower back area. He also stated that it is not
appropriate for staff members to lift or carry inmates if they are compliant and
willing to walk on their own. He said using these techniques on compliant
inmates violates the BOP’s policies because it can cause the inmates
unnecessary pain. As noted above, BOP policy prohibits staff members from
using physical violence, causing inmates unnecessary physical pain or extreme
discomfort, or using any force beyond that which is reasonably necessary to
subdue an inmate. See BOP P.S. 3420.09 and 5566.05.
Several MDC staff members and a detainee’s attorney told us they
witnessed staff members carry detainees, lift detainees, pull detainees’ restraint
chains, or pull detainees’ arms. For example, Lieutenant 1 stated he had to
correct an officer for making detainees walk on their toes by lifting their arms
or restraints in a painful way. Another MDC lieutenant said there were times
officers pulled on detainees’ handcuffs too much, and he had to slap the
officers’ hands away. In addition, one detainee’s attorney told us that even
though his client was in leg restraints, the officers hurried him down the hall
so quickly that they nearly were picking him up off the ground when they
brought his client to meet with him.
Most current or former MDC staff members we interviewed told us they
did not see, hear, or ever recall staff members carrying detainees, lifting
detainees, pulling detainees’ restraint chains, or pulling detainees’ arms to hurt
their wrists.
On videotapes of the detainees, however, we observed MDC staff members
carry compliant detainees, pull detainees’ arms in a way that painfully strained
their handcuffed wrists, and forcefully hurry detainees during escorts. For
example, we saw staff members in separate incidents quickly move two
detainees by carrying them horizontally to the floor, even though there was no
indication the detainees refused to walk. We also saw several officers raise
compliant detainees’ handcuffed arms up behind their backs in a way that bent
the detainees’ elbows and appeared to hurt the detainees’ arms and wrists.
(Image 6)

19

Image 6: Officers raise compliant detainee’s arms up behind his back.

The senior BOP official responsible for training new officers reviewed
some of these instances on the videotapes and stated that the officers’ use of
these techniques was inappropriate.
We determined from the videotapes and witnesses’ statements that some
staff members inappropriately carried or lifted detainees, and raised or pulled
their arms in painful ways. However, we did not substantiate detainees’
allegations that staff members dragged them on the ground, lifted them solely
by their chains, or refused to let their feet touch the ground for days.
4.

Stepping on Detainees’ Chains

Several detainees alleged that MDC staff members purposely stepped on
their leg restraint chains while they were stationary and also while they were
walking, injuring their ankles and causing them to fall. According to one
detainee, after staff members stepped on his leg restraint chain and caused
him to fall, they dragged him by his handcuffs and clothes, stood him up,
stepped on his chain again, and repeated the process.
The senior BOP official who trains new BOP officers stated that staff
members are never taught to step on inmates’ leg restraint chains, even if the
inmate is non-compliant, because there is no correctional purpose served in
doing so. In his opinion, the only reason officers would step on an inmate’s leg
restraint chain would be to inflict pain. Again, BOP policy specifically prohibits
staff members from using more force than necessary to control inmates,
inflicting unnecessary physical pain on inmates, or causing inmates extreme
discomfort.
20

Lieutenant 2 acknowledged that he observed officers step on detainees’
leg restraint chains when they were placed against the wall, although he said
he did not like it. He explained that because the detainees’ legs were spread
apart and the leg restraint chain was taut, the leg restraints could have
bruised the detainees’ ankles when officers stepped on the chain. Lieutenant 2
said he tried to correct officers when he saw them step on detainees’ leg
restraint chains.
An R&D staff member also said he saw officers step on detainees’ leg
restraint chains during pat searches in R&D. According to this staff member,
officers stepped on the detainees’ leg restraint chains when the detainees first
started arriving at the MDC, although they stopped stepping on their leg
restraint chains as time passed.
Similarly, an INS agent witnessed MDC staff members step on two
detainees’ leg restraint chains while firmly holding them against the wall. The
agent said the more pressure the officers put on the leg restraint chains, the
more the detainees squirmed and complained; and the more the detainees
squirmed and complained, the “worse it got” for them.
One MDC correctional officer who assisted with approximately 7 to 10
detainee escorts from R&D to the ADMAX SHU said he observed staff members
stepping on detainees’ leg restraint chains. The officer incorrectly thought that
security procedures required officers to step on detainees’ leg restraint chains
whenever they were stopped or whenever officers needed to remove their leg
restraints. The officer said staff members stepped on detainees’ leg restraint
chains when they came out of their cells before going to recreation, when
officers had to apply or remove leg restraints, or when officers escorting a
detainee had to wait for elevators or doors. He stated, however, that he
thought the officers only stepped on excess chain that was on the ground and
not on chain that was stretched tight between the detainees’ legs.
Our investigation found evidence that some detainees had substantial
bruises and scabs around their ankles caused by the leg restraints. For
example, we reviewed a videotape that showed that by one detainee’s second
day at the MDC, his ankles were badly bruised.16
Similarly, another detainee’s attorney said that he observed significant
black and blue bruises on his client’s ankles and that his client told him they
were caused by staff members who stepped on his leg restraint chains. Based
16 An MDC doctor who examined the detainee suggested in the videotapes that his bruises
were caused by irritation from the leg restraints and said that he recommended the detainee
wear his leg restraints over his socks to prevent further bruising. However, a videotape of the
detainee’s medical examination showed the detainee already had been wearing the leg
restraints over his socks.

21

on the statements of MDC staff members, we believe these injuries were the
result of staff members stepping on detainees’ leg restraint chains, although
tight leg restraints that restricted blood flow also may have contributed to
bruising around detainees’ ankles.17
In our interviews, numerous current or former MDC staff members who
handled the detainees asserted they never saw or heard of staff members
stepping on detainees’ leg restraint chains. Several of them, including a senior
MDC management official, said it never would be appropriate for staff members
to restrain detainees by stepping on their leg restraint chains, unless there was
an emergency, because it would have hurt the detainees’ legs or caused them
to trip.
However, these denials were belied by the statements of other officers,
which we described above. Moreover, despite the senior MDC management
official’s statement that it never was appropriate to step on a detainee’s leg
restraint chain, we saw a videotape in which he and another staff member
appeared to restrain a detainee by stepping on his leg restraint chain during a
non-emergency medical examination.18
Based on the consistency in the detainees’ allegations, eyewitness
statements by several staff members, videotape evidence of detainees’ ankle
injuries, and videotape evidence of the senior MDC management official and
another staff member stepping on a detainee’s leg restraint chain, we believe
some staff members violated BOP policy by stepping on detainees’ leg restraint
chains. However, the evidence is inconclusive regarding whether MDC staff
members stepped on detainees’ leg restraint chains while they were walking or
repeatedly tripped them and dragged them on the floor, as one detainee
alleged.
5.

Improper Application and Use of Restraints

As described in the June 2003 Detainee Report, the BOP treated all
September 11 detainees as “high security” inmates, which meant that they
were placed in the ADMAX SHU and subjected to the strictest form of
confinement whenever they were taken out of their cells. For example, the

17

We discuss this further under “Improper Application and Use of Restraints” in section 5

below.
18 In this incident, it appeared that stepping on the detainee’s leg restraint chain did not
pull on the detainee’s ankles and may have been intended to ensure that the detainee would
not hurt himself or others by bucking his legs. Yet, after reviewing the videotape with us, the
senior MDC management official continued to maintain that he did not step on the chain. The
other employee on the videotape acknowledged that he believed he and the senior MDC
management official stepped on the detainee’s leg restraint chain.

22

detainees were restrained with what the BOP calls “hard restraints:” steel
handcuffs, leg restraints, and sometimes waist chains.
Nine detainees alleged that staff members applied handcuffs or leg
restraints too tightly, punished the detainees by squeezing their handcuffs
tighter, did not loosen restraints after the detainees complained that they were
very painful, or left detainees restrained in their cells for long periods of time.
For example, one detainee filed a formal complaint against one officer for
squeezing his handcuffs tightly during an escort and causing his wrists to
bruise. Similarly, another detainee told us that some of the MDC staff
members intentionally hurt the detainees by tightening their restraints. This
detainee said that if the detainees were “mouthy” or cursed, staff members
punished them by applying their restraints tightly. He also said that if a
detainee complained that his restraints hurt, the staff members tightened his
restraints even more.
While the proper application of restraints may result in some discomfort,
the BOP prohibits staff members from using restraints to punish inmates,
cause unnecessary physical pain or extreme discomfort with overly tight
restraints, or restrict blood circulation in any manner. See BOP P.S. 5566.05
and 3420.09. When staff members apply restraints to inmates in “use of force”
incidents, for example, the BOP prohibits staff members from continuing to
restrain the inmates after they have gained control of them. See BOP P.S.
5566.05. In addition, the BOP prohibits staff members from applying
restraints to an inmate in an administrative detention cell, such as an ADMAX
SHU cell, without approval of the Warden or his designee. See BOP P.S.
5566.05.
The senior BOP official who trains new BOP officers stated that all BOP
officers are taught how to apply restraints in a way that does not cause pain or
restrict blood circulation. However, we observed a few instances on videotapes
when medical personnel examining a detainee determined a detainee’s
restraints were applied too tightly and needed to be loosened. While these
videotapes show that staff members applied some detainees’ restraints too
tightly, we did not substantiate particular detainees’ allegations that staff
members injured them by tightening their restraints or punished them by
applying their restraints too tightly.
However, our investigation developed evidence that staff members
punished at least two detainees by leaving them restrained in segregated cells
for at least seven hours. According to the senior BOP official responsible for
training new officers, inmates can be left in restraints in their cells only so long
as they are combative. He stated a lieutenant has to check on the restrained
inmates every two hours to determine if they are still physically combative. See
BOP P.S. 5566.05. As soon as a lieutenant determines the inmate has
regained physical control and is no longer a threat to himself, other inmates, or

23

property, his restraints must be removed. The official said staff members
violate BOP policy if they keep inmates restrained longer than necessary, or if
they restrain inmates to punish or discipline them. He further stated that if
inmates are being disruptive or noncompliant by yelling, it is entirely ineffective
to place them in restraints because handcuffing them will not stop them from
yelling. He said the only appropriate action would be to move them to another
cell where their yelling cannot be disruptive.
On November 8, 2001, two detainees began yelling in their cells and
banging on their cell doors in response to screams from a third detainee who
was in the medical room having a blood sample taken.19 On videotapes, we
heard a couple of detainees yelling, “What are you doing to [the third
detainee]?” immediately after the third detainee began screaming. We also
observed that as soon as these detainees began yelling and banging on their
cell doors, a senior MDC management official abruptly turned and walked out
of the medical exam room with his deputy following after him. Of the ten staff
members in the medical exam room at the time, only the senior MDC
management official and his deputy responded immediately to the detainees.
Shortly after the senior MDC management official left the medical examination
room, we heard a staff member, who sounded like the senior MDC
management official, say things to the detainees like, “What do you want?” and
“Are you done?”
Subsequently, according to staff members’ memoranda and official
reports, staff members activated an emergency alarm to request assistance on
the ADMAX SHU and performed an “emergency use of force” on the two
detainees who had yelled and banged on their cell doors. These memoranda
and reports allege that the two detainees were staging a group demonstration
and encouraging other detainees to riot and engage in a hunger strike. As part
of the “emergency use of force,” the two detainees were taken to recreation
cells, left there for about half an hour, and then transferred to segregation
cells.
In the videotapes of the two detainees initially being escorted from their
cells to the recreation deck, we observed that they fully complied with the staff
members and that the staff members were not aggressive with them. We saw
no “use of force” employed or needed during these escorts from their cells.20

The detainee alleged he was screaming in part because one of the officers had bent his
thumb back severely while his blood was being taken. While we could not determine by
viewing a videotape of the incident whether this officer had bent the detainee’s thumb back, on
the videotape it appeared that the officer held the detainee’s thumb during part of the medical
examination.
19

According to MDC policy, all “use of force” incidents must be videotaped and the tapes
given to the Special Investigative Section (SIS) as evidence to be stored in the SIS evidence safe
(continued)
20

24

While the two detainees were on the recreation deck, we heard staff
members discuss the incident off-camera. The staff members never indicated
the two detainees were inciting a riot or staging a group demonstration.
Instead, one staff member stated to the others that the ADMAX SHU could not
house the detainees adequately because there were too many detainees for the
staff to handle. Another staff member responded, “Well, things are quiet now.
They are not yelling or nothing.” Finally a third staff member, who sounded
like the senior MDC management official, replied, “Right. We gotta follow up.
We’ve got to leave them in restraints and make them behave – that this is not
appropriate.”
Shortly after this discussion, we saw on videotapes staff members
escorting the two detainees from the recreation deck to segregation cells.
These escorts were much more aggressive than the previous escorts to the
recreation deck. We saw the officers rush the detainees down the corridors,
slam one detainee into walls, ram the second detainee into walls, and hold both
of them by their heads or necks. Two lieutenants present during these escorts
submitted memoranda alleging that the two detainees were “placed against the
wall” because they were uncooperative or resisting staff members. On
videotapes of the escorts, however, the two detainees did not appear to be
uncooperative or resisting staff members.
The two detainees were then left in hard restraints for more than seven
hours in segregation cells.21 Although staff members submitted memoranda or
reports indicating that the officers had handled the two detainees in
accordance with BOP policy, the evidence we reviewed indicates that staff
members violated BOP policy by using more force than necessary to gain
control of the detainees – who appeared compliant – and by leaving them
restrained in their cells for an inappropriately long period of time.
Based on our review of the videotapes that were recorded at different
locations on the ADMAX SHU, it did not appear that the two detainees were
staging a group demonstration, inciting a riot, or doing anything but yelling
and banging on their cell doors in response to the screams of the third detainee
who was in the medical exam room. While detainees are not permitted to yell,
bang on doors, or curse at staff under ADMAX SHU rules, we do not believe the
two detainees’ behavior in this instance amounted to inciting a riot or required
them to be locked in hard restraints in segregation cells for seven hours.
Rather, the evidence suggests that in this incident, staff members used rough
treatment and restraints to punish the two detainees, in violation of BOP
policy.
for two-and-a-half years. However, there were no tapes of these detainees for this date in the
SIS safe, according to MDC officials.
21

An official report from the MDC states they were restrained from 2:00 p.m. to 9:10 p.m.

25

6.

Rough or Inappropriate Handling of Detainees

Several detainees alleged MDC staff members handled them roughly or
inappropriately, asserting that they were punched, kicked, beaten, or otherwise
physically abused.
According to the BOP official who trains new BOP officers, officers are not
to handle inmates roughly, aggressively, or in any manner that causes them
unnecessary pain. He reiterated that using any more force than necessary in
handling inmates violates BOP policy.
Several MDC staff members confirmed detainees’ allegations that officers
used unnecessary force and handled detainees roughly. A current MDC
lieutenant who was assigned briefly to the ADMAX SHU stated that a lot of
detainees were treated “pretty roughly” when they were brought into the sally
port and R&D. Another lieutenant said, “We were not using kid gloves with
these guys.”
In addition, two former MDC lieutenants and a current lieutenant stated
that some officers took their anger and frustration about the September 11
terrorist attacks out on the detainees. They stated they had to tell the officers
to “ease up” when handling the detainees, and they had to remove some
officers from escort teams because they were too rough with the detainees or
were not able to handle them professionally. One of the lieutenants said that
some officers “tried to prove that they were men or prove that America was
superior” by being unprofessional or overly aggressive with the detainees.
An R&D staff member said he and other R&D staff members had to take
officers off escort teams because they were “rambunctious” and “excited.” In
addition, the R&D staff member told us officers were unnecessarily rough while
pat searching the detainees the first few days they arrived. He commented,
“You feel bad if you’re roughing up someone who is crying.” This staff member
also stated that he witnessed officers take off detainees’ shoes during pat
searches in R&D and knock them against the wall right next to the detainees’
faces.
Despite these staff members’ statements, many other current and former
MDC staff members we interviewed claimed that officers never were aggressive
with or used unnecessary force on the detainees. Many also denied that
detainees were ever pressed or held to the wall. One lieutenant maintained
that the detainees were “treated with kid gloves.”
On the videotapes, however, we observed that staff members often
handled detainees roughly or inappropriately. For example, we observed that
staff members regularly pressed and held detainees to the wall. In addition, we
saw one officer sharply slap a detainee on the shoulder and grab another

26

detainee’s shoulder and push him. We also saw another officer firmly poke a
detainee in the shoulder without any provocation.
One detainee alleged that in late October 2001 staff members punished
him twice for talking too much by stripping him, giving him only a sleeveless
t-shirt, and locking him in a cell for 24 hours without food or blankets. A
second detainee stated he saw officers put the first detainee in cell number 1
with no clothes or blankets, and throw water on the cell floor. The second
detainee said that cell number 1 was the punishment cell and the officers kept
the first detainee in there all the time. A third detainee also told us that staff
members used cell number 1 to punish detainees.
The first detainee identified three staff members who allegedly punished
him by locking him in a cell in a sleeveless t-shirt without food or blankets.
When interviewed by the OIG, one of the staff members denied generally that
any detainees were mistreated. The other two staff members said the detainee
never was placed in a cell without food, although he had been placed on
suicide watch once or twice and was stripped, given a suicide watch gown, and
put in a different cell so he could be monitored.
However, the detainee’s medical records do not indicate that he ever was
suicidal or needed to be placed on suicide watch. His file also does not contain
any suicide risk assessments or suicide watch records. If the detainee was
suicidal, his suicide risk assessment or suicide watch should have been
documented, as was done for more than ten other detainees.
We did not receive any videotapes that showed the detainee being placed
on or monitored during a suicide watch, even though we received videotapes of
other detainees who were placed on suicide watch. However, we observed on
videotape an incident in which four staff members, including the two who
maintained the detainee had been suicidal, cornered the detainee in a
recreation cell while a lieutenant threatened him to stop inciting and talking to
other detainees. The lieutenant told him that if he did not do what the staff
members said, they would send him to a penitentiary where he would have
even less privacy and freedom than at the MDC. The lieutenant said, “You
think we can’t break you? [The penitentiary] will.” This incident indicates that
staff members were irritated with the detainee and lends credibility to the
detainee’s allegation that some of the same staff members later punished him
by locking him in a segregated cell because he talked too much.
While the evidence is not conclusive, it suggests that the detainee was
not suicidal and staff members inappropriately and unnecessarily stripped him
down to a sleeveless t-shirt and locked him in a segregation cell for 24 hours as
a form of punishment.

27

In addition, videotape evidence and witnesses’ statements indicate that
some staff members often handled detainees roughly or inappropriately.
However, we did not find evidence that staff members punched, kicked, or beat
detainees, as some detainees alleged.
7.

Conclusion

In sum, we concluded, based on videotape evidence, detainees’
statements, witnesses’ observations, and staff members who corroborated some
allegations of abuse, that some MDC staff members slammed and bounced
detainees into the walls at the MDC and inappropriately pressed detainees’
heads against walls. We also found that some officers inappropriately twisted
and bent detainees’ arms, hands, wrists, and fingers, and caused them
unnecessary physical pain; inappropriately carried or lifted detainees; and
raised or pulled detainees’ arms in painful ways. In addition, we believe some
officers improperly used handcuffs, occasionally stepped on compliant
detainees’ leg restraint chains, and were needlessly forceful and rough with the
detainees – all conduct that violates BOP policy. See BOP P.S. 5566.06.
B.

Verbal Abuse

Twenty-two detainees alleged that staff members verbally abused them by
calling them names, cursing at them, threatening them, or making vulgar or
otherwise inappropriate comments during strip searches. For example,
detainees alleged staff members called them names like “terrorists,” “mother
fuckers,” “fucking Muslims,” and “bin Laden Junior.” They also said staff
members threatened them by saying things like:
“Whatever you did at the World Trade Center, we will do to you.”
“You’re never going to be able to see your family again.”
“If you don’t obey the rules, I’m going to make your life hell.”
“You’re never going to leave here.”
“You’re going to die here just like the people in the World Trade Center
died.”
Several of the detainees said that when they arrived at the MDC, they
were yelled at and told things like:
“Someone thinks you have something to do with the terrorist attacks, so
don’t expect to be treated well.”
“Don’t ask any questions, otherwise you will be dead.”
“Put your nose against the wall or we will break your neck.”
“If you question us, we will break your neck.”
“I’m going to break your face if you breathe or move at all.”

28

One detainee stated that when the detainees prayed in the ADMAX SHU,
officers said things like, “Shut the fuck up! Don’t pray. Fucking Muslim.
You’re praying bullshit.” Another detainee alleged that when the officers were
mistreating the detainees, the officers sometimes said, “Welcome to America.”
The BOP P.S. 3420.09, “Standards of Employee Conduct,” specifically
prohibits verbal abuse of inmates, stating, “An employee may not use . . .
intimidation toward inmates,” and “[a]n employee may not use profane,
obscene, or otherwise abusive language when communicating with inmates.
[Employees] shall conduct themselves in a manner which will not be
demeaning to inmates.”
Nearly all of the staff members we interviewed denied ever verbally
abusing the detainees or witnessing any other staff member verbally abuse
detainees. Several of them denied ever hearing another staff member even
utter a curse word around the detainees. One officer told us that all the staff
members were “very polite” with the detainees and that they would ask the
detainees, “Can you please do this?” and “Can you please do that?” instead of
ordering them around.
However, in our interviews with several current and former staff
members, we found evidence that corroborated some of the detainees’
allegations of verbal abuse and refuted the officers’ denials. For example, one
current lieutenant told us that when some detainees requested more food, he
heard some officers respond, “You’re not getting shit because you killed all
those people.”
Another current lieutenant told us about one officer who referred to the
detainees as “fuckers.” In addition, a staff member from R&D stated that
officers cursed around the detainees, and told each other jokes and made
derogatory statements about the detainees during strip searches.22
One officer acknowledged to us that officers sometimes let their personal
feelings get in the way of their professional responsibilities and said things they
should not have said. Moreover, a former officer, who maintained that he and
fellow officers never verbally abused the detainees, frequently called the
detainees “terrorists,” “dirtbags,” and “scumbags” during one of our interviews
of him.
In addition to these current and former staff members, witnesses from
outside the MDC also provided some corroboration for the detainees’
allegations of verbal abuse. One detainee’s attorney said he heard MDC
22 Strip searches are discussed further below under section III (C), “Strip Searches of
Detainees.”

29

officers constantly refer to the detainee as “the terrorist,” “the 9/11 guy,” or
“the bomber.” Similarly, an INS agent told us the detainees were read “the riot
act” when they first were brought into the MDC.
We also found evidence on videotapes that suggested officers made
inappropriate statements regarding the detainees. For instance, contrary to
what many staff members told us, we heard on videotapes staff members curse
repeatedly around the detainees. We also saw staff members behave
unprofessionally during some strip searches, as the R&D staff member
described; on videotapes, staff members laughed, exchanged suggestive looks,
and made funny noises before and during strip searches.
We also observed one officer, who was assisting in a routine escort of a
detainee, suddenly shout to another staff member in a threatening way, “This
guy over here (gesturing to the detainee) thinks by getting nasty with a female
officer and disobeying orders, he’s going to get shit (legal calls) from you.” At
this point, the video camera operator admonished the officer to watch what he
said on camera. At the end of the escort, the officer leaned over to the detainee
and quietly said something that could not be heard on camera.
Similarly, as discussed above, we observed four staff members corner one
detainee in a recreation cell. A lieutenant told him that if he did not do what
the staff members said, they would send him to a penitentiary where officers
would “break” him. This incident is very similar to threats that another
detainee alleged a lieutenant made to him. The other detainee told us that a
lieutenant against whom he filed a complaint came to his cell and threatened
him by saying, “If you guys make too much noise, you’re going to the
[penitentiary]. And those guys are killers. You won’t survive an hour there.”
From the statements of several staff members and witnesses outside the
MDC and from the videotapes that we reviewed, we concluded that some staff
members violated BOP policy by verbally abusing some detainees.
III. SYSTEMIC ISSUES RELATING TO THE MDC
A.

Issues Addressed in the Detainee Report

The June 2003 Detainee Report described various issues related to the
treatment of detainees at the MDC, including problems with detainees receiving
timely access to counsel, detainees being held under extremely harsh
conditions of confinement such as cells being lighted 24 hours a day, detainees
being held in lockdown for at least 23 hours a day, detainees being placed in
full restraints every time they were moved, and detainees not receiving

30

adequate recreational opportunities.23 Because those issues were discussed in
detail in the Detainee Report, we do not repeat them in this report.
In the course of this investigation, however, we found other systemic
problems and further information on several issues previously discussed in the
Detainee Report regarding the treatment of MDC inmates, which we describe
below. These include staff members using a t-shirt taped to the wall in R&D to
send detainees an inappropriate message, audio taping detainees’ meetings
with their attorneys, unnecessarily and inappropriately strip searching
detainees, and banging on detainees’ cell doors excessively while they were
sleeping. In addition, we describe the difficulties we had in obtaining
videotapes from the MDC, despite our repeated requests, and our general
assessment of the cooperation and credibility of many officers we interviewed.
B.

Video and Audio Taping Detainees’ Meetings with Their Attorneys

We found that MDC staff members not only videotaped the detainees’
movements when taken from their cells to visit with their attorneys, they also
recorded detainees’ visits with their attorneys using video cameras set up on
tripods outside the attorney visiting rooms. In total, we found more than 40
examples of staff videotaping detainees’ attorney visits.24 On many videotapes,
we were able to hear significant portions of what the detainees were telling
their attorneys and sometimes what the attorneys were saying as well.
It appeared that detainees’ attorney visits were recorded intentionally. On
one occasion, an officer instructed the detainee not to speak in Arabic with his
attorney because the meeting was being videotaped. In another videotape, a
lieutenant told the detainee and his attorney that he had been instructed that
they were required to speak in English during the visit. We also observed on
several occasions that officers lingered outside the attorney visiting rooms and
appeared to be listening to the conversations.
Audio taping inmates’ meetings with attorneys is prohibited by federal
regulation. Chapter 28 C.F.R. § 543.13(e) provides that “Staff may not subject
visits between an attorney and an inmate to auditory supervision.” On
Many detainees said they declined to go to the limited recreation because it often was
offered only in the early morning when it was cold, and they had only short-sleeve jumpers and
no shoes. Some detainees also complained that they were routinely strip searched after
recreation, even though they were frisked before and videotaped during their recreation. In
reviewing the videotapes, we found that many times the detainees were in the recreation cells
before 7:00 a.m. and they appeared to be uncomfortably cold. We also saw videotapes of
detainees being kept in restraints during their recreation period.
23

24 Nearly every time we saw a detainee escorted to an attorney visit, his visit was
videotaped. While we could hear audio on each of these videotapes, sometimes it was difficult
to understand the detainees.

31

October 31, 2001, the Attorney General signed a directive that permitted
monitoring of attorney-inmate meetings only under limited circumstances
when the Attorney General approved the monitoring of the conversations and
notice was given to the inmate and the inmate’s lawyer. 28 C.F.R. § 501.3(d).
According to BOP’s Office of General Counsel, this authority was not used at
the MDC. In a December 18, 2001, memorandum to wardens in the Northeast
Region (which includes the MDC), M.E. Ray, the Regional Director, provided
specific guidance on videotaping attorney visits for the detainees: “Visits from
attorneys may also be visually recorded, but not voice recorded.” No BOP or
MDC memorandum specifically authorized taping attorney visits for the
September 11 detainees or identified reasons to depart from standard BOP
policy or the federal regulation.
When interviewed prior to the OIG obtaining all of the videotapes, MDC
Warden Michael Zenk told the OIG that, initially, attorney visits were video and
audio taped, but in November 2001, after one of the attorneys complained, the
video camera was moved far enough away that the audio of the visits was not
recorded.25 However, as late as February 2002, conversations between
detainees and their attorneys are still audible on many of the tapes. When
confronted with this information, Warden Zenk stated that the visits should
not have been audio taped. He also said his staff thought moving the camera
away from the attorney visiting rooms ensured that the visits would not be
audio taped.
Recording the detainees’ attorney visits also was not necessary for the
MDC’s security purposes. The attorney visits took place in non-contact rooms
separated by thick glass, and the MDC required the detainees to be restrained
in handcuffs, leg restraints, and waist chains during the visits.26 The detainees
also were pat searched or strip searched after these meetings.
Taping detainees’ attorney visits potentially stifled detainees’ open and
free communications with legal counsel and discouraged them from making
allegations against specific staff members. Nevertheless, in some of the taped
conversations, we heard the detainees tell their attorneys detailed allegations
about the poor and abusive treatment they had received at the MDC. They
described being slammed against the wall, physically abused, verbally abused,
and intentionally kept awake at night. Their statements were consistent with
what the detainees related to the OIG when they were interviewed months
later.

Warden Zenk arrived at the MDC in late April of 2002 and provided this information
based upon briefings by his staff members.
25

26 See the October 18, 2001, official memorandum from a senior MDC management official
to all MDC lieutenants.

32

In sum, we concluded that audio taping attorney visits violated the law
and interfered with the detainees’ effective access to legal counsel.
C.

Strip Searches of Detainees

Upon arriving at the MDC, consistent with MDC and BOP policy,
detainees were strip searched in R&D and provided prison clothing. Also in
accordance with MDC policy, the detainees were strip searched in R&D when
they returned from court appearances or anytime they left the MDC. Very few
of the detainees complained about the strip searches that occurred in R&D.
However, many complained about strip searches that occurred in the ADMAX
SHU.
Detainees complained that they were strip searched on the ADMAX SHU
for no apparent reason, either minutes after they had been thoroughly
searched in R&D and immediately escorted by officers to the ADMAX SHU, or
when they had not even left the ADMAX SHU. Several detainees also stated
that the staff members performing or observing the strip searches laughed at
the detainees during the searches. Detainees complained that the strip
searches on the ADMAX SHU often were filmed and that sometimes women
were present or in the immediate vicinity during the searches. A few detainees
maintained that MDC staff members used strip searches as a form of
punishment.
In R&D, the strip searches were conducted in a room that contained
detainees’ prison clothing. The room had small dividers along the wall that
blocked viewing from either side. When regular videotaping of the detainees
started in October 2001, the video camera operators turned off the video
cameras or filmed detainees only above the waist in R&D.
In contrast, on the ADMAX SHU the strip searches were conducted in
either the multipurpose medical examination room, which is completely visible
to anyone in the main ADMAX SHU corridor and the recreation cells, or in one
of the empty cells on the range. Furthermore, many of the strip searches
conducted on the ADMAX SHU were filmed in their entirety and frequently
showed the detainees naked. Staff members consistently stated in interviews
that filming a strip search in its entirety was against BOP policy.27 While on
some occasions the filming of the strip search was partially blocked by an
officer observing the strip search, this did not appear to be an intentional
strategy to give detainees more privacy. In a few videotapes, we heard the
officers laughing while observing the strip searches.
27 BOP officials informed us that there is no national policy specifically prohibiting
videotaping inmate strip searches. BOP P.S. 5521.05 provides that the strip search “shall be
made in a manner designed to assure as much privacy to the inmate as practicable.” However,
the very act of filming the entire search seems to run counter to this policy.

33

It does not appear that the MDC issued written policies regarding when
detainees were to be strip searched. According to the detainees and MDC staff,
the strip searches on the ADMAX SHU were conducted on the following
occasions: (a) always when detainees entered the unit; (b) sometimes when
they departed from the unit; (c) often after attorney and social visits on the
unit; (d) infrequently after recreation sessions on the unit; and (e) infrequently
before medical examinations on the unit.
Staff members informed us that when the detainees arrived on the
ADMAX SHU, the detainees had to be strip searched even if they had just been
strip searched moments before in R&D.28 Sometimes the same officers who
were present for a detainee’s strip search in R&D were present for the
detainee’s strip search on the ADMAX SHU. Several of the videotapes showed
detainees’ confusion as they futilely tried to explain that they had just been
strip searched in R&D.
On the ADMAX SHU, whenever the detainees were outside their cells,
they were handcuffed at all times and almost always were placed in leg
restraints. As noted above, attorney and social visits were held in no-contact
rooms separated by thick glass, detainees were restrained, and the visits were
filmed. Nevertheless, detainees often were strip searched after their attorney
and social visits. In interviews with the OIG, several officers stated it was
standard MDC policy to strip search detainees following attorney or family
visits, but they could not point us to any written policy. Yet, even if such
searches were consistent with policy, they were applied inconsistently to the
detainees and appeared to be unnecessary. Indeed, some staff members told
us that the reason attorney and family visiting rooms were on the same floor as
the ADMAX SHU was to avoid having to strip search the detainees.
Several detainees alleged that sometimes women were present during
strip searches on the ADMAX SHU, which one detainee told the OIG he viewed
as an affront to his religious beliefs.29 During several of the videotaped strip
searches, female voices can be heard in the background. In addition, one
videotape shows a female staff member walking in the vicinity of a detainee
undergoing a strip search.
Some detainees complained that the strip searches were used by the
MDC staff as punishment. For example, in one videotape four officers escorted
However, we found that detainees who were taken off the ADMAX SHU to other locations
in the institution, like the health unit or meeting rooms, were not always strip searched when
they returned to the ADMAX SHU.
28

29 BOP policy does not address whether staff members of the opposite gender may be
present during strip searches, but BOP P.S. 5521.05 requires that staff of the same gender
conduct the strip search unless there are exigent circumstances that are documented.

34

one detainee into a recreation cell and ordered him to strip while they berated
him for talking too much with other detainees and for encouraging them to go
on a hunger strike. We could see no correctional purpose or justification for
strip searching this detainee, who had just been taken from his cell, pat
searched, and then escorted into the recreation cell by the four officers.
In sum, we concluded that it was inappropriate for staff members in the
ADMAX SHU to routinely film strip searches showing the detainees naked, and
that on occasion staff members inappropriately used strip searches to
intimidate and punish detainees. We also questioned the need for the number
of strip searches, such as after attorney and social visits in non-contact rooms
where the detainees were fully restrained and videotaped.
D.

Banging on Cell Doors

Many detainees alleged that officers loudly banged on their cell doors in
an attempt to wake them up, interrupt their prayers, or generally harass
them.30 Under MDC and BOP policy, counts were conducted throughout the
day and night, including midnight, 3:00 a.m., and 5:00 a.m.31 During these
counts, officers were required to see detainees’ “human flesh.” See BOP P.S.
5500.09. As a result, officers were permitted to wake detainees up at these
times if they could not see their skin.32 According to the officers, during the
counts the detainees usually waved their hands from under their blankets,
which generally were pulled over their heads to block out the cell lights that
were illuminated at all times until at least February 2002.
While several detainees acknowledged to us they understood that the
officers were required to conduct periodic counts, these detainees alleged that
several officers went beyond what was required for the count by kicking the
door hard with their boots, knocking on the door at night much more
frequently than required, and making negative comments when knocking on
the door.

30 Due to the physical characteristics of the metal cell doors and the acoustics on the
range, the sound from a light knock on a cell door would reverberate loudly inside and outside
the cell. Officers complained to us and to each other on videotapes regarding the loud sounds
that came from the detainees banging on the cell doors.

Counts on the ADMAX SHU were actually double counts. One officer went through the
entire range and conducted a count, and then immediately afterwards a second officer
conducted an independent second count. At the end, the officers confirmed that they counted
the same number of detainees.
31

32 BOP P.S. 5500.09 directs staff members to use a flashlight judiciously during nighttime
counts, but to use enough light that there is no doubt the staff member is seeing “human
flesh.” On the ADMAX SHU, however, for months the cells continually were lit by two lights.

35

For example, one detainee claimed that officers kicked the doors non-stop
in order to keep the detainees from sleeping. He stated that for the first two or
three weeks he was at the MDC, one of the officers walked by about every 15
minutes throughout the night, kicked the doors to wake up the detainees, and
yelled things such as, “Motherfuckers,” “Assholes,” and “Welcome to America.”
Similarly, another detainee stated that when officers kicked the doors to wake
the detainees up, they said things like, “Motherfuckers sleeping? Get up!” A
third detainee also claimed that a few officers made loud noises at night to
keep the detainees awake and that these officers appeared to have fun
conducting the counts by knocking on the cell doors. Another detainee said
that officers would not let the detainees sleep during the day or night from the
time he arrived at the MDC in the beginning of October through mid-November
2001.
One detainee’s attorney told us that his client stated that every time he
fell asleep the officers came and kicked the doors to wake him up. The
attorney told us that the detainee said this was not part of the officers’
prescribed counts, but that the officers would watch the in-cell cameras and
come kick on the doors as soon as they thought the detainee was asleep.
The officers we interviewed denied that they gratuitously or loudly
knocked, kicked, or banged on the detainees’ doors. One of the officers stated
that for the counts, including the ones in the middle of the night, he knocked
on the detainees’ cell doors and might have used his foot, but he did not kick
the doors very hard. This same officer stated that another officer also used his
boot to kick cell doors for counts, but he said that neither he nor the other
officer ever used expletives with the detainees or said anything inappropriate or
unprofessional. Nevertheless, this officer acknowledged that the detainees
experienced “sleep deprivation” from a combination of having cell lights
illuminated around the clock and the frequent counts. Another officer
confirmed that detainees often were awake for the midnight and 3:00 a.m.
counts.
Because the detainees were not moved from their cells during the night,
staff members were not required to video record nighttime activities. As a
result, none of the videotapes we reviewed showed the ADMAX SHU at night or
showed the officers conducting counts at night. Due to the lack of videotape
evidence and officers’ denials, we were unable to substantiate the detainees’
allegations that the officers gratuitously banged on the cell doors or woke up
detainees unnecessarily. However, the combination of cells being continuously
illuminated and the BOP requirement that officers had to see the detainees’
skin during each count in the evenings caused detainees to be awakened
regularly and suffer from sleep deprivation.

36

E.

T-Shirt with Flag and Slogan

As discussed above, many detainees alleged that staff members slammed
or pushed them into the wall in the sally port where they were pat searched
upon first arriving at the MDC. Numerous detainees recalled that a t-shirt was
taped to a wall and that their faces were pressed against the t-shirt. For
example, a detainee told us that staff members put his face right in the t-shirt,
like he had to “kiss it.”
In 11 videotapes we reviewed of a detainee entering the MDC, the staff
members placed the detainee’s face or head against or right next to the t-shirt
while performing a pat search and exchanging the detainee’s restraints.33 The
tapes show that the t-shirt was taped to the wall at eye-level near the bottom of
the ramp in the sally port, across from where vehicles parked to unload
detainees. In large, typed print on the t-shirt below the American flag were the
words, “These colors don’t run.” The t-shirt was taped to the right of a large,
red plastic sign reminding law enforcement personnel to lock up their firearms
before entering the facility. The t-shirt was noticeable, especially because it
seemed clearly out of place against a large block wall that was unadorned,
except for the professionally designed plastic sign.
Most officers we interviewed who were involved in escorting detainees
through R&D either specifically denied seeing the t-shirt or said they did not
recall a t-shirt on the wall in the sally port area. A few officers said they
remembered a t-shirt or flag on the wall in the sally port. While several
claimed that the t-shirt was innocuous and merely a patriotic gesture, three
staff members told us they were troubled by how the t-shirt was being used.
One of the three staff members worked in R&D and remembered that the
t-shirt was placed on the wall in mid-September 2001, several days after the
detainees began arriving at the MDC. He said that when the detainees were
pat searched, officers leaned them into the wall and placed their faces against
the t-shirt. The R&D staff member believed the purpose of the t-shirt was to
send a message to the detainees. He did not know when the t-shirt was taken
down, although he remembered seeing it on the floor once before it was placed
again on the wall.
The second staff member, a lieutenant, told us that he was disturbed
when he observed officers abusing the t-shirt by using it to “acclimate
detainees to the MDC” and send a message to them. He said that when the
detainees were in front of the t-shirt, the officers roughed them up and
33 As stated above, even though the MDC instituted a policy beginning in early
October 2001 to videotape all movements of detainees, including their escort through R&D,
approximately 13 of the more than 300 videotapes that we received showed detainees in R&D.

37

“manhandled” them more aggressively than necessary. He said he brought his
concerns about the t-shirt to the attention of a senior MDC management
official, and he thought the t-shirt finally was taken down after he reported it.34
The third staff member, also a lieutenant, said he thought the t-shirt was
“inappropriate and unprofessional.” He claimed that he took the t-shirt down
and threw it on the ground on five separate occasions, but staff members kept
placing it back up on the wall. The lieutenant said he finally threw it in the
trash before mid-November 2001.
We found, however, that in the earliest and latest videotapes that we
viewed – in early October 2001 and mid-February 2002 – the t-shirt was
displayed in the sally port where the detainees entered the institution. We
observed the t-shirt on the wall in every video of the sally port during this time
period. These videotapes contradict staff members’ denials that the t-shirt
existed and the lieutenant’s claim that he took the t-shirt down five times and
finally threw it away before mid-November 2001.
These videotapes further show that the way staff members used the
t-shirt leaves little doubt that its placement was intentional. For example, in
one videotape a staff member loudly ordered a detainee to, “Look straight
ahead!” while he firmly pressed the detainee’s upper torso into the wall and the
t-shirt so that the detainee’s eyes were directly in front of the phrase, “These
colors don’t run.” Several other videotapes also indicate that the officers
intentionally placed the detainees against the wall on or near the t-shirt.
Three videotapes of the lieutenant who claimed that he removed the
t-shirt from the wall on five separate occasions showed him leading and
pressing detainees against the t-shirt when he was searching them. This
lieutenant never appeared uncomfortable with the t-shirt or the way in which it
was used, as he maintained in his interview with us. For example, in one
videotape he ordered a detainee to lift his head up twice until the detainee was
looking directly at the flag and the phrase on the t-shirt.
In our view, the way in which the t-shirt was used by staff members was
highly unprofessional. See BOP P.S. 3420.09 (“It is essential to the orderly
running of any Bureau facility that employees conduct themselves
professionally.”) We also did not find credible staff members’ claims that they
lacked knowledge about the t-shirt, especially when we subsequently viewed
videotapes showing several of these same officers in front of the t-shirt frisking
detainees.

34 The senior MDC management official denied that any lieutenant brought concerns about
the t-shirt to his attention until after it was already taken down.

38

F.

Obtaining Videotapes from the MDC

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, BOP Headquarters sent out a
national directive to all regional directors to install video cameras in each
September 11 detainee’s cell.35 Some MDC staff members told the OIG that the
cameras were installed in the detainees’ cells by mid-October 2001, although
we learned from other staff members that the cameras were not operating in
the cells until February 2002, which is the date on the earliest cell tape the
MDC provided us.36 A senior MDC official confirmed to us that the cell
cameras in the ADMAX SHU were not operational until early February 2002.37
He attributed the delay to logistical and electrical problems.
We determined that the MDC began on October 5, 2001, to videotape the
movements of the detainees with handheld camcorders. The impetus for this
practice was that a detainee complained to a judge on October 4, 2001, that he
had been physically abused by staff members upon entering the MDC the
previous day. According to an October 18, 2001, memorandum issued by a
senior MDC management official, the purpose of taping detainee movements
was to address “serious security concerns.” In a memorandum dated
October 9, 2001, the BOP Northeast Regional Director instructed all wardens
in the region, which included the MDC warden, to videotape any movement of
September 11 detainees outside their cells. The memorandum stated that the
videotape policy was intended to deter unfounded allegations of abuse by the
detainees. The memorandum also directed the wardens to preserve the
videotapes indefinitely.
After wardens complained about the difficulties of storing and purchasing
vast quantities of videotapes, the policy of preserving the videotapes indefinitely
changed when a new regional director, M.E. “Mickey” Ray, issued a
memorandum on December 18, 2001, which stated that videotapes had to be
retained for only 30 days. After 30 days, videotapes had to be recorded over or
incinerated. The only exception was for tapes showing “use of force” incidents
and incidents where a detainee alleged abuse; these tapes had to be kept for
two years and preserved as evidence in the SIS safe.

35 This policy was communicated by BOP Assistant Director Michael Cooksey to all BOP
Regional Directors in a series of video conference calls that occurred between September 13
and September 20, 2001.

When we requested the tapes in July 2003, the MDC had cell tapes for February 17,
2002, 3 days in March, 14 days in April, and every day from May through August 2002 when
the last September 11 detainee was transferred out of the ADMAX SHU.
36

37 Yet, this MDC official, in a memorandum dated October 5, 2001, certified that the in-cell
cameras were installed and operating in 31 cells on the South Tier of the SHU where the
detainees were held.

39

During the course of our investigation, we made several requests to MDC
officials for videotapes. However, the officials’ responses to our requests were
inconsistent and inadequate. In response to each of our requests, we obtained
additional videotapes that we previously had been told were destroyed or
reused.
When the OIG first initiated an investigation of the detainee abuse
allegations in October 2001, we requested all tapes for the detainees from the
date they first arrived to a date in November 2001. The MDC provided the OIG
with 14 tapes and indicated that tapes from other dates had been taped over or
destroyed.38
In the spring of 2002, the OIG requested from the MDC all videotapes of
the detainees from September 2001 to April 2002. Warden Zenk told the OIG
that copying such a large number of tapes would be onerous, that the MDC
already had given the OIG all the tapes relating to abuse allegations from
detainees, and that the MDC received permission in December 2001 to begin
recycling or destroying tapes. Warden Zenk and the OIG staff agreed that the
MDC would give the OIG nine days of videotapes that related to allegations of
abuse raised by detainees interviewed by the OIG. However, the OIG received
tapes for only six days, totaling approximately 45 tapes.
In June 2003, the OIG again specifically requested all the videotapes
pertaining to all detainees. In response, the MDC provided us with eight tapes
from the SIS safe that had not been provided previously.
In early July 2003, we met with an MDC Special Investigative Agent (SIA)
and asked for a further explanation of the MDC’s procedure for handling and
storing videotapes. The SIA mentioned a storage room, only accessible to the
SIS staff, in which he thought there still might be videotapes of the detainees
from October and November 2001. We requested that he send us those and
any other videotapes of the detainees that we did not already have. After about
a month, we still had not received the requested tapes, and we contacted
Warden Zenk to ask about the tapes. He referred us to a former SIA who
previously had been responsible for the videotapes and had since transferred to
the BOP regional office. We asked the former SIA for an inventory of the tapes
in the storage room.
Despite frequent prompting, we did not receive an inventory from the
MDC until August 13, 2003, approximately five weeks from the time we first
asked for the videotapes in the storage room. The inventory was largely
unhelpful in that it listed over 2,000 tapes, mostly from April 2002 through
38 Four of the 14 tapes provided by the MDC either were blank or did not have footage of
any of the detainees.

40

August 2002, and it was unclear whether the tapes were from in-cell or
handheld cameras. The earliest tapes listed on the inventory were from
February 17, 2002.
On August 20, 2003, we visited the MDC to make sense of the inventory
and visit the storage room where the tapes were located. The SIA we met with
in July escorted us to the storage room that was located in a second building of
the MDC. Upon entering the room, we immediately observed a significant
number of boxes of videotapes lining much of the wall. The boxes were clearly
marked in large handwriting, “Tapes” with dates beginning on October 5, 2001,
and continuing to February 2002. These tapes were the only ones omitted
from the August 2003 inventory of tapes that had been provided to us by the
MDC staff. The SIA said that he did not know why these tapes were not
included on the inventory. We took the 308 newly discovered videotapes to
review.39 These 308 tapes provided much of the evidence discussed in this
report corroborating many of the detainees’ allegations. Many of the tapes
contradicted statements of MDC staff members about the treatment of the
detainees.
Discovering such a substantial number of videotapes so late in our
investigation also caused a significant delay in our ability to complete this
report. Moreover, even with these newly discovered tapes, significant gaps
existed in the MDC’s production of videotapes. For example, we received less
than 15 tapes that depicted the detainees being brought into the MDC, either
for the first time or when they returned from court appearances or other
meetings.40 In addition, many tapes start or stop in the middle of detainees’
escorts. There also are no tapes from some “use of force” incidents, even
though these tapes should have been preserved for two years under BOP
policy. MDC officials could not explain these omissions.
As discussed previously, we confirmed many of the detainees’ allegations
by reviewing the tapes, even though the detainees alleged that the abuse
dropped off precipitously after video cameras were introduced. Several
detainees said that officers referred to the cameras as the detainees’ “best
friend.” Conversely, the videotapes did not refute any of the detainees’
We also took four tapes from February 17, 2002, that were listed on the MDC’s
inventory and a tape from April 2, 2002, that was not listed on the inventory. While searching
in the room, we noticed that there was no tape from April 2, 2002, the date that a detainee
alleged staff members physically abused him during a “use of force” incident. When we asked
the SIA where it was, he said that a senior MDC management official had it in his office
because he was reviewing it, and the SIA retrieved it from the office for us.
39

40 An MDC officer confirmed to us that not all escorts were recorded. He said that some
movements were not recorded because officers were unable to find a camcorder. He said that
while seven camcorders initially were purchased for the unit, over time the camcorders
disappeared.

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allegations. It is also apparent from our review of several hundred tapes that
the officers were cognizant of the presence of the cameras. In one tape, the
camera operator reminded an officer who was berating a detainee that the tape
was running, which caused the officer to control himself immediately. On
another videotape, when an officer was holding the head of a detainee firmly
against the wall, a lieutenant appeared to notice the video camera and quickly
swatted away the officer’s hand from the detainee’s head.
We also heard a lieutenant twice order someone to turn the camera off
when he was discussing matters with other officers that he apparently did not
want videotaped. A few minutes after giving his instruction to turn off the tape
and apparently not knowing that the audio was still running, this lieutenant
suggested how the officers could break some detainees’ hunger strikes: “We’ll
cure them . . . I want them to stay on a hunger strike. Don’t cure anybody; let
‘em stay. Let’s get a team. Let’s go with a tube. The first guy that gets that
tube shoved down his throat, they’ll be cured!” He then stated, “We’re going
hard,” to which another officer responded, “Outstanding!” The lieutenant
repeated his statement, “We’re going hard.”
Sometimes staff members’ remarks caught on the audio portion of the
videotape substantiated certain allegations by detainees about conditions in
the MDC. For example, detainees complained continually that they were
deprived of adequate opportunities to make legal calls. In an off-camera
remark, one of the lieutenants can be heard stating that the MDC official
responsible for giving the detainees their legal calls often waited to provide legal
calls until just before a detainee was scheduled to go to court. This confirmed
that the official was not regularly offering detainees legal phone calls as
required.
G.

Some Staff Members Lacked Credibility During OIG Interviews

The videotapes also led us to conclude that several officers lacked
credibility in their interviews with the OIG. In our interviews, most staff
members, particularly ones still employed by the BOP, denied all detainees’
allegations of physical and verbal abuse. In many cases, the staff members
were adamant that neither they nor anyone else at the MDC engaged in any of
the alleged misconduct.
Because of the delay in the MDC’s providing us the videotapes, for almost
all interviews of MDC staff members we did not have the benefit of the MDC
videotapes. Upon viewing them after the interviews, we saw that some staff
members engaged in the very conduct they specifically denied in their
interviews. This finding caused us to question the credibility of these staff
members and their denials in other areas for which we did not have videotape
evidence.

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For example, three staff members stated in OIG interviews that they did
not press compliant detainees against the wall because that would be
inappropriate. In viewing videotapes, however, we saw these same officers
pressing compliant detainees into walls. In addition, three other staff members
denied that they, or anyone else, had bent or twisted detainees’ arms, hands,
fingers, or thumbs. Again, we observed on videotapes these same staff
members twisting compliant detainees’ arms, hands, wrists, or thumbs.
Another former officer told us he never saw any officer bend detainees’ wrists or
pull their thumbs, but in one videotape we saw him bend a compliant
detainee’s fingers in a way that seemed very painful and did not appear to serve
any correctional purpose. Similarly, a lieutenant asserted that he never saw or
heard about staff members slamming, pushing, pressing, or firmly placing
detainees against the wall, but in a videotape we observed that this lieutenant
witnessed staff members forcefully ram a compliant detainee into the wall.41 In
a memorandum he submitted after the incident, the lieutenant described the
incident by writing, “The staff placed [the detainee] on the wall until they
gained complete control of the inmate and resumed the escort.”
Further, another lieutenant claimed to be very disturbed by the t-shirt
taped to the wall, but in several videotapes he led detainees right to the t-shirt
and exchanged their restraints while officers pressed them against the t-shirt.
In another example, an officer adamantly asserted to us that staff members
never cursed in front of the detainees. Yet, the videotapes showed several
instances when staff cursed in front of this officer and the detainees. In
addition, we noted one incident where this officer reminded a colleague that the
camera was recording when the colleague cursed about and harassed a
detainee.
IV. OIG RECOMMENDATIONS
We recognize that the MDC faced enormous challenges after the
September 11 attacks and that many MDC staff members responded to these
challenges by maintaining their professionalism and appropriately performing
their duties under difficult and emotional circumstances. However, we believe
some staff members acted unprofessionally and abusively. In Appendix A, we
describe these specific offenses and the evidence relating to them. We believe
that appropriate administrative action should be taken against those
employees.
In addition, we believe that the BOP and the MDC should review the
evidence from our investigation to better prepare for and respond to future
emergencies involving detainees, as well as to improve its routine handling of
41 This incident is discussed in detail under “Improper Application and Use of Restraints”
in section II (A)(5).

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inmates. We therefore offer a series of recommendations to address issues of
concern relating to the MDC’s treatment of the detainees.
1.

During our investigation, we encountered a significant variance of
opinion among MDC staff members regarding what restraint and
escorting techniques were appropriate for compliant and
noncompliant inmates. We recommend that the BOP provide clear,
specific guidance for BOP staff members on what restraint and
escorting techniques are and are not appropriate. This guidance
could take the form of written policy and demonstrations or examples
given during training. The guidance should address techniques at
issue in this investigation, including placing inmates’ faces against
the wall, stepping on inmates’ leg restraint chains, and using pain
compliance methods on inmates’ hands and arms.

2.

We found that the MDC regularly audio taped detainees’ meetings
with their attorneys, in violation of 28 C.F.R. § 543.13(e) and BOP
policy. We recommend that BOP management take immediate steps
to educate its staff on the law prohibiting, except in specific limited
circumstances, the audio monitoring of communications between
inmates and their attorneys.

3.

While the staff members denied verbally abusing the detainees, we
found evidence of staff members making threats to detainees and
engaging in conduct that was demeaning to the detainees. We
recommend that the BOP and MDC management counsel MDC staff
members concerning language that is abusive and inappropriate and
remind them of the BOP policy concerning verbal abuse.

4.

Because specific officers were not pre-assigned to escort detainees to
and from the ADMAX SHU, the lieutenants in charge of escorts used
available staff from throughout the institution for the escort teams.
Several lieutenants told us that the lack of designated teams
contributed to the potential for abuse on escorts. Likewise, while
specific staff members were assigned to the ADMAX SHU, we observed
on videotapes that staff members from all over the institution,
including staff members who had little or no experience handling
inmates, were on the ADMAX SHU and had physical contact with the
detainees. We recommend that institutions select and train
experienced officers to handle high security and sensitive inmates,
enforce the policy that a comprehensive log of duty officers and a log
for visitors be maintained on the unit, and restrict access to the unit
to the assigned staff members, absent exigent circumstances. MDC
staff members advised us that officer logs, visitor logs, and
restrictions on access to the unit were in place for the ADMAX SHU,
but the videotapes showed that the procedures were not followed.
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5.

By requiring that all detainees’ movements be videotaped and
installing cameras in each ADMAX SHU cell, BOP and MDC officials
took steps to help deter abuse of September 11 detainees and to
refute unfounded allegations of abuse. Once the MDC began
videotaping all detainee movements, incidents and allegations of
physical and verbal abuse significantly decreased. We therefore
recommend that the BOP analyze and consider implementing a policy
to videotape movements of sensitive or high-security inmates as soon
as they arrive at institutions.

6.

We found evidence indicating that many of the strip searches
conducted on the ADMAX SHU were filmed in their entirety and
frequently showed the detainees naked. The strip searches also did
not afford the detainees much privacy, leaving them exposed to female
officers who were in the vicinity. In addition, the policy for strip
searching detainees on the ADMAX SHU was applied inconsistently,
many of the strip searches appeared to be unnecessary, and a few
appeared to be intended to punish the detainees. For example, many
detainees were strip searched after attorney and social visits, even
though these visits were in no-contact rooms separated by thick glass,
the detainees were restrained, and the visits were filmed.
We believe that the BOP should develop a national policy regarding
the videotaping of strip searches. We also believe MDC management
should provide inmates with some degree of privacy when conducting
these strip searches, to the extent that security is not compromised.
In addition, MDC staff members complained to us and to each other
off-camera of inadequate resources on the ADMAX SHU to handle the
large number of detainees. Because a strip search involves three or
four officers, the BOP should review its policies of requiring strip
searches for circumstances where it would be impossible for an
inmate to have obtained contraband, such as after no-contact
attorney or social visits, unless the specific circumstances warrant
suspicion.

7.

We found evidence that some MDC medical personnel failed to ask
detainees how they were injured or to examine detainees who alleged
they were injured. We recommend MDC and BOP management
reinforce to health services personnel that they should ask inmates
how they were injured, examine inmates’ alleged injuries, and record
their findings in the medical records.

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V.

CONCLUSION

This report details our investigation of allegations of physical and verbal
abuse against some detainees at the MDC. It is important to note that these
allegations were not against all officers at the MDC, and that most MDC
officers performed their duties in a professional manner under difficult
circumstances in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. After the
attacks, the MDC staff worked long hours for extended periods, without
detailed information about the detainees’ connections to the attacks or to
terrorism in general. Moreover, some MDC staff members lost relatives,
friends, and colleagues in the attacks. The atmosphere at the MDC was highly
charged and emotional, particularly in the initial period after the attacks.
However, these circumstances do not justify any abuse towards any
detainee, as the BOP officers we interviewed readily acknowledged. We
concluded that some MDC staff members did abuse some of the detainees. We
did not find that the detainees were brutally beaten, but we found evidence
that some officers slammed detainees against the wall, twisted their arms and
hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains, and punished
them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time. We determined that
the way these MDC officers handled some detainees was in many respects
unprofessional, inappropriate, and in violation of BOP policy.
As described in detail in this report, we based our conclusion on a variety
of factors. First, the detainees’ allegations were specific and, although not
identical, largely consistent. In addition, several detainees appeared credible to
us when we interviewed them.
Second, the detainees did not make blanket allegations of mistreatment,
but distinguished certain MDC officers as abusive and others as professional.
Also, the detainees’ allegations about their treatment at the MDC contrasted
with their description of their treatment at other detention facilities. Most
detainees did not have complaints about their treatment at other institutions
or by other officers – their allegations of abuse generally were confined to their
treatment at the MDC.
Third, several MDC officers provided first-hand corroboration for
allegations of mistreatment, including the identities of the offending officers.
These officers also made distinctions among officers and practices, lending
credence to their testimony.
Fourth, we found unpersuasive the general and blanket denials of
mistreatment by many MDC officers who were the subjects of our review.
Some officers denied taking actions that we knew occurred based on videotape
evidence and other officers’ testimony, and other officers we interviewed
described some of their actions in terms that lacked credibility. For example,

46

some said that detainees never were pressed against the wall or even touched
the wall, which we know to be untrue. Others claimed that officers were
extraordinarily polite to the detainees, or that they never heard officers curse in
the prison, or that they treated the detainees with “kid gloves.” We found many
officers lacked credibility and candor regarding their descriptions of what
occurred in the MDC, which calls into question their categorical denials of any
instances of abuse.
Fifth, videotapes of officers’ interactions with detainees, which we were
ultimately able to obtain from the MDC after much difficulty, provided support
for the detainees’ allegations and also undercut the statements of various
officers. We were told that the abuse of detainees declined when the officers’
actions were being videotaped, which one would expect. Nevertheless, the
videotapes showed instances of a detainee being slammed against the wall and
detainees being pressed by their heads or necks, despite officers’ denials that
this ever occurred and despite statements by senior BOP officials that such
actions were not appropriate. Also, contrary to statements made by several
officers in their interviews with the OIG, we heard officers on the videotapes
using curses in front of the detainees and making derogatory statements about
detainees off-camera. The videotapes also confirm that officers placed
detainees against an American flag t-shirt in the sally port, which was taped to
the wall in the same place for many months, despite officers’ denials of the
existence of such a t-shirt or claims that it was removed after a short time.
Moreover, the videotapes showed that some MDC staff members misused
strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly
and illegally recorded detainees’ meetings with their attorneys.
In sum, we believe that the evidence developed in our investigation shows
physical and verbal abuse of some detainees by some MDC staff members. We
believe that the BOP should take administrative action against those employees
who committed these abuses. Further, we believe the BOP should take steps
to prevent these types of abuse from occurring in the future, including
implementing the recommendations we made in this report. We therefore are
providing this report to the BOP for appropriate action.

47