Below is a letter received several months back. As it is with our society, people generally have a tendency to forget about people who are incarcerated in the prison system. They are sadly considered as throwaways. This letter came in from someone on the inside of a military prison…
A LETTER FROM BEHIND THE WALLS
Jay-Ar D. Ruiz (Brig Confinement Number – 00129683RJ) is from Southern California. He enlisted in the Marines and while in military boot camp he apparently got into trouble. I’m not sure what he did, but his command sent him to the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar on January14, 2018.
Mr. Ruiz never completed/graduated Marine boot camp. For nearly two years, Ruiz has never been charged with a crime. He was held as a prisoner at the brig, and sat in segregated housing for twenty-three (23) hours a day for most of his brig confinement.
November 26, 2019, he was transferred to MCFP Springfield (United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners), and his BOP registration number is 17729-035.
During Mr. Ruiz’ incarceration, he was disruptive. He may have been disruptive because he was sitting in a military prison with no charges and for what felt to him, like an infinite amount of time.
To protest his treatment, during the summer of 2019, Mr Ruiz went on a hunger strike.
I’m not sure how long he abstained from food, but the Commanding Officer/Warden, CDR Cliff Uddenberg, tried to bribe Mr. Ruiz with Flaming Hot Cheetos. There is footage of CDR Uddenberg walking into a room with a bag behind his back in effort to conceal the contraband from the cameras.
WAS IT SULFURIC ACID
OR CHEETOS?
Mr. Ruiz ate the flaming hot Cheetos and quickly became terribly sick after the seasoned Cheetos arrived in an empty stomach. It didn’t take a doctor to figure out the flaming hot Cheetos began to eat away at his stomach lining.
It burned Ruiz’ stomach like sulfuric acid on the skin and was terribly painful.
Remember what your chemistry teacher always told you to warn you about the pain and damage from sulfuric acid. The chemistry teacher would say, “Poor Charlie who is no more, what he thought was water was H2SO4.”
At this point in his hunger strike, Ruiz was badly malnourished. CDR Uddenberg was in the process of bribing a pretrial prisoner with food that he knew would badly upset his digestive system and be terribly painful.
Prison overlords (and a few surviving Nazis), know that a prisoner writhing in pain as Flaming Hot Cheetos etches away at a stomach lining, is much easier to negotiate with.
Even though Ruiz was in agony and cried out for help, CDR Uddenber denied him medical care and sent him back to the prison’s segregated housing unit to prolong his suffering.
If we are not mistaken, isn’t there a paragraph in the Constitution about cruel and inhuman punishment for prisoners?
OIG COMPLAINT FILED
An Office of Inspector General (OIG) complaint was filed on behalf of Mr. Ruiz on November 22,2019, but Ruiz was quickly transferred to another prison (MCFP Springfield), on November 26, 2019.
This was obviously done to prevent the inspector general investigator from speaking to Jay-Ar Ruiz where he would surely have disclosed the warden’s unique method(s) of persuasion involving no food for a few weeks, then a free bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. Torture, by any other name, is still torture.
I know torture from a bag of Cheetos sounds funny. If you doubt the pain associated from quickly consuming a large bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos, try fasting for several weeks then have a bag. I believe you’ll find out just what kind of torture that is.
Although Jay-Ar Ruiz may not qualify as a veteran under honorable conditions, our military commanders should not behave in this manner and our prison systems, military or otherwise should adhere to some sort of ethical codes.
An American military brig is supposed to be an ACA accredited facility and should not tolerate this from staff members no matter what rank they hold. Your readers just would not believe some of the atrocities occurring in our military prisons.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ruiz’ family does not know their rights. Even if they did, they would be denied their rights unless they had a powerful law firm to drop a hammer on an ethically challenged military prison system.
Mr. Ruiz clearly has been unable to adapt to a military lifestyle, and in a lot of cases such as his, the military branch will release the service member rather than incarcerate them. It’s really better for both the individual and the military that they do.
While I cannot be certain, I’m pretty sure this is the kid that was put in pre-trial confinement for allegedly assaulting one of his DIs in Boot Camp. He wasn’t in my POD at the naval brig in Miramar. He was in POD 1 which was reserved for pre-trial guys, I was in POD 5. I was then transferred to Camp Pendleton’s Brig on 28 March, so I had minimal contact with him.
MY TAKE ON WHAT HAPPENED
My view of this situation is that, I do not think the leadership at Recruit Training Regiment handled the situation correctly from the get-go. For an allegation of simple assault, he should have been processed at Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD), San Diego, with perhaps a Summary Court Martial at the most.
Most people would have run it for NJB at the Battalion level, then processed him for administrative separation for his inability to adapt to military life, end of story!
I’ve never before been aware of ANY recruit ever being placed in pre-trial confinement at Miramar for any reason! This is simply an example of outrageous leadership abusing their power. They love to sadistically punish, when there was really no need for it.
His leadership thought, “well we want to make an example out of this fucking kid,” and “hammer him but good!” A reasonable thinking person would have determined that placing Ruiz in pre-trial confinement at Miramar for what he did was grossly overboard, and a huge waste of tax-payers’ money & resources. It was a gross error in judgement and huge overstep by his commanders!
This was done, all, so they could stroke their own ego’s and send a message of their sadism. I can hear them now, “we really stuck it to that kid, so we can make an example out of him for others to stay in line!” Ruiz was targeted much like Navy Chief Eddie Gallagher was targeted, without the Cheetos. It’s all a mind game by sadistic prison guards.
As to the Cheetos, anytime a kid goes on a hunger-strike, it makes the Brig Commander/Staff look bad. I actually started a hunger-strike myself in solitary confinement (Oct’18), but I could only last two meals. I’m just not the Mahatma Gandhi type.
Others went on strike during my time, and the staff tried everything to get them to stop, because it makes them look bad, and potentially exposes their own abuse of prisoners.
These Nazi prison guards will do anything to try and get a kid to end his hunger-strike, including providing a free bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. If it doesn’t kill him, he will at least start eating again from his hospital bed.
IT WAS SIMPLY OUTRAGEOUS
What Miramar’s Warden (Brig Commanding Officer) did below to Ruiz, really angers me. His actions were criminal in nature and should have been charged with prisoner abuse, hazing, or something! Some would call it hugely diabolical, and Machiavellian behavior, while others would call it merely conduct unbecoming an officer.
As the warden, he should not even have been interacting directly with the prisoner/detainee in the first place. As you know, in the military, we encourage handling things at the lowest level, not at the highest!
Trying to micromanage the situation, because the mere fact Ruiz had embarked on a hunger strike, made his command look bad, and put them in the spotlight! The prison warden didn’t like being in the spotlight. Too many other things might come out.
Transferring Ruiz to a federal facility is highly unusual and abusive in my opinion. There are many prisoners who have DD-214’s, yet remain in military prisons. Most do! Typically, only if the prisoner petitions to be transferred to a federal facility would they even consider it.
One fellow prisoner at Camp Pendleton petitioned the staff for a year, before they got tired of his constant petitioning, and finally transferred him to a federal facility. Since Miramar Brig did it on their own, then they were trying to get rid of Ruiz, so he didn’t bring any more unfavorable attention on the Brig Staff & Warden.
I feel bad for him. It’s just another example of abusive targeting by military leaders who are then never held accountable for their malicious actions and truly illegal behavior!
Thank you to MilitaryCorruption.com for helping to expose the RATS on both sides of the bars.
Forgive me, but I prefer to remain anonymous. You cannot imagine what these sadistic bastards can do to you behind bars. And, they really don’t care about any pesky Constitution that is supposed to prevent cruel and inhuman punishment.
