Thursday night at 7pm I released a video clearly showing that the Montgomery County Jail is unsafe at any speed. [1] The video I procured, was denied to exist once again, by the Sheriff’s office, when multiple public records requests were filed by the attorney representing the victim of the sadistic torture inflicted under the cover of authority.
The video has over 5,300 views on Facebook with over 135 shares. It has 600 views on YouTube [2]. This is in under 36 hours.
Yet not a single elected leader has issued a statement, asked for an investigation, called for intervention.
So what are they saying (we know they’ve all seen it- they do read my blog, they do have friends that keep tabs on what I’m up to.)
Here’s the mythical conversation, somewhere in the halls of local government yesterday:
Elected official 1 “Man, I’m glad I’m not Phil Plummer today, did you see that video Esrati released. Pepper spraying another inmate while restrained. This is going to cost the county.”
Elected official 2 “Yeah, it’s pretty clear that place is out of control. Can you believe Esrati asked for money to fund his “work” at the end, I’d donate if it meant he’d STFU and leave town. What an ass.”
Elected official 1 “Thank god he doesn’t work at the paper, or we’d all be in trouble. Not that they have anyone left that knows anything.”
Elected official 2 “You know he called me an idiot last week in his blog, over that real estate give away, he just doesn’t understand who we have to answer to.”
Elected official 1 “That guy probably had it coming anyway, I heard his rap sheet was a mile long. But, you know, we can’t keep quietly settling all these abuse of power, use of force lawsuits. We’re close to $10 million already. And his deputies keep crashing cruisers like dodgem cars.”
Elected official 2 “No one pays attention to county government, they get wrapped up in things like sanctuary city status and the heroin problem. Besides, my seat is safe.”
What we should have heard.
The county commissioners should have been asking the FBI, the Justice Department and the State Attorney General to come in and mount a full investigation. Plummer, and the command staff of the jail, should all be placed on immediate unpaid leave, and they should be asking for help from the police chiefs through out Montgomery County to come together to put a plan in place to safely run the jail.
The City of Dayton, the largest customer of the Jail, should have said that they will no longer use the county jail as long as Plummer and his current command staff are in charge. Efforts should be made to either release their prisoners to community control, or moved to other facilities. A clear statement should be made that the jail isn’t a safe place and that it isn’t acceptable for our citizens. They should launch their own investigation.
All other jurisdictions that use the jail, should have made similar statements.
There should also be a request to have state oversight on the failures of the Jail, the Sheriff and the County to release requested information though the public records requests.
Anyone found to be impeding the release of footage, reports, documentation that was legally requested [3]should be charged with a crime, fined, and fired.
Since the County Prosecutors office didn’t issue an immediate statement condemning any of this, the Prosecutor should be asked to resign. This is his job, not mine.
Crimes were clearly committed in the county jail, not just on Oct 17, 2016, but over the last few years. It is his job to make sure that the people in charge of enforcing laws, aren’t committing crimes. Since Prosecutor Mat Heck can’t seem to do that, it’s time for him to go as well.
And in the hallways of the local media:
“How did Esrati get this story? How did he get the footage?”
“We can’t use it, he put his url on it. We’d have to credit him with breaking the story. We don’t do that- we just steal his stuff for our front page news”
“Did you see that he had the audacity to ask for donations? He can’t get paid for doing what he’s been doing for free”
“He said we don’t cover stuff because we get advertising revenue from political campaigns, the hospitals, the big businesses that run this city, how else can we stay in business? This town is going to shit because those morons they elect don’t have a clue on what they’re doing. It’s not our fault the people elect stupid people.”
“Nobody was bleeding, or died, that’s not news.”
You can tip your server www.esrati.com/donate [4] any amount is appreciated.
It seems that this video and surrounding detail demands further attention. However, beyond the assertion that there have been substantial views and every person in the area must know of this case … well, do they? You might be right that various officials do monitor your page. I know that is true regarding several civic sites. But, if the moCo Commissioners have not seen any of this and are uninformed then presenting them as negligent is just not right. Now, if you send a link to the 2/3 article w/ videro attachment to the MoCo addresses, then you can proceed as that stamps notification. Until you choose to do that and incl. forwards to City of Dayton officials then i hate to say; but, you’re just talkin’ to be talkin’.
@jack. You don’t know who I talk to. They saw it.
They got calls.
This is just another profound example of the insidious, nauseating soul-sickness we continue to see at every level of ‘government’ today, David. I am so glad you continue to publish these crimes against persons, these travesties, these barbarisms carried out against powerless citizens. We are seeing this bullying ugliness from the top on down…….from Trump to local jails. WTF? Time for all of us to circle the wagons – to stand for and protect each other from the undeserved ravages of hatred and power run-amok. Sending you a donation! Keep up the good work!
Kudos for the coverage of this kind of behavior by our local government David! It is time for these individuals to pay the piper. They need to be fired, replaced, and is totally unacceptable for a free society anywhere, including Dayton.
The taxpayer should be outraged this is the kind of service we receive in this town.
This should be a reminder that this may be the beginning of the tip of the ice berg and a major investigation warranted. In fact there are others like running fair elections by top officials, Our entire election process needs to be examined under a microscope locally. Lets have the right individuals be punished for this behavior; how do we expect anyone of us to believe in a system when we have these kinds of actions left unpunished!
This is what happens when we become complacent with no checks and balances in government especially locally. This blog serves as beacon of truth all you need to do is look at all the evidence on this blog!
David do not back down on your reporting keep up the great work!
Good show David; this took a lot of balls and I must say I hope you don’t get busted and put in the shitter; as they (Plummer’s Men in Black) are going to do a number on you, called Ouch!
This is very disturbing. Just plain torture. These officers need to be fired immediately. They think they can go around doing whatever they want and its sickening.
You don’t know the half of it. More to come
You have rattled the cage http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/county-commissioners-ask-for-civil-rights-investigation-into-jail/zTlT2wZvJBt6DzTR8vUBJO/
I see you didn’t get credited for breaking the recent story.
22/45 ran the footage, complete with my link. 2, 7 and the Dayton Daily haven’t.
Here’s their coverage.
http://abc22now.com/news/local/montgomery-county-commissioners-call-for-federal-investigation-into-jail
Good job on this, David! As Gary L pointed out, it’s all over the news now! I was watching channel 2 yesterday evening and was waiting for the guy they interviewed (one of the County Commissioners?) to mention you – or at least say something like “a vigilant citizen brought this to our attention”. I’m still waiting.
As Larry said – this took a lot of testicle fortitude to publish everything that you did. I hope there’s no fallout on this. As far as your CCW goes, you should have done what I did – get it in Warren County!
You and I haven’t agreed on much in the 30 years that we’ve known each other, but I think we both have a problem with elected “officials” also being the “head” of their respective party. While I’m (partially) OK with the Sheriff being an elected position (in theory, he should answer to the people), I have a major problem with the head law enforcement official being the head of his local party. I also have a problem with the amount of political influence that the local prosecutor’s office has. These should be non-partisan positions and those elected persons should be barred from participating in any political events. Just my $.02.
Keep up the good fight… and watch your 6!
As bubba jones mentions, the sheriff and prosecutor (among other positions – engineer, auditor, treasurer, etc) should NOT be partisan positions. I’ve always asked why that is or what’s the logic in it. I realize that the individuals on those positions can belong to the party of their choice, but they would have to make a very clear separation between their “work” and “personal” positions.