Maia Nehme, Contributing Photographer

In the lead-up to Election Day, criminal justice advocates condemned the presidential candidates’ lack of prison reform policy at a Saturday rally honoring a man who died in prison.

A dozen activists and community members gathered outside the Office of the Attorney General in Hartford on Saturday afternoon. Organized by Stop Solitary CT — an advocacy group that opposes solitary confinement and strip searches in prisons — the rally called for justice for J’Allen Jones, who died in March 2018 after he was forcefully restrained by multiple correctional officers at Garner Correctional Institution. 

Though the initial focus of the rally was urging the release of a video of Jones’ death, participants soon vented their frustration with a lack of oversight for the state Department of Correction — and their disillusionment with presidential candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

“Shame on either one of them who think that they can get our vote and not be accountable to us,” Stop Solitary CT organizer Barbara Fair said at the rally, noting that neither presidential candidate lists criminal justice reform as a priority in their agendas. “All we’re doing in this country [is] voting for the lesser of two evils. We’re not voting for somebody who really cares about our issues.”

A rally attendee named Fadel, who declined to share his last name with the News for fear of retaliation for his political beliefs, identified himself as a member of the Revolutionary Communists of America. Fadel said the lack of accountability for Jones’ death reveals a larger disinterest in justice for marginalized communities among Connecticut’s elected officials. 

He noted that the state’s police and correction spending has risen since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. The Census Bureau reported that the Connecticut government invested over a million dollars in police and the DOC in 2022, marking a two percent increase from fiscal year 2020.

For Fadel, the increase in funding goes against promises from elected officials that “they were going to fix things.”

“We are all oppressed under this system by the rich, the wealthy, the powerful,” Fadel said. “Neither party stands for us as working-class Americans, as the people of the United States, as the people of the world.”

Community members, activists rally around the family of J’Allen Jones 

Shortly after Jones’ 2018 death, his family filed a lawsuit against correctional officers and a nurse who were in Jones’ vicinity when he became unresponsive. Now, amid the ongoing lawsuit, Jones’ family is advocating for the video of the last half-hour of his life to be released to the public. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which is not involved in the suit, requested the video’s release but was denied by the Superior Court, which said that the video was sealed. The Appellate Court recently ruled that the video was not sealed and ordered the Superior Court to hold a hearing to decide if the video would be released.

Fair said she chose to hold the rally outside the Office of the Attorney General because of her frustration with Assistant Attorneys General James Belforti and Terrence O’Neill, who represent the correctional officers and nurse in the lawsuit and have fought requests for the video’s release.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General declined the News’ request for comment, stating that she cannot comment on pending litigation.

For Gus Marks-Hamilton, campaign manager for the ACLU of Connecticut, the resistance to release the video of Jones’ death reflects a lack of transparency from the DOC. 

“What happens behind the prison walls is not seen or heard about in the public,” Marks-Hamilton said. “The experiences that people talk about when they come home [don’t] necessarily have pictures, video, evidence. As horrible and as tragic as the video could be, it is actually demonstrating how people are being treated, particularly people that might be going through a mental health crisis.”

On the day he died, Jones — who was diagnosed with schizophrenia — was slated for a transfer to Garner Correctional Institution’s psychiatric ward for treatment. Fair noted that Garner is the DOC’s designated mental health facility, yet its correctional officers did not attempt to de-escalate Jones’ mental health crisis.

After Jones refused to comply with a strip search, multiple correctional officers pepper-sprayed him in the face, punched him and forced him onto a bed over a nearly half-hour period. The correctional officers and a nearby nurse did not administer CPR or call 911 for seven minutes after Jones fell unconscious. 

The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner classified Jones’ death as a homicide.

A spokesperson for the state DOC declined the News’ request for comment, noting that the DOC does not comment on matters of active litigation.

Terri Ricks, a formerly incarcerated person and member of the ACLU of Connecticut’s Smart Justice program, said deaths in Connecticut prisons tend to be overlooked. The state DOC reported 37 in-custody deaths in 2023, according to the Office of the Inspector General’s most recent annual report.

“Thank God that [Jones’] family is pushing for some sort of justice, some sort of accountability, or this would have got swept under the rug,” Ricks said.

The Office of the Attorney General is located at 165 Capitol Ave in Hartford.