Last month, Jay Z and Yo Gotti helped 29 Mississippi inmates file a lawsuit claiming that people are dying because the state “has failed to fund its prisons,” as five inmates have recently died.
On Wednesday, Team Roc filed another civil lawsuit on behalf of 152 more inmates against the Mississippi Department of Corrections, requesting that the “barbaric” conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman be addressed.
“Many times, the food is adulterated with rat feces, cockroaches, rocks, bird droppings, and other foreign matter,” the lawsuit reads. “The toilets routinely back up and flood the prison cells, which allows fecal matter, urine and water to cover the floors and drain out into the housing unit’s common space…the portable water system at Parchman is contaminated with human feces, presumably from the sewer system. Prisoner-on-prisoner violence is rampant, and, at times, is facilitated by corrupt guards seeking to curry favor with inmates.”
Inmates also want a plan that will address their health needs.
“So bad is the medical care at Parchman that inmates have resorted to lighting fires in conditions of total confinement, where escape from smoke and flames is impossible, simply to draw attention to emergent medical issues occurring in the housing units.”
Back in August of 2018, the Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia E. Hall asked the FBI to help investigate the deaths of 15 inmates that occurred within a month.
The initial lawsuit that Team Roc filed dealt with the conditions that led to prison deaths, as three inmates were killed this year at the state penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi.
