The Georgia sun scorched the slab of concrete beneath Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano’s body when nurses found him in a puddle of his own excrement, vomiting, according to a complaint.
Officers left Ramirez in an outdoor cell at Telfair State Prison on July 20, 2023, for five hours without water, shade or ice, even as the outside temperature climbed to 96 degrees by the afternoon, according to a lawsuit brought by his family. That evening, the complaint says, Ramirez died of heart and lung failure caused by heat exposure. He was 27.
Ramirez’s family, including his mother, Norma Bibiano, announced a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections on Thursday, alleging that officers’ negligent performance of their duties caused his death. The warden directed officers to check on inmates, bring them water and ice and limit their time outside, the complaint says.
The Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes, Jeff Filipovits, one of Norma Bibiano’s attorneys, said at a news conference in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta.
I mean, I’ve worked in agriculture pulling weeds in those temps and setting up irrigation lines. It was literally 30° F hotter in my job where I stand in front of the kitchen door a couple weeks ago. It’s a far cry from comfortable, especially if you don’t have access to water, but I can’t imagine dying from it, absent some other health condition that was aggravated by it.
Also, just to be clear, I absolutely think it’s abusive to leave an inmate in such conditions without access to water and shade, I’d just be surprised to hear it was fatal in an otherwise healthy young person.
The heat of a concrete cell is entirely incomparable to a wet field.
Lol, tell me you haven’t worked in agriculture without saying it. These are not wet fields, it was drip lines strung over pots with a black plastic tarp laid out underneath, so you get to enjoy the heat being reflected back up to you. Yet another liberal on the internet that wants to speak on behalf of people whose experiences they have no frame of reference for.
But you can leave. That’s a big difference between the two. If you feel bad, you can just sit down for a rest. I’m sure you got lunch too.
I don’t know why you’re trying to say your job was the same as a prison cell.
We’re simply talking about the heat being about to kill you, not the conditions it was endured in or what is right or wrong.
Like the guy you replied to, I think it’s abusive to do that to an inmate. I’m just genuinely surprised 5 hours in the sun at 35° would kill you.
Yes, clearly everyone is in a position to just walk off their job at any point in time, with no consequences for being unemployed.
I don’t know why you’re trying to say that the people who work these jobs, and largely live paycheck to paycheck, have the same sort of freedom as people who are financially stable. I was making my state’s minimum wage at the time, which was entirely insufficient to pay for any decent standard of living. My co-workers who were undocumented were paid even less, had no recourse if they were fired for complaining about conditions or working “too slow” according the bosses, did not qualify for unemployment insurance and had a significantly harder time finding new work than I would. Just like the majority of people out working on farms in the US today. But yeah, let’s pretend it’s as simple as walking off the job if it’s uncomfortable for everyone.
Your comments make it apparent that you’ve never worked these sorts of jobs or been in these sorts of conditions. What, you’re going to just walk off the job because it sucks and become homeless when the weather and working conditions suck? Because that’s the sort of choice that faces millions of people in the US today. It doesn’t even need to be in agriculture, you can find similar conditions in so many non-unionized positions doing things like landscaping, manufacturing jobs, kitchen work, etc. Florida literally just passed a bill that removed employer responsibility for providing rest and water breaks based on heat stress during work being performed earlier this year.
But sure, everyone has several months’ expenses in their bank accounts and work in a field where they can get another job from one day to the next…
What is the point you’re even trying to make here? You worked a rough job vis a vi you can excuse this horrible tragedy caused by the state? Like really, what the fuck is your point bro?
I want you to stand in a hot concrete cell in direct sun and try and compare that to a field.
A person working in hot conditioms has the ability to back out and find AC and shade if they are starting to feel heat sick. A prisoner just suffers.
It amazes me how incapable of a little empathy some people are. What the fuck is wrong with people?
Welcome to working in agriculture, where you don’t get to do this, unless you can afford losing your job. Keep on telling me how it is in a job you’ve obviously never worked, though.
I’m just guessing it’s a bit better to actually survive by walking off the job if needed than to just drop dead in a field. But, what do I know? I’m just a dumb heat stroke survivor from the south.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe a prisoner dying in a concrete cell is the same thing as having a job outside. Thanks for the enlightened conservatism.
How on earth is this enlightened conservatism to point out that these are not fatal temps for an otherwise healthy individual? I guess the whole population of the third world that lives in the tropics and doesn’t have air conditioning just have superior genes according to you? Fucking hell, literally millions of people around the world live in conditions where they see temperatures as high, or even worse, and you want to pretend like it’s saying “Well this guy should have just been stronger and worked harder,” to point out that these conditions are generally not fatal for a person without other issues.
No, they are not good conditions, and the state has an obligation to provide decent conditions to all those who are incarcerated, but it’s asinine to act as though healthy individuals routinely drop dead from spending several hours at 96°F or higher in high humidity environments in absence of some aggravating condition.
Shit I didn’t realize you’re a medical doctor or have a degree researching heat effects on humans!?
Victim blaming
How? Yes, it is absolutely abusive behavior, but these are hardly the worst conditions people work in. It’s literally been hotter and with higher humidity in New York for a couple of weeks, let alone the sort of conditions that many work in in tropical countries, or even a significant portion of the South, a great number of which are not known for extraordinary labor rights. It’s entirely possible to point out that something should not be permitted, while also recognizing it generally wouldn’t be fatal to an otherwise healthy adult.
This does not attribute any blame to the individual, nor does it reduce the culpability of the officers that subjected them to these conditions, fwiw. Just because something should not generally be fatal does not in any way mean it’s okay to subject someone to those conditions.
Right, it’s not ok, so why are you rationalizing and excusing? They’re just criminals amirite