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Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Court

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 04:54:29 AM EST
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Only in America. Prison Nation. In Maryland, a 20 year old prisoner was killed on the prison bus on the way back to the jail from the courthouse. The murdered inmate had testified at another prisoner's sentencing hearing earlier in the day.

A state prison inmate was killed early Wednesday while riding on a bus with about 35 other inmates, authorities said. Phillip E. Parker Jr., 20, was slain by one or more of the other prisoners, state corrections officials said, but they would not divulge how he was killed or any possible motive.Parker was being returned to the maximum-security Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in downtown Baltimore after testifying in Hagerstown Tuesday at the sentencing of a fellow inmate.

Officals said the inmates were handcuffed and in leg irons, and that there were five guards on the bus. And still, one inmate gets killed right under their noses? Friday's Baltimore Sun reports Mr. Parker was strangled in his seat by another inmate who was later found to have blood on his wrists.

While a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction said the 35 inmates on the bus from Hagerstown to Baltimore should have all been in handcuffs and leg irons, Philip E. Parker Sr. said he couldn't understand how a properly shackled inmate could have committed a murder, how no one heard anything and how no one knew his son was dead until the bus was unloaded and he didn't get off.

"There is no way in this world," said Parker Sr., who has ridden that route as a prisoner himself. "Once you're shackled down properly, it is very hard to scratch your nose."

Parker -- who was 6-foot-6 and 200 lbs. -- had been in Hagerstown on Tuesday to testify in the sentencing hearing for Kevin G. Johns Jr., a convicted killer from Baltimore who strangled his 16-year-old cellmate at the Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown in January 2004.

Even stranger, is that Parker was testifying for the other inmate, not against him. It's still not known if the other inmate was on the same bus, but he was back at Maryland's Supermax Thursday night.

At the hearing, where Johns received a life sentence, he vowed to kill again unless he received psychiatric treatment. Parker was one of four inmates from the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore, known as Supermax, who had gone to testify in Johns' defense.

"DOC can't give him the treatment he needs for all his mental problems," Parker told the court, according to a Hagerstown newspaper. "He gets really paranoid. He gots a really short temper, right."

Parker was serving a three year sentence for unarmed robbery.

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    • Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Court | 13 comments (13 topical)
    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 05:21:27 AM EST
    Based on how you titled your post, you think that this sort of thing happens only in the US. The killing is despicable; no argument there. What's also despicable is the self loathing you express in the title.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#2)
    by soccerdad on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 05:27:43 AM EST
    Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Court from JR
    Based on how you titled your post, you think that this sort of thing happens only in the US. The killing is despicable; no argument there. What's also despicable is the self loathing you express in the title.
    WTF are you talking about? These guys are preprogrammed to respond in certain ways despite the evidence thats staring them in the face.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 05:54:51 AM EST
    Well, while TL is certainly consistently "down" on all the parts of America that don't operate according to her guidelines (aren't we all in some form or fashion?) the thing that gets me is that a simple google search can disprove such hyperbole. From BBC News:
    A prisoner who allegedly bludgeoned to death his Asian cellmate was "unnervingly calm" after the attack, a court has been told. Robert Stewart, 20, is accused of battering Zahid Mubarak around the head with a table leg at Feltham Young Offenders Institution in west London
    I guess the whole Left/Chicken Little thing is just a bit wearying. -C

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 06:08:01 AM EST
    Wow, James. If you spent that much time fact checking anything Bush does, maybe you'd have a clue.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 06:17:32 AM EST
    Why do you hate America, TL? (sarcasm) C'mon...the guy's in custody and is obviously compelled or induced to rat on another inmate and dies doing it...and your response is "it isn't just in America" and some incoherent diatribe about title of the story and libberuls (shoot the messenger, mayhaps)? My, aren't we in denial.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#6)
    by kdog on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 07:48:27 AM EST
    Moral of the story...don't rat. Did he have it coming, I have no idea. But anyone who's spent a day in prison should know, you rat and you pay the consequences.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 08:15:37 AM EST
    The part of the story that stood out most to me was that five guards were on the bus--for 35 inmates--and it happened under their noses. Either they let it happen or they were asleep instead of doing their job. They've been relieved of their duties pending an investigation. This didn't happen in an isolated cell block in the middle of the night. It happened in full view of 39 other people. And when the bus got to its destination, everybody, including guards, just got off the bus and left him slumped in his seat as if nothing had happened. This incident lowers prison guard mentality to a whole new level.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 08:28:16 AM EST
    Sometimes final justice is left to the prisoners themslves. Sure beats waiting 20 years for his lethal injection.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 09:27:41 AM EST
    Without getting into an extended discussion of complicity between guards and prisoners and why "rats" and "snitches" are used but universally despised by other prisoners and guards (responding to "whole new levels" of TL), there are **way** too many prisoners in our evil gulag and this type of thing is just endemic and emblematic... But, yes, "don't rat" is one good rule. N00bs or overly inquisitive inmates are often suspected of being "rats". Another good rule, especially for educated, white collar criminals, is don't feel superior and condescend to your fellow inmate, and don't indentify with the COs/staff instead of your new brothers/sisters (makes you look like a potential rat, among other things). You need a couple of friends and support or your very life is in danger. Martha Stewart appears to have been a much smarter and more humble person than I would have suspected for figuring this stuff out rather than acting like a haughty celeb who was better than the women around her. I'm not so sure whether the stockbroker/CEO types will handle prison this well (and no, "club fed" is not plush, not even the minimum-medium security camps).

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 10:09:29 AM EST
    Posted by: angelica on February 4, 2005 09:28 AM Sometimes final justice is left to the prisoners themslves. Sure beats waiting 20 years for his lethal injection. Parker was serving a three year sentence for unarmed robbery. Spoken like a true Republic. Why don't we just gas the whole lot and be done with it, then? According to the information presented here, the murdered person testified on behalf of the inmate. So he should be murdered for helping out? Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Jeralyn. It sure does appear to my eyes that this murder happened with the full knowledge and consent of the local authorities. It remains to be seen if one of them will 'rat' out the others to protect himself... and it sure does seem that the administration's cavalier attitude towards abusing those who have sinned in their eyes is rubbing off on the rest of the population.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#12)
    by Johnny on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 10:49:35 AM EST
    Sounds like another gene pool enhancement... Seriously, this is disturbing.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#13)
    by kdog on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 11:24:30 AM EST
    I missed that Tom in my rush to rail against rats, not my favorite people, slightly ahead of pond scum.

    Re: Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Cour (none / 0) (#14)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 02:11:02 PM EST
    Was that his reward from the persecution for making a deal? Get sent to a slaughterhouse? Nice job of witness protection. Great recruiting tool. Do these people eat bowls of retarded for breakfast? Truly a third world system to be proud of. The Iraqis are dying to tell us how much they like it too!

    Prisoner Strangled on Bus, Returning From Court | 13 comments (13 topical)