April 7, 2013
SUBJECT: The GD+CP Administrators’ Routine Acceptance of Lies from their Subordinates
After writing several letters of inquiry to the United States Post office in the City of Jackson, Georgia—all were addressed to Postmaster Doug Gray—from early June to November, I became concerned when I got not one response month after month.
At some point I asked G-Unit Counselor Ricky Foskey if he would provide me the mailing address of the United States Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe in Washington, D.C. He provided it; and I wrote Postmaster General Donahoe.
Meanwhile, I continued to seek information locally. I wrote then “Designated Mail Room Officer” Goodman (because I had to correct a draft of a Motion that would soon be due in Court). I sent it to my lawyer so he could finalize it and send it to the Court of Appeals before the due date. He had to get a continuance as a consequence of it never having reached him despite it having had sufficient postage on the plain manila envelope. The then Designated Mail Room Officer Goodman was unresponsive to my letter.
After not having heard from me for nearly two (2) months, the lawyer then demonstrated an understandable degree of concern: he left California, and came to visit me. When he left the prison he visited the United States Post Office in the City of Jackson, Georgia. The only person he was able to talk to was a man who said his name is “Sammy”.
To make a long story short, when G-Unit Mail Officer Roland returned the no longer plain manila envelope to me unopened amost two (2) months later after I had sent it to my lawyer it bore a single “PRIORITY MAIL” sticker on it and a “POSTAGE DUE [request] of $5.95”. Please bear in mind that I did not ask to send the Motion via PRIORITY MAIL and that no one asked me if I wanted to send it via PRIORITY MAIL.
After writing the Postmaster in the City of Jackson, and getting no response about why my Motion had a PRIORITY MAIL sticker affixed to the manila envelope, undaunted I wrote a request to Designated G-Unit Mail Officer Roland. The following is a verbatim reprinting of that message:
TO: COII Roland G3-Mail Officer
FROM: Prisoner Brandon Jones G3-81
DATE: Jan. 22 ’13 12:00 p.m.
SUBJECT: Postmaster Please send me the name of the Jackson U.S. Post Office’s Postmaster
The G-Unit Mail Officer did not come into the G3-Cell Block, as he had been doing in most cases, to take part in the midday count. Officers Fincher and Russell conducted the midday count on that day. I folded the message so that only COII Roland’s name could be seen before asking him if he would give the message to COII Roland?
He held out his hand and said, “Yes.”
I gave the folded message to the Officer Fincher and he and Officer Russell left G3-Black.
Three hours later the Officer in G3’s Control Booth let me out of the cell that I occupy and slid the folded message back to me through the crack in the porthole. The following was written on a line below my original message:
Jackson U.S. Post Master Phil McRotch
I did not know that statement was a lie until I received a letter from Nancy Ross, a Manager of Marketing for the United States Postal Service’s Atlanta District. It read, in part, “contact Sherman Carter, the current Postmaster for questions regarding [my] mailing concerns”. Manager Ross also included a “Retail Prices and Fees as of January 27, 2012” chart—it having been one of the comprehensive “price and services” lists that I had asked her for.
Commissioner Owens, why did I need to write to the United States Postmaster General in Washington, D.C. for all those months while Postmaster Doug Gray was still on the job—since he did not actually retire until November 2012—if your Designated Mail Room Officers were physically going to the City of Jackon’s Post Office five (5) days a week—to pick up and deliver the GD+CP’s mail? It seems to me that one or more of them should have known the Jackson Postmaster’s status and told me about it.
I had been asking the GD+CP’s Designated Mail Room Officers Goodman, Johnson and Roland for that and other information for several months before Postmaster Doug Gray retired and /or before Officer Goodman was replaced by Officer Johnson and Officer Johnson was replaced by Officer Roland.
Sir, please allow me to bring your attention once again to the Department of Corrections’ Standard Operating Procedures, items 1 and 2 on page 4:
1. Authorization: Mail rooms will be off limits and out of bounds to all inmates/probationers and unauthorized staff;
2. Mail Room Officer: The Warden or Superintendent will designate a Mail Room Officer to process incoming and outgoing inmate/probationer mail. The Mail Room Officer will manage mail according to basic postal policies and GDC procedures governing inmate/probationer mail and will apply basic postal regulations governing the proper handling of the different classes of mail.
Commissioner Owens, logic—for me—suggests that at the GD+CP all of the designated mail room (and Unit) personnel have been intentionally withholding mailing information from me.
Why? Why are they allowed to keep doing that?
Even the G-Unit Manager B. D. Scott has deprived me of the information that I needed to properly conduct my mailing needs. For example, when I asked him “please check into how and why at least one of [his] Unit’s Security Officers felt that (s)he could get away with lying about the City of Jackson’s Postmaster’s name”, he showed very little genuine interest in how lightly his subordinates are inclined to treat such important subjects as a prisoner’s mail—not to mention the extreme childishness of the less than subtle double entendre of the erroneous name used (here read “Phil McRotch”).
Clearly there has been an unprofessional relationship shared with G-Unit, the GD+CP’s Mail Room Officers, and the now retired United States Postmaster Doug Gray. I suspect that the United States Postmaster General Donahoe is totally unaware of how illicit it has been over these last three (3) years.
Commissioner Owens, the spirit and the letter of the rules and regulations set forth in the GDC’s SOP are being disregarded as relates to mail handling.
Please investigate and see for yourself, Sir.
Respectfully requested,
Brandon Astor Jones
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