Tag: Criminal Justice System

By A.L. Goodwin | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice On the evening of January 18, just after 9:00 p.m., Tina Peters was assaulted inside the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colorado—not in a yard or a common area, but in a narrow janitor’s closet, out of view of surveillance cameras. Peters had been filling a portable swamp cooler, a task other inmates routinely refuse to do, even as the prison overheats in the dead of winter due to a failing HVAC system. To access the water tank, she pulled the unit into the cramped closet, positioning her head and upper body between the door and the cooler—leaving her physically pinned in a space barely wider than the machine itself. As Peters maneuvered the unit, another inmate approached in an agitated state. The wom...