Meanwhile, the NAACP’s Cofield began discussing Cible’s treatment with the governor’s office, with an emphasis on getting his location removed from publicly available “inmate locator” Web sites.
“We firmly believe that if [Cible’s] location remains in the public domain, it will only be a matter of time before [his] life is again placed in jeopardy,” Cofield wrote Baldacci.
Diane Sleek, Maine Corrections’s attorney, responded to Cofield in an e-mail: “Due to confidentiality laws, there can be no further discussion of this matter.” This prompted Cofield’s rejoinder: “Frankly, I do not understand why all of a sudden the [Department of Corrections] views issues of [Cible’s] security and safety a matter of confidentiality.” If the department had shown this same concern from the outset, he added, “it would have not have been necessary for me to write to the governor.”
On September 4, Cible was shipped out again — to a large, overcrowded, racially divided lockup in a distant state. His mother says that, in a call to his grandmother, Cible reported that he arrived at his new location just in time for a lockdown because of rioting inmates.
Early in the morning of September 5, Cible’s distraught mother, referring to his treatment, e-mailed the governor: “SOME INCENTIVE FOR OTHER INMATES TO TELL OF SUCH PLANS, WOULDN’T YOU AGREE?”
Later in the day, she had a reply from the governor’s deputy legal counsel, Karla Black, that the state of Maine is “currently taking security precautions to protect your son.” She said his location had been removed from the federal prison Web site.
On September 8, Cofield, of the NAACP, wrote Baldacci again, by e-mail. In a phone call, Cible had told him, Cofield said, that although he had been given a new name, “The prison staff has been calling [Cible] by both names in front of the other inmates.” The prisoners, he said, quoting Cible, “are not stupid and they now realize what is going on.”
Because of the “absolute danger” to Cible, Cofield asked the governor to ensure he is moved back to Maine — to the protective-custody wing of the Maine State Prison. Cible now believes he will be safest there because out-of-state prisons don’t have the focus on protecting him that the Maine prison would be forced to have due to the controversy surrounding him. “He is going through psychological trauma with his continuing fear for his life and well being,” Cofield told the governor. As of this article’s deadline, Cofield had not received a response from Baldacci.
The latest development: On September 10, Cible’s mother received a “stern” warning from an anonymous male caller, she said, that she was not to talk with me. She says she reported the call to the local sheriff’s office.
Cible’s mother says she once asked a Maine Corrections official why the department was treating her son the way it was, given that he had potentially prevented a slaughter. “‘He’s an inmate,’” she says the official replied. Prison Legal News editor Paul Wright suggests prisoners are treated with uniform callousness. But in Cible’s case he appears to be on the receiving end of special — and potentially deadly — punishment for his courageous act. He closed one letter to me with his name and then the address “Bitter Street. Irony, USA.”
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Lance Tapley: ltapley@adelphia.net
