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JAMES V. COOK
ATTORNEY-AT-LAw

REPLY TO: POST OFFICE BOX 10021
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32302

(850) 222~8080
FAX: (850) 561..Q836

June 21, 2009

Hon. Frederica Wilson
Florida Senate, District 33
18425 N,W. Second Avenue, Ste. 310
Miami Gardens, FL 33169
Mail and Fax: (888284-8589)
Dear Senator Wilson:
I understand you may have been contacted by the family of Darryl Joel McKenzie, DC# 653489,
Columbia Correctional Institution. Mr. McKenzie has alleged that several Columbia C.L officers
severely beat him and sprayed him with caustic chemicals in retaliation for threatening to file a
grievance against a Sgt. Ford at that institution.
My practice is focused on police misconduct. I was the attorney for Cassandra Collins in her jail
rape lawsuit against the late Gadsden County Sheriff W.A Woodham. Ms. Collins went on to
advocate for the extension of the legislation that makes staff sexual misconduct with inmates a
third-degree felony to county jails and private jails and prisons. You were fundamental to the
passage of that legislation and I had the good fortune to meet you during that legislative effort.
Every week, I get letters from Florida inmates, like Mr. McKenzie, who are singled out for severe
abuse for filing grievances and lawsuits against corrections officers. Florida corrections officers
contemptuously call these inmates "writ writers" and inmates are frequently told in no uncertain
terms that they will live in Hell until they stop filing grievances and lawsuits (or helping other
inmates to do so). In addition to beatings and gassings, inmates are denied meals, stripped
naked and forced to sleep on bare bedsprings, with temperatures turned down very cold, or are
placed in cells with other inmates with reputations for brutal and sometimes sexual aggression.
In recent years,· review of law enforcement video recordings has become a major corrective on
abusive law enforcement behavior as well as a means of exculpating officers wrongly accused.
However in the past year, the Florida Department of Corrections has implemented a policy to
refuse to let attorneys view use-of-force videos under the authority of§ 119.071 (3Ha}1 FIQrida
Statutes. claiming that prOViding such video would endanger institution security. I have copied
Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil on my objections to this policy but have received no reply.
I believe he is fundamentally gUided by good corrections principles and may ultimately support a
change in the law to eliminate the exemption where abuse by officers is alleged.
I don't know whether the video will show what Mr. McKenzie has described. Corrections officers,
like inmates, know where cameras are located. However I believe there is a very strong public
policy in favor of permitting public review of such evidence. I hope you will make this issue your
own and thereby bring a measure of justice to some of Florida's most vulnerable citizens.

Copy: Secretary Walter McNeil