BONUS: The Blind Spot

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🗓️ 3 April 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Roger Latimer says he was beaten by guards in a security camera blind spot at Western Illinois Correctional Center. He complained at the prison. He complained to local officials. He asked medical staff to take pictures. Nothing happened. Then another prisoner, Larry Earvin, died after an altercation with guards in the same blind spot.

In this episode of WBEZ Chicago's Motive podcast, host Shannon Heffernan tracks the pattern of beatings in that blind spot, surfacing nine additional cases, sometimes involving the same guards, using very similar behavior in the same location. We ask the question of why this pattern persisted, even as prisoners like Latimer tried to stop it.

Season 4 of Motive investigates the hidden world of big prisons in small towns. Places where everyone knows each other and difficult truths get buried.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, consider this listener's Elsa Cheng here with an episode from our friends over at WBZ
0:05.1	Chicago and their podcast Motive.
0:08.2	In their newest season, they're investigating what happens behind the walls of small town
0:13.2	prisons, a world that is usually completely hidden.
0:17.3	They discovered stories of violence and cover-ups and the complicated intertwined lives of
0:23.7	prisoners, guards, and staff.
0:26.6	Here's the host of Motive, Shannon Hepanine.
0:32.2	A quick warning.
0:33.2	This podcast has descriptions of violence.
0:42.6	Can you walk me through what happened that day?
0:45.6	Uh, yeah.
0:48.6	Several inmates had assaulted correctional staff in Wesson Illinois, which caused the state
0:55.3	to wash out.
0:59.5	In September of 2017, Vanoco Washington was locked up at Wesson Illinois Correctional Center
1:05.1	in Mount Sterling, Illinois.
1:07.1	Guards from all across the state came to the prison to do a search for contraband.
1:10.8	Washington says things with staff had been particularly tense, and after the search,
1:15.0	some guards came back to his wing.
1:16.8	And they started using their sticks banging on the doors, telling everybody to get up and
1:22.6	step out of the sales.
1:25.0	Washington says guards lined up around the cell house.
1:27.9	One of the officers stood in the middle.
	...

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