End to hunger strike sought
Prison officials file to force Dannemora escapee to eat
David Sweat, who escaped from a maximum-security prison in June 2015 with fellow inmate Richard W.
Matt, began a hunger strike last month when he was transferred to the Great
Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County.
Sweat’s refusal to eat or drink — prompted by his transfer from Shawangunk Correctional Facility in
Ulster County — spurred Superintendent Dennis
Bradford, who runs Great Meadow, to file a petition last week seeking a court order allowing them to forcibly feed, medicate and hydrate Sweat.
“When asked why he is engaging in the hunger strike ... Sweat articulated that his goal is to stop eating until he is transferred out of Great Meadow Correctional Facility,”
the petition states, adding that Sweat has a history of hunger strikes, including one that resulted in a court order being issued in December 2017 allowing prison officials to feed and hydrate him.
The petition states that Sweat “appears to be competent and able to care for himself, though he is choosing not to do so.” It also notes that doctors informed the inmate of the risks associated with involuntary feeding.
The petition requests immediate action by the court on the grounds that state officials said Sweat “risks imminent serious medical consequences including organ failure and death.”
Sweat, 41, and Matt, who was 48 when he was killed by law enforcement officials following the escape, pulled off an extraordinary plan that exposed systemic security breakdowns in the Clinton County Correctional Facility in Dannemora that led to the discipline of several officials at the prison.
Matt was serving 25 years to life for killing and dismembering an Erie County businessman in 1997. Sweat was convicted of killing a Broome County deputy in 2002 and is serving life without parole. He was also convicted of charges related to the escape.
A mix of poor supervision of correction officers and lax checkpoints for employees entering state prisons were among the issues exposed by the escape. The Times Union reported in 2015 that the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s own inspector general’s office had mishandled an internal investigation into a female employee’s personal relationship with one of the inmates.
The woman, Joyce E. Mitchell, smuggled tools into the prison that the inmates used along with power tools to cut through a steel wall in the back of their adjacent cells, law enforcement officials said. Mitchell also provided access to a cellphone that was used to contact one of the inmates’ relatives or friends, and had planned to be their getaway driver until she panicked and abandoned the plan, law enforcement officials said.