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American Prisoners Claim Guards Tortured Them With Hot Sauce Worse Than Pepper Spray

American Prisoners Claim Guards Tortured Them With Hot Sauce Worse Than Pepper Spray

Their allegations are incredible.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

I've seen movies where guards give inmates an absolute walloping while they're in prison. I've also read accounts from Guantanamo Bay and the shit that those people were subjected to. But I don't think I've ever considered hot sauce as a means for torture.

But according to more than two dozen inmates from a prison in North Carolina, they underwent systemic and humiliating abuse from guards who used the spicy condiment.

The inmates have filed a lawsuit which claims they were forced to take part in a game called 'taking the sauce'. According to the Charlotte Observer, two officers poured the sauce into sandwich bags and inmates were forced to stick their fingers in and then lick it off.

US Prison
US Prison

Credit: Pixabay

One inmate says the sauce was higher on the Scoville scale than police pepper spray. If that wasn't shit enough, they also claim that they were forced to rub the sauce on their genitals and anus.

Apparently, it started as a perverse initiation for prisoners on road crew duty in rural Sampson County. Attorney Christian Dysart says: "We have good information that supervisors knew full well what was going on, witnessed it with their own eyes and - more egregiously - ignored complaints that came from members of the road crew."

Some officers would also allegedly put the sauce along the white line of a road and tell inmates to eat it off the ground. The sauce was so hot that it caused inmates to have blisters in and around their mouth and all over their skin. They also experienced vomiting and gastric distress.

Another part of the lawsuit, which you can read here, claims that the inmates were used by the guards as mules to smuggle contraband into the prison.

The statement reads: "The primary guards in charge of the road crew at the prison, began using their position to orchestrate a financially lucrative enterprise using the prisoners on the road crew to smuggle contraband into the prison. This contraband generated tens of thousands of dollars in illicit profits."

A $20 (£15.50) phone bought from Walmart could apparently be sold for as much as $300 (£232).

You can't make this shit up.

One of the inmates, Thomas Patten, who agrees that his credibility is limited because of his criminal past, has told ABC11: "I know I was wrong for what I done. I paid for it, but I shouldn't have had to go through what I had to go through."

It gets even weirder.


Credit: PA

Inmates were allegedly ordered to gang up and beat each other, with some being held down and have their genitals squeezed until they said certain racist phrases. One inmate claims that he was forced to lick another's feet while a different prisoner was made to go into a swamp to find a beer can despite not knowing how to swim.

They were told to find venomous snakes and kiss them as well as kill live animals with weapons or by throwing them into oncoming traffic.

The lawsuit claims racism was rife, with prisoners lined up 'lightest to darkest' and African-American inmates were refused cigarettes.

State Prison officials have investigated the matter, with Superintendent Lafayette Hall placed on paid leave, before he eventually resigned.

One prison officer also resigned while another was fired. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, SBI and FBI have investigated the claims, but no criminal charges were filed.

According to District Attorney Ernie Lee, there were discrepancies and inconsistencies in the inmate interviews.

A civil lawsuit is still pending.

Featured Image Credit: Pixabay

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