Cruel and Unusual

Three white Sing Sing prison guards wearing gas masks and armed with bear spray surround the cell diagonally across from me. I peer behind a white bedsheet that I've stuck two big paperclips through in order to prop them on my cell bars as I watch what unfolds. One of the guards holds a camera to bring a thin veneer of legitimacy to the event. An unmasked lieutenant Martinez facilitates the extraction from behind the guard with the camera. Perhaps, he's trying to display his manliness by not wearing a mask, or maybe he's not prepared for what will unfold. Before the spray is unleashed, they ask the man in 34 cells if he will comply with the officers to come out of his cell.

"Tony", a six-foot-two African American man in his early 40s stands sheepishly behind the bars, locked in the cell, and unwilling to come out. About a month ago, Tony arrived onto the gallery. He had just been cut by someone he owed money to and was admitted into involuntary protective custody (IPC). Ironically, I and about 9 other men had come to the same gallery on pre-honor block status. What possessed the Sing Sing administrators to house pre-honor block and IPC status men together still makes no sense to me, but as I've come to understand throughout all of my incarceration, the Department of Corrections makes little sense. Instead, I see it as God placing me in these situations to be an instrument of love and encouragement, and to also testify to the world about the events that occur behind the wall.

After about two and a half weeks, Tony, who had frequently used illicit drugs to self-medicate from his own trauma, began showing signs of mental deterioration. He began talking and yelling to himself, punching his locker, picking up his metal-framed bed and slamming it onto the concrete floor at all hours of the night and throughout the day. Because of this, I talked to the school psychologist about Tony, asking what could be done to help him. Unfortunately, she told me that unless an officer referred him to mental health, nothing could be done. I explained to her that our company is run by female correctional officers Benjamin and Vincent-Williams, and male officer Mayshack, three of the meanest, disrespectful, and most apathetic officers I've come across in my 20 plus year of incarceration. As a result, though they knew about Tony's mental deterioration, they responded solely by cursing at him while doing nothing to contact mental health providers.

The day before his extraction, I tried speaking to Tony. I was on my way to the Master's degree graduation, but I felt a prompting by God to speak to him. As the Lord would have it, I found a discarded Bible on the table right in front of our cells. I decided to pick it up and give it to Tony. I asked how he was doing, and he kind of just shrugged. I could tell from his eyes, he was halfway in and out of his right mind. I explained to him that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. Then I earmarked the book of Matthew for him to read. He thanked me and sat down and began to read as I was called to the graduation of which I was an alumni providing the musical entertainment. However, when I returned, Tony was up to his usual maddening antics of yelling and banging in his cell. I continued to pray for him throughout the night, but it didn't work.

When the morning count cleared, about five of the men in the involuntary protection unit were told to pack up their belongings because they were being shipped out of the prison. Tony was one of them. However, he was the only one that refused to pack up and leave. Being dead tired from a long day prior at the graduation event, and the long sleepless night that followed, I was trying to rest throughout the day in order to catch up on sleep. However, at around 3:30pm I heard arguing between the officers and Tony. They were giving him one last warning before contacting the extraction team in order to remove him by force. Tony didn't back down.

At around 4pm, the extraction team arrived with gas masks--giving Tony one final chance to comply. When he didn't, the officer flanking Tony's cell in the blind spot rushed in front of him and sprayed him with a three second blast of some type of mace. Tony fell back in his cell choking and struggling to breathe. He reactively grabbed his bed frame and propped it up against the wall by the door, yet not blocking it. The officer that originally asked if he would comply, asked Tony another time to accept the restraints (ie. handcuffs) through the bars. Disoriented and unable to breathe, Tony just flailed in his cell. The officer with the mace sprayed him a second time. Tony just grabbed his blanket and wrapped it around his face and body as he crumpled by the bed frame against the wall. The officer repeated again to accept the restraints, but Tony could do nothing but struggle for air in his lungs. He then lunged back to his window in his cell trying desperately to get air. That was when he was sprayed a third time.

Upon this spray, the toxic fumes dispersed into the air back onto lieutenant Martinez who began coughing and tearing up. One of the officers led the lieutenant off of the company as the entire gallery was being filled with the noxious spray. Being across from Tony's cell, it hit me first. I started coughing violently and tearing up. Then my lungs began to close in on itself. I struggled to take in a breath, but it was as though my lungs wouldn't work. I thought I was having some type of allergic reaction to the spray, and began panicking. I grabbed onto my metal sink and slammed the water button in desperation in order to wash some of the gas off of my face, from my nostrils, from my throat. I still couldn't breathe and next leaped to my window trying to put my face against the iron mesh in order to wheeze in some fresh air.

In a flash I remembered hearing when someone is having an asthma attack to have them breathe into a brown paper bag. So I just ripped my shirt off and cupped it around my face, gasping for any kind of air into my collapsed lungs. At that moment, I prayed to God to help me. I began to breathe in tiny sips of air followed by several rounds of a hacking cough. As I began to breathe a tiny bit more, I tried to slow down my heartbeat, which was pounding out of my chest. I could then hear that the spray was dispersing to the others. Men trapped in their cells began to cough violently. Some screamed out, "I can't breathe!" One man cried, "I have two stints in my heart! Get me out of here!" I heard the officers open Tony's cell, and some kind of scuffle ensued as his bed frame crashed to the floor of the company. I couldn't see anything else as I was just struggling to breathe myself.

With my face against the metal mesh of my open window, shirt soaked with snot and tears, all of these sounds echoed into the darkest part of my soul. In my mind, I cried out to God for help. I remembered a line in a book I had just read, called "He Came to Set the Captives Free" by Rebecca Brown, MD, where she said, "Are you willing, when a brother is sick, to say, 'Lord, let me share my brother's burden, let me literally have some of his weakness and/or pain so that you can heal him more quickly?' Yes we pray for healing and God heals, yes we rebuke Satan, but are we also willing to share the burden?"

I thought about Tony's burden of mental deterioration, of being sprayed and assaulted by guards, of his loneliness in time of need. I began to pray to God to let me manfully bear my brother's burden, and the burden of all of my incarcerated brothers suffering the same fate.

As my breathing began to slowly deepen, and the coughing became less regular, the men were all yelling to be let out of their cells. One officer was directed to allow us to go to the slop sink in the company in order to wash our faces and our noses one by one. I didn't say anything, and so was the last man to be let out. As I washed my face in the slop sink, a heavy sadness covered me.

I thought, "How is this justice?"

I made my way back to the cell and just laid down on my cot with my sheets over my face as the air was still diffused with mace. Tears began to well up in my eyes as I contemplated how Tony must have felt. Alone, frightened, broken, rejected, unfairly oppressed, angry. These were all of my feelings, too. The whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes, but I know the traumatic echoes of it will live in an unseen part of me forever.

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Paul V. Cortez is an incarcerated musician, composer, author, visual artist, and social justice advocate.

His debut classical music quintet composition, "Dawn of the Luminescent Crown" appeared at Trinity Church Wall Street's advocacy event, "Renewal: Mending a Broken System" (see You Tube). Paul also has written a special concert performed at the Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral called "The Cup of Gethsemane" (see You Tube for full concert).

In 2026, one of Paul's solo violin cello movements, "Lotus Petals Unfolding", was made into a music video starring world-renowned cellist, Arlen Hlusko. The video was made in conjunction with Tippet Rises Art Center.

In 2025, Paul won a classical music grant by the DeCoda music group which allowed him to produce a concert at Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Room. In addition, an album of his compositions was professionally recorded and is slated to be released by 2027.

Paul's popular song, "Voice to the Voiceless" was featured in the documentary, "Beyond" by film makers Michael Kleiman and Asia Johnson. (www.beyonddocumentary.com)

In 2023, Paul authored his second book, "For Treason of Innocence: A Treatise on the Theology of the Incarcerated, Liberative Justice, and Carceral Abolition" (self-published through amazon.com).

This was right after obtaining his masters degree in professional studies of urban ministry from New York Theological Seminary, which was at the time, the only in-person masters degree program for the incarcerated in the country.