Gutted, he left Blackie with a neighbor who promised to care for him. Duran loved his dog too much to face that risk. His mother told Duran that if he got arrested, she would be forced to put Blackie out in the street. He joined a gang and started stealing - first small things, then cars. Duran bought Blackie a spiked collar and took him everywhere Blackie became Duran's protector and his most devoted friend.Īt around 14, Duran started hustling. When Duran was threatened by other kids, Blackie squared off by his side and growled. He tied his blue bandana around the puppy's neck.īlackie grew into a large, heavily muscled pit bull. His mother worked late, so Duran would take Blackie into the streets with him, visiting friends and neighbors and meeting up with older kids in backyards and garages, and on street corners. All eight were previously associated with patrol dog programs in US prisons.Īdrian Duran with his mother at about age 4 in Los Angeles, before the family moved to Virginia.Įvery day after school, Duran would run home, bolt down the basement stairs, and open the door to the laundry room where Blackie waited for him, yipping in excitement. The path to Abu Ghraib A Department of Justice report named the private contractors hired by the United States as correctional consultants in Iraq. Human Rights Watch researchers wrote, in 2006, that they were unaware of a single other prison system in the world that used dogs to attack people in the confined space of a cell. Over the past six years, hundreds of incarcerated people have been bitten or mauled. At least 23 prisons in eight states have deployed attack-trained dogs on prisoners in recent years - Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia. Insider has identified 12 states that authorize their use against people in state custody. Two decades after the human-rights abuses unfolded at Abu Ghraib, almost all of these state prison systems continue to use unmuzzled attack-trained dogs. McCotter in New Mexico and Utah DeLand, Billings, and Bartlett in Utah Ryan and Stewart in Arizona DuBois in Massachusetts and Armstrong in Connecticut. Each had been a high-level state prison administrator or corrections commissioner before arriving in Baghdad.Īll eight, Insider has found, previously started, expanded, or administered programs at US prisons that authorized the use of dogs to attack and intimidate incarcerated people. A 2005 report from the Department of Justice's inspector general scrutinized the private contractors who helped to build and run Abu Ghraib, detailing the backgrounds of the eight corrections experts who selected the site, oversaw the rebuilding of the prison, and trained staff at Abu Ghraib: Lane McCotter, Gary DeLand, Terry Bartlett, Richard Billings, Larry DuBois, John Armstrong, Terry Stewart, and Charles Ryan. Yet the use of attack-trained dogs at Abu Ghraib appears to have been imported from the United States. "It was certainly fundamentally un-American." The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib "was inconsistent with the values of our nation," Rumsfeld said. In May 2004, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed Congress. Images of detainee abuse at the prison in Baghdad sparked global outrage when they appeared in 2004. Smith, threatens a detainee at Abu Ghraib. Frederick II later testified that Cardona told him he and Smith made a game out of using their dogs to frighten Abu Ghraib detainees until they urinated or defecated. His eyes are huge with dread.Ī US soldier named Ivan L. The detainee, later identified as Ashraf Abdullah Ahsy, is on his knees, and his arms appear to be cuffed behind his back. In another photo, Smith holds Marco back as the dog bares his teeth inches away from another detainee, this one in an orange jumpsuit. He cowers against the cell-block wall, his arms pulled protectively over his head. Mohammed Bollendia, the detainee, has been stripped naked. Cardona's Belgian Malinois is in a low, predatory crouch. Smith holds back his unmuzzled dog Marco, a large black shepherd who lunges against his lead. Santos Cardona and Michael Smith, corner a detainee at Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq used by the US-led coalition and the Iraqi government. In a photo taken in December 2003, two US military dog handlers, Sgts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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