A 42-year-old Black woman, Adrienne Boulware, has died in the custody of the California Department of Corrections at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. On July 4, prison guards exposed Boulware to extreme temperatures outdoors during a heatwave for 15 minutes, leaving her with just a small glass of water in the over 110 F heat. Boulware began to exhibit symptoms of heat exhaustion almost immediately after returning indoors. Two days later, she passed away while receiving medical care. Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura of the California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Boulware’s tragic death, and what it reveals about the dangers prisons place incarcerated people in as the climate crisis intensifies.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rallying the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. It’d be unimaginable to think that if I left a dog in the car with the windows rolled up under these heating conditions that I would not be held accountable by the animal and Humane Society. But the same thing is taking place right now in California with the women in Central California Women’s Facility. The same thing is taking place right now where women are being held in environments where the heat has reached a temperature of 110. As a result, a woman has died, and not to say how many more will die or what the state of these women are at this current time. Joining me today is Elizabeth Nomura. Welcome, Nomura. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what organization you’re representing at this juncture.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Again, my name is Leesa Nomura. I am the statewide membership organizer for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. We are a organization that’s been around for almost just shy of 30 years, and I have been a statewide organizer for close to three years, but have been connected with CCWP since I was incarcerated. And I’ve been home in January, it will be five years I have been released from prison. I am of Pacific Islander descent and I am very grateful to be here calling from Tonga Land, or commonly known as Los Angeles. Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Yeah. And thank you for that. Okay, so let’s get right into it. According to a report that just came out on July 6th, a woman died from heat exhaustion in Central California Women’s Facility. Talk about what’s going on with them conditions right now as we walk back through what happened with this system.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah. Tragically, a 42-year-old black woman, a very good friend of mine, of our sisterhood inside, Adrienne Boulware, just shy of coming home next year. It was 4th of July and she was being released for her meds and the institution was locked down because of course, on the holidays, there’s a lack of staff. And so because of that, on those days, the institution will be locked down because of lack of staff. And so it was med time. She was popped out for her meds. And in the configuration of the institution, the meds are not distributed to the cells like in some of the men’s joints. They have to leave their room, walk out of the unit and walk across the yard to the medical unit, stand in line with all of the other folks from the yard, and then wait in line for their turn to go up to the med window and then get their meds and then walk back to the door and then wait for whenever the housing staff in their air-conditioned cop shop is to walk to the door and unlock it and let them in.
And so apparently what the story is from our folks inside who we have direct communication with and tell us that Adrienne was out there in addition to the time it took for her to stand out there, wait out there and be exposed to above 111 degrees, I believe it was that day. What the temperature is and what the feels like temperature is always different, right, especially in the armpit of California, which is central California. And so Adrienne is standing out there and they said about 15 minutes. She’s waiting, she’s looking at the CO, he’s seeing her, she’s seeing him, and he is leaving her out there. And the whole time, there’s no water, there’s nothing out there for her to drink. And the only water she’s had the whole entire time is a little cup.
Mansa Musa:
Right, they give you water with your meds.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They give you water, and that’s all she’s had that whole entire time. And so by the time she went inside, she was let in, went inside, she was suffering from heat exhaustion, she was sweating, her roommates were concerned for her, helped her into the room. She was shaking. In the configuration of these units, the rooms hold up to eight people and there’s a shower, a toilet, and two sinks in there so they have access to shower anytime in those cells. Her roommates helped her into the shower. She went in and once she went in there to try to cool off, she collapsed. And she collapsed and she became incoherent.
They said that her legs were shaking uncontrollably and they then called out for medical help, in which case the call-out for medical emergency is 222. So if you can imagine that scene, all of the roommates pounding on the door screaming [inaudible 00:06:37]. So it was very frantic, and they’re just trying to do the best they could because of course they’re the first responders.
Mansa Musa:
Right. You’re exactly right.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They’re doing the best they can to keep her coherent, to keep her there and to monitor her health at that time and see how she’s doing. And so finally, medical comes and takes her away and they don’t hear anything until they receive the word Saturday morning that she had passed.
Mansa Musa:
How long did it take? Okay, because like I said, I’ve been in this space. I did 48 years prior to being released. I got five years coming up. I’ll be out five years December the 5th, but I did 48 years. When I first went in the ’70s, you had fans on the wall. It was these steel cells. It’d be so hot that the paint would literally be peeling off the wall and we ain’t get no ice. Back then, you ain’t get no ice.
But talk about how long, first of all, how long did it take for them to respond before we go into unpacking the conditions? Because it’s my understanding this is not new to this environment. How long did it take for them to respond to her, to get to her before they was able to get her to a unit where she would get treated properly to your knowledge?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They said the total amount of time, it was about 12 minutes. So it took about three minutes for the CO to get down the hallway, unlock the door, assist the situation, hit the button, and then go to the door, let wait for the medical staff, bring the gurney, walk to them, and-
Mansa Musa:
Take another 15 minutes to get across to y’all.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah, to get across the yard.
Mansa Musa:
So all together is a total of 35 to 40 minutes.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
No, no, actually it wasn’t that long because remember, each yard has their own medical unit, has their own medical thing, so the nurses there came with a gurney. It was about 13 minutes.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, it’s 13 minutes too long.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
It’s 13 minutes too long. She’s already suffering.
Mansa Musa:
And the reality is, the reality is that, okay, we recognized and this is in the United States of America, this is not isolated to this California prison, we recognized that the heat wave was going across this country. We recognized… I was in Vegas and it was 115 and I went outside and I did something every three minutes and came back in. That’s how burned the heat was. But it wasn’t so much the heat, it was just like the lack of air. It was just like not told. So I know from experience, but more importantly, I know from experience from being in that space.
Talk about now… My understanding is that this is not the first time that this institution or the California prisons has been cited for not being prepared to deal with the heat or elements, period. Talk about, to your knowledge, has it changed? How long did you do before you was released?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
I did 10 years.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so you can walk us back. So has the conditions staying there, have they gotten any better during the course of your incarceration?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
No, they’ve only progressively gotten worse because of course the equipment is becoming more and more dilapidated and over time and it hasn’t been replaced. And I worked on those maintenance crews that did the preventative maintenance that’s supposed to happen every winter in preparation for the summer. So I know what those preventative maintenance procedures look like. They’re just walkthroughs and just procedural and just checkoffs as opposed to actually things being really done to actually prepare. And so those cooling units or those swamp coolers actually are not doing the jobs that they’re doing.
Mansa Musa:
So what exactly are they for our audience? Because I know they got… I told you, the women at the correction at the county, the detention center in Baltimore City, they had got an injunction. They brought coolers, what you see on the football fields. They grown a cooling station. They grown and ran these pipes and ran these conduits all through the prison was popping in air the whole entire time because it got so hot that they didn’t have the amenities that modern prison have in terms of fans or air or be able to cool down the [inaudible 00:12:08], So they was able to get that done. So talk about what they got compared to what they should have.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So they have swamp cooler systems that sit at the top of the roofs of every unit. However, those units, those units are connected to piping systems that pump water because of course swamp coolers need a flow of water in order for them to work. So what’s happened is that each of those units, when you run them, now the water leaks into the ceilings and now they leak into the buildings when they run them and cause more problems. And now you have leaking into the day rooms, leaking into the rooms, and so they’re causing more issues where the ceilings are falling in.
So what they end up doing is they end up not running them because of the fact that they know they’re going to cause more problems in the end and then they don’t have the people to come in or they don’t want to repair them and so they just don’t run it. And so they refuse to run or they run the air but not the water or the cut off the water line and just run the air but what ends up happening is the air will run, but after a while because the water’s not running, the engine will run hot and then it’ll pump out hot air.
Mansa Musa:
Hot air.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
And so that’s what happened on Friday.
Mansa Musa:
Right. I see. Yeah.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
That’s what ended up happening on Friday afternoon when we started Friday morning to get desperate pleas and cries for help. In the early morning hours of a lockdown status, we were getting… No, it was Saturday morning. Everyone had found out that Adrienne had passed away and they were all distraught about the passing, but then they were also all locked down and they were calling out to us and they were just getting ahold of all of us advocates saying, “We are locked down and the vents are pumping out hot air and we can’t breathe,” and they were saying, “We can’t breathe,” and then women were throwing up, they were having headaches, leg pain.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heat exhaustion.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
And already it’s 113 that day, so the pipes were all running hot. They had no ice water because all of the ice machines in the institution except for one were all broke down. So they had no access to ice water, lack of staff, so nobody was out there trying to-
Mansa Musa:
Get ice.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… solve the problem or get ice or make any phone calls outside to get any ice shipped in. And so nobody cared. And so everyone’s locked in their cells, up to eight people in a room, and then to add insult to injury, they’re pumping in hot air-
Mansa Musa:
Hot air.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… from these things and they’re not even popping the doors open so that people can breathe. And half of the staff there that doesn’t give a crap is ignoring the women asking and begging to at least be let out a hallway by hallway to breathe in the day room. They’re not going to stab them. This is not the men’s joint. This is the women’s institution. All they want to do is just come out hallway by hallway.
Mansa Musa:
Breathe, so they can breathe.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Let them get some reprieve out of these ovens, I mean, these practical death chambers that are… I mean, it’s just crazy because not only… I mean, it would be better to be outside in 113 degree weather where you can actually breathe air and to be confined in a space that has no windows, no ventilation and then you’re pumping in hot air on top of that on top of breathing the air from your friend that’s-
Mansa Musa:
Everybody, all air being sucked up.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… pressed up against you.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Let me ask you this, Elizabeth. Okay, you just outlined that this been going on for a minute, right? Why haven’t they fixed this? Because we’re talking about at least it’s been in existence for at least five years, this system of cooling, air, water, cold air. Hot summer, California, always going to be hot. The environment ain’t going to change. You ain’t going to put no windows in it, you ain’t going to knock no windows off. You ain’t going to do none of that. You ain’t going to bring no air conditioning. Why haven’t this changed? What is the reason why the state of California has not invested money into changing this situation?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They don’t care. They don’t care.
Mansa Musa:
All right. What’s the status of the environment now? Since now we got death and potential deaths on the way or potential irreversible injuries because of heat exhaustion, what is being done now by the California State Prison system, the Department of Correction in California? Because this ain’t only… If they got this attitude towards women prison, and this is a general attitude towards prisoners in general, women prisoners, men prisoners, juvenile prisoners, kid prisoners, prisoners in general, you going to die, well, so be it.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Right? I mean, so in terms of California Department of Corrections, or specifically for what has happened following our advocacy at CCWF, we had immediately after these cries for help, we immediately put out a press release in response to Adrienne’s passing or Adrienne’s death, and also too, putting out specifically the cries for help, and we did it quoting folks and quoting the emails and text messages we were receiving with their permission. And we put it out to every news agency that would listen to us and all of our social media, all of our social media platforms so that folks could see and we could get as much support that we could in the general public.
And the response was overwhelming. We went viral within the hour of placing that out. And so I spent the good part of the rest of that day and the following next day doing interviews and talking with people and sharing just the stories of my folks on the inside, what they were going through and how it consistently continues to be this way year after year, summer after summer, and they’re burning them up in the summer and freezing them out in the winter.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, freezing them out in the winter.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
That’s how it is. And it never changes. And so in response to our advocacy, our ongoing pressure that we were putting on CDCR and the administration there at the institution, they had immediately went to work on getting those ice machines back online. They immediately went to work on purchasing additional igloos so that each unit could have two igloos at all times. And then they immediately started to open up each of the trailers that have a AC units in those trailers that they usually have like NA, AA classes.
Mansa Musa:
I got you, I got you.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So they open those up as cooling stations when the temperatures go up, when they go up to above 90 degrees. So these things have aggressively gotten better. However, in order for those igloos to be filled with ice and filled with water, to get those in there, you have to have staff that want to do it. So then we’re getting those staff members that are petty, and so then we’re finding out, oh, we’re getting staff that will fill the ice chest with 80% water and only a small scoop of ice and then by the time you get the igloo from the kitchen to the unit, that thing is already melted, so that’s the kind of attitude you get from inside from people from those, I’m sorry, from those pigs, that don’t give a crap-
Mansa Musa:
Yes, yes, they are.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… that don’t give a crap and they’re retaliating against for what? For people, all they’re trying to do is stay alive and they don’t want to give people that right to advocate for their own lives. They’re not asking for much, they’re just asking [inaudible 00:22:26]-
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this, what’s the security status of that particular concentration camp?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Well, women’s prisons… Well, this particular women’s prison is the highest security women’s prison.
Mansa Musa:
So it’s max? It’s max medium?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah, because actually, CCWF was the only institution in the state that housed death row.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so it’s max medium.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So you had everyone from death row to level ones.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right. Let me offer this though, for clarity, right? The sister that passed away, her name was Adrienne?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Adrienne Boulware.
Mansa Musa:
Well, Adrienne was murdered. That wasn’t-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yes, yes.
Mansa Musa:
That’s murder. There’s no way you can describe that but when you take [inaudible 00:23:15]-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Let me be clear that the institution and CDCRs went on the record to state that she had passed away from a preexisting health condition.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. The preexisting health condition was neglect of taking care of me and providing me with the adequate medical attention that I need. That’s neglect, neglect turned into murder. But okay, going forward.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
In any heat advisory in the free world that comes up on every billboard, on every [inaudible 00:23:48], when they tell you to be aware or be careful, they tell you to be careful in this heat of your family members and your elderly who have what? Preexisting health conditions.
Mansa Musa:
Right, and-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They’re at risk.
Mansa Musa:
And then we not confused by this because we recognize that if she was in society and left in a car by anybody under the same conditions and died, they would lock them up for a homicide or involuntary manslaughter. So the fact that she was held on a plantation, under the new form of plantation, prison industrial complex, the fact that she was in that environment, they tend to minimize her existence and her being a human being, but we here to tell them right now that this is murder.
And I’m imploring y’all to at some point in time come to that place where y’all try to get some redress around that, around why did she have to die, because as you said earlier, okay, they’re putting these things into place, which is good, but the fact of the matter is if you don’t change the attitude of the pigs, if you don’t change the attitude of the institution, then somebody else is waiting in the wings to die and they justify it by saying, “Oh, they died because they had preexisting conditions and it wasn’t the fact that we was neglectful in getting them treatment or putting them in an environment that did not exasperate these preexisting conditions. That ain’t had nothing to do with it. It was just the fact that they wasn’t healthy and their health contributed to them dying.” But going forward, what do you want our audience to know?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So basically what I would like your audience to know is that California Coalition for Women Prisoners is not done with this fight. We are going to take this fight to the legislative level and we are going to take specific asks to the legislation and these asks are going to look like short-term asks, but also some long-term asks. At the short-term level, we want every person inside every institution in California to be given state-issued cooling rags. Such an easy thing. Just cooling rags, just something that could provide immediate relief that you and I and the free world no big deal could get at the 99 Cent Store.
Also, too, is that we want also state-issued fans issued to every person that’s incarcerated. That is not a hard ask because a fan that’s issued is cheap. They are not expensive compared to the medical expense to deal with heat-related issues that come up because of the heat, extreme heat. Issuing a fan upon a person’s intake or person being booked into the prison is actually a cheap ask. If any legislator wants to push back on that because of budget, that is one of our asks.
The other thing is we want cold water dispensers accessible in every unit and not cheaply. We want it always to stay cold. So we want that to be accessible and we don’t want it held back from anyone in any lockdown situation. If someone needs that water, there needs to be a protocol in a way that that person, whether they’re in their cell or outside, be able to access that water or get that-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, water. We talking about water, cold water.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
[inaudible 00:27:38] at any time they need.
Mansa Musa:
That’s all. Yeah. Cold water. That’s all. Cold water.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Cold water and not tepid water. They can get that from the [inaudible 00:27:46]-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we asking them for cold water. Cold water, that’s all.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Cold ice water.
Mansa Musa:
We didn’t ask for you to go melt the ice glacier to bring it in there and import it from Alaska. We just asking you to make the water cold and give us access to it as we need it. Come on.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So long-term asks, we would like AC, not swamp coolers.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we want the same thing they getting cool with. Same thing they getting cool with. We want the same thing.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
We want two units installed because the inclement weather is not getting any better. Climate change is causing it to get worse. And so it’s unavoidable. AC units must be installed in every unit in every prison, and I’m just saying starting with the Central Valley, because the weather there is more clocked 100 degree weather, simultaneous 100 degree weather in the Central Valley than any area of California statistically. So that’s a great place to start.
And I will say this. I received Intel that a year ago the institution had purchased brand new chillers and signed a contract to have those installed and installed one in one unit in the institution and somehow ran out of the funds to install any chillers.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, what happened to the money? What happened to the money? Yeah.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
All of those chillers are sitting in the warehouse.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. What happened to that money? Yeah. What happened to that money?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
What happened to that money? Who misappropriated those funds to complete the installation project and why did Adrienne have to die because of it?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. And also, I think that y’all need to ask that they do an internal investigation on that right there because this been going on far too long.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Don’t you worry about the thing, brother. I got that.
Mansa Musa:
See, one thing, I just recently became aware of it but this been going on for a while and then Adrienne was murdered. Her murder should be the reason why they should feel like they should be hard-pressed to resolve it. But how can our audience get in touch with you and support what y’all are doing?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Well, right now, the Adrienne Boulware family is asking for support to help them not only with funeral expenses, but they would like to fund their own independent autopsy. And so we are assisting them in supporting their GoFundMe fundraiser. And so I do have a link for that. I will forward that to you if you don’t already have it already, and also to an ongoing support of the work that CCWP has. CCWP, California Coalition for Women Prisoners dot org, is our webpage and you can connect with us or you can also connect with us on our Instagram @ccwp and that’s our Instagram handle.
Mansa Musa:
Thank you, Liz. And there you have it, real news rattling the bars. This is not a big ask. Just imagine somebody asking you say, “Listen, just give me a wet rag, cool wet rag to put on my head to lower my temperature.” That’s not a big ask. Just imagine somebody ask, you say, “Can I just get a cold drink of water?” That’s not a big ask. All the women in California ask to be treated like human beings. And as a result of being treated inhuman, someone has been murdered, not died from preexisting conditions, but died from the fact that they was neglected. We ask that you look into this. We ask that you evaluate this report and support the women in the California prison system, but more importantly, we ask that you write your congressmen or get involved with this because this is a problem. There you have it. Rattling the bars, the real news. Thank you.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Thank you.
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