Incompetence helped set stage for Whitey Bulger's prison murder, watchdog report says

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Incompetence helped set stage for Whitey Bulger's prison murder, watchdog report says

Sarah N. Lynch
Wed, December 7, 2022 at 12:55 PM·3 min read

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. Justice Department review found that prison officials incompetently handled the 2018 transfer of Boston mobster and former FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger to the West Virginia prison where he was beaten to death within a day of his arrival.

The department's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, said in an internal report released on Wednesday that "bureaucratic incompetence" and "serious job performance" failures led the federal Bureau of Prisons to improperly transfer Bulger, a wheelchair-bound 89-year-old inmate with a life-threatening heart condition to the U.S. Penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia.

Bulger, who lived a double life as a mobster and a secret FBI informant before he fled Boston and lived on the run for 16 years, was found bludgeoned to death inside his cell on Oct. 30, 2018, less than 24 hours after his arrival.

-snip-

It noted that BOP staffers spoke openly about Bulger's transfer in the presence of inmates as if they were "talking about a football game" and more than 100 BOP staffers were advised of his transfer in advance.

The BOP failed to conduct an intelligence assessment about security risks Bulger could face, and inappropriately recommended downgrading his medical condition to facilitate his transfer to Hazelton despite his serious cardiac condition.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/incompetence-helped-set-stage-whitey-165545722.html

[moniss]

1. Basically they pass it off

as incompetence so that they can escape accusations of doing it on purpose. I wonder if anybody bothered to check the financials/lifestyle for any of the several BOP officials in Florida who kept pushing to downgrade his medical needs so that they could transfer him to the most dangerous place possible. They even purposely omitted a bunch of his medical records in order to get the downgrade to go through. Maybe the most laughable part is the several high ranking BOP officials who claim they had no idea of his notoriety and that they treated him "just like anybody else". Bulger was no loss but at the same time we cannot have BOP administration be so corrupt. Guards and officials at all levels of the penal system in this country get away with abuse of prisoners of every kind every day.