Matthew Cunningham-Cook
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matthewccook5.bsky.social
Matthew Cunningham-Cook
@matthewccook5.bsky.social
670 followers 180 following 450 posts
reporting ‪at the Center for Media and Democracy, organizing in the labor movement
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matthewccook5.bsky.social
She was a true believer at the time (2011).
February 13, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Matthew Cunningham-Cook
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While the C-suite celebrated their big 2025, three Black men in Geo's Tacoma, Wa. immigrant prison filed a grisly lawsuit alleging repeated assaults and sexual abuse by Geo employees. They say Geo uses video of some assaults as training material to show guards "how to teach detainees a lesson."
According to RT, GEO Group guard Berame singled him out by name on April 2, 2024, separated him from his unit, and led him to a blind spot in the surveillance camera view path. Instead of the typical pat-down RT was expecting, Berame “began grabbing RT; not running his hands over RT to determine if something was hidden under the clothes, but gripping his body, his thighs in particular,” the lawsuit states. When Berame put his hand on RT’s crotch, RT flinched, the lawsuit states. “At that point, Defendant Berame forced his hand into RT’s pants and groped his penis and testicles. Nothing about the groping was reasonably designed to detect contraband,” the claim continues. “When Defendant Berame wrapped his hand directly around RT’s penis, RT again flinched, and said something like, ‘what the hell?’ But Defendant Berame continued grabbing RT’s genitalia while staring him down, and said, ‘don’t move.’” Berame “again grabbed RT’s penis and held it for an unreasonable time. The guard’s purpose appeared to be to sexually humiliate RT, using sexual dominance to assert a pathological need for power and authority,” the lawsuit states. Plaintiff Javon Gordon alleges he told Berame to stop touching him on November 13, 2024. In response, Berame and Suafoa tackled Gordon and slammed Gordon’s face into the concrete until he bled from the mouth and the head. Berame then climbed on Gordon’s back, causing Gordon to yell, “I can’t breathe,” the lawsuit states. The two guards cuffed Gordon’s hands and legs, kneed him in the ribs, carried him into solidarity confinement “and, in retaliation, placed him on suicide watch—despite Mr. Gordon repeatedly and loudly protesting that he was not suicidal,” the lawsuit claims. “To inflict further humiliation, Defendants stripped Mr. Gordon of his clothes as a female officer video recorded, and then took the bed, leaving Mr. Gordon with a flimsy suicide suit,” a garment designed to stop prisoners from using the fabric to make a noose and kill themselves. The lawsuit describes another inconsistent internal hearing, in which the overseeing officer initially found Gordon was not at fault for his own assault, then changed to say he was and required Gordon remain in solitary confinement for a month. Berame taunted Gordon throughout that period to such an extent that a supervisor told him to stop, the lawsuit states. The third plaintiff, Jeffersonking Anyanwu, came to the U.S. from Nigeria to study computer science. He was preparing an immigration appeal before the Ninth Circuit and had no attorney, so was responsible for filing everything himself. According to the lawsuit, GEO Group employees prevented Anyanwu from accessing a computer to do so and stonewalled when he asked to speak with a supervisor. Berame then beat him, including repeatedly striking him in the testicles, and refused a medical staff member’s direction to take him to the medical unit. Berame filed a report against Anyanwu, but the charges were dismissed because the incident was captured on video.
February 12, 2026 at 11:11 PM