there's a strong blue us war silence that is heavily fortified and stands tall throughout that entire department however in spite of public opinion and political perception this was not built on dishonesty and corrupt loyalty by all the uniform staff who work there instead speak when it comes to reporting safety hazards and threats inhumane conditions discriminating practices and even rape or murder how do i know because i'm a primary example of what the department of corrections does to those who report crimes and injustices as admits official complaints of discrimination and corruption throughout my twelve years i not only personally filed a multitude of reports citing dangerous and inhumane conditions and disparate treatment i also helped many of my coworkers and some of my immediate supervisors doing the same and forte i was always a subject of our scrutiny and harmful retaliation throughout my years of service i was almost always put the most hostile areas to work in inconveniently transferred a total of eight times videos that appear to show the in one case you punch one of the needs in the other you hold her by the neck briefly and i think that that is part of the reason the employer here  determined to germany to find is there something that i'm missing about those videos yet also something that i'm missing about why that should be a reason to terminate a corrections officer yes your honor according to the use of force directive and the law was supposed to be allowed to protect ourself if we feel him and we threatened and when that day picked them up at the first one which the all just was the most serious me punching a female inmate in the mouth i called my supervisor because i had to make that was hostile because it we i found out an oath aside from the fact that she had a heavy infraction history of  staff and of inmates and she was also arrested and later convicted for second degree murder when i called my supervisor for help she had there was an undisputed by all parties witnesses that were there that she and also by the footage that she had me up against the wall very close range threatening to physically harm me and from the close range digit distance that we was standing when it looked like she lun immediately i merely defended myself and threw a punch now of course looking at a camera footage where it's a small distance easy to say oh it didn't look like she lunged but please understand when it is but so is in your close range and she jerks forward you know not knowing what she has in hand i mean they're telling me oh she had a hand at her sides but you got understand when you're faced with someone who's about to physically attack you and i have been physically attacked and i have injuries over s this if i just sit there and assume ok she's not going to attack and she does i could have ended up stabbed injected with a needle or anything else my worry was  i felt i was i believed i was in imminent danger and if anyone should been questioned about it it should have been captain sam who was standing right there at the time while she was threatening me which he admitted to and the only thing he did was just idly stand by and do nothing and also according to the footage he claimed he did not see any punches because he was reaching for his radio to call for an alarm which meant he also saw in a minute threat but if you look at the footage at no time did he reach for his radio he absorbed the i think as a threshold matter it's really sort of beyond the scope of this case talk about those sorts of plates and i think that what this court really needs to understand is that to the extent there is a problem with a blue wall of silence it does not help erode the blue of silence to for been the department of correction for from firing a correction officer who punches an incarcerated woman in the face these are the exact source of excessive uses of force that are problematic and need to be faced with real consequences such as terminations of employments and so it's a bit disturbing to me to hear  someone who is advocating for improved conditions saying at the same time the department of corrections should not be permitted to impose meaningful consequences when there is an excessive use of force clearly raised retaliation allegations in his article seventy eight petition and those were rejected by the state court that's that's that's a binding determination under seeking damages in the articles that so that question relates to  you have even a pure article seventy petition that makes retaliation allegations and you lose that petition you cannot then make the same retaliation allegations in federal court under a title seven claim so those two cases employment decision and included retaliation allegations in that petition and therefore because that petition was not had the court found that her retaliation allegations have necessarily been rejected by the state court and therefore she was collaterally stopped from raising the same allegations in federal court just turning her very briefly to the merits the record here is very clear as to the legitimate retaliatory reasons for the termination decision here there was not one but five instances of misconduct by mr close to involved uses of force against incarcerated women another involved a complaint by a visitor that  she he or she had been attacked there is no evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that those to decisions are made based on the telly and especially under the but for standard that applies to these claims thank you what he just a belated my terminations was due to poor conduct because of my use of force that's exactly what's wrong the department corrections because this is what the department has likely been practicing and this is what the public feels that there should be a hands off policy when it comes to mates we just recently had to cap we had a capita tactic by several inmates and a two captains that with that ran away now their union president called them cowards i didn't call them cowards i called them being cautious because the f b i wasn't their physical safety but their worry was if they defended this captain that was getting viciously beat down by some very minor inmates that they would be faced with the same scrutiny that i'm now currently going through having to that their decision to defend this supervisor that was being attacked was justified and i'm sure him or somebody else from cooperation council be up here saying oh no it was misconduct there was no reason for him to beat up this poor defenseless  me and it's and it's the same case with me those two inmates that you saw in video footage one i came at me with a couple of bleach throwing to throw throw it at me actually did successfully throw it at me what did i try to do i tried i tried to push you off so it wouldn't splash in my face the one with the visits which i find very entertaining that at no time did that incident happen that relied on falsified documents for a forged signatures and a document saying that i refused to sign something that i considered bad use of force you will be labeled as misconduct he will go to be found guilty your name be put on every website for people see and you'll be unemployable and that's the reason why correctional staff to this day by the hundreds every month of being beaten stabbed and it's just a matter of time before somebody gets raped or murdered thank you thank you both will reserve decision