Third staffer at FCI Thomson in a month exposed to drugs

For the third time in a month, a staff member at FCI Thomson in Thomson, Ill. had to be given Narcan and was taken to a hospital after being exposed to an unknown substance. Jon Zumkehr, president of Thomson Federal Prison AFGE local 4070, spoke with Our Quad Cities News about the incident.

“A staff member was doing a search at the prison, and he got exposed to an unknown substance,” he said. “We identified those drugs, and he had an adverse reaction to it. He was taken to a local hospital, he was given Narcan at the prison. This is the third time in a month that a staff member was exposed to drugs. This is not isolated only at Thomson; this is around the Federal Bureau of Prisons.” Over 20 staff members have been hospitalized at Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Ill. in the past month, nine in the past three days. One correctional officer was found unconscious. A correctional officer at the facility in Atwater, Calif. died back in August after being exposed to fentanyl while sorting mail.

Zumkehr said what’s alarming is that the contaminated mail got to the prison through the U.S. Postal Service and could have caused problems elsewhere. “We want the public to understand that the same mail that is coming into the prison laced with drugs is going through the mail system. What if it gets delivered to a local school? What if it gets delivered to your house and it is laced with drugs? You’re going to face the same consequences as the staff are. They’re just coming to work. These workers are coming to work every day and they’re getting exposed. This is the third time in a month. This is the reality we’re living in, right now, that we have to give Narcan to staff just because the prison system is infested with drugs. The leadership, we’re working together, we’re doing everything we can to do our best to get rid of the drugs, do any more searches, doing different things but not enough.”

“We need Congress to act and pass HR 52266 , which has the support of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, the AFGE. The endorsements are a lot for this bill but it’s sitting in Congress with 125 co-sponsors. We need Congress to do their job and protect law enforcement officers, so another law enforcement officer isn’t killed in the line of duty because of drugs coming in the mail.”

The staff member at Thomson was taken to this hospital and is still being treated at this time. Kumkehr says some jails and prisons have already developed new protocols for handling inmate mail. “The jails in Rock Island, they do what we’re asking for so it’s not a crazy future. We’re not asking to reinvent the wheel.” Inmate mail is digitally scanned, and inmates receive digital copies of incoming correspondence.

Kumkehr says the union believes in the leadership at the prison. “We have confidence in the leadership at Thomson, that we will do everything that we can on the local level. What we need is for Congress to do their job and to pass legislation that will scan all the mail coming to the prison for drugs, plain and simple. Back In 2019, we had a pilot program that scanned all the mail for drugs. It worked, no one got exposed for the year, but Congress and the Federal Bureau of Prisons defunded the program. They took the funding away from it.”

“We have the support of Iowa district Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA-1), we have the support of Eric Sorensen (D-IL-17), so our local leadership is supporting us,” he said. “We need, on the national level, to actually get this bill marked up and voted on. We feel confident if this bill gets marked up and voted on, it will pass.”

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