An Arizona chaplain is urging changes in mental health care and safety procedures for the state prison system after he was attacked and stabbed by an inmate earlier this year.
Inside Florence prison's Central Unit, Chaplain James Allen Miser, 66, was walking across a yard, heading to a religious service on March 3 when an inmate, walking the opposite way, lashed out.
“Never saw him coming,” Miser said.
He told ABC15 he was stabbed at least 6 times, suffering a broken femur and head trauma.
“My first thought was, ‘Are you serious? You're attacking the chaplain?’” Miser remembered. “That's just unheard of.”
Miser said the accused inmate, Jonathan Read, should have stood out from other inmates long before the attack. Read exhibited signs of serious mental illness, and he had a history of violent behavior and ideations.
“He had been writing letters about being demonized and hearing voices for quite some time,” Miser told ABC15. “He had been recommended to the mental health by a [correctional officer] and by the chaplains.”
One correctional officer noted she was calling “psych staff” about Read, but it's unclear if mental health staff ever responded.
In prison documents obtained by ABC15, Read made multiple requests for religious and mental health help. He complained that rapper Lil Wayne put a curse on him. He was looking for a CIA agent that “kills Satanists” and “also works in psychology.” He also wrote he was in “desperate need of prayer” to heal demon possession.
Read even wrote about stabbing someone in the neck months before he was accused of stabbing the chaplain in the neck.
“I was ignored,” Read told an investigator after the stabbing. “[It] went on for two or three months is December, January, February.”
Just hours after the stabbing, the prison's contracted health providers received an email.
It said a mental health needs request for Read, submitted in September 2021, was “not pinged or seen” by the mental health team, and these "are the type of misses that can have devastating consequences."
“Your [ABC15] investigation has found that this individual was asking for care,” said ACLU attorney Corene Kendrick. “He knew something was wrong and kept putting in these requests, and it was as if they went into a black hole.”
Kendrick is one of the attorneys from a decade-long federal lawsuit over Arizona prisoner medical services including mental health care.
This summer a federal judge issued this lengthy ruling that care provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry was "grossly inadequate." The overall care was so poor it was violating inmates' constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment, the judge determined.
“It's not an impossible problem to fix,” Kendrick said. “Step one is the state admitting that there is a problem, and step two is focusing their energy on fixing the problem.”
In a written statement to ABC15 last week, a corrections spokesperson said, “ADCRR continues to work closely with the Court's appointed experts on the formulation of the framework governing the delivery of inmate healthcare.”
ABC15's search of prior court cases involving Read found he stabbed a cellmate in federal prison 13 times, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was forcibly medicated to try to restore his competency to stand trial.
"The effect of that failure is how it rebounds so much more than just the inmates," Zwillinger said. "It rebounds on correction officers, teachers, and now on a chaplain."
Chaplain Miser and his attorney, Scott Zwillinger, question why Read did not receive a timely mental health response and treatment and why he wasn't initially placed in a prison unit for people who have seriously mentally illnesses.
"One of our themes is to have a safe and secure prison, and when we fail at that, then we fail in our job," Miser said.
Seven months after the stabbing, Chaplain Miser needs a cane to get around. He said doctors told him a full recovery both physically and mentally is unlikely.
“My neurologist says that I should not go back where there are inmates,” Miser said. “That would be too much stress on me, so it feels like my prison ministry is pretty much over.”
Miser said ending his career is disappointing and frustrating after he spent 26 years ministering to inmates, and he hopes sharing his story will bring change to the Arizona prison system.
“Stimulate them to review their processes and make sure that everyone gets what they need,” Miser said.
Chaplain Miser said Read needed help and didn’t get it, so he doesn’t blame the inmate for the attack “not one little bit.”
Read has been ordered to receive a mental health evaluation to see if he is competent to stand trial in the chaplain’s stabbing.
ADCRR declined to answer specific questions about this case in order to protect the medical privacy of both inmate and the chaplain.
Got a news tip? Email ABC15 Investigator Melissa Blasius at Melissa.Blasius@abc15.com and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.