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For four years, the 34-year-old convicted drug trafficker captured daily life on contraband cameras at the Martin Correctional Institution. He smuggled footage dating back to 2017 out of the prison, and titled the documentary "Behind Tha Barb Wire." The video - given to the Miami Herald - allows the public to see with their own eyes the violence, rampant drug use and appalling conditions inside the prison.
As the Herald previously reported, Florida prisons have gone to great lengths to withhold video footage and other documents from news outlets, as well as family members of inmates who have died in custody.
To keep from releasing records, the agency has cited medical privacy laws and legal exemptions; sharing video footage specifically, it said, could jeopardize a facility's security system and endanger prison personnel.
Whitney's film, perhaps, underscored other reasons Florida's Department of Corrections is keeping videos and records under wraps.
"We finna show y'all . . . how we live in here that y'all ain't seen," said one inmate participating in the documentary.
From scene to scene, Whitney's footage revealed an unkempt and decaying environment and demonstrated how little the officers care about their responsibilities or the inmates.
In one nighttime video narrated by Whitney in a hushed voice, a guard passed by his prison cell carrying a flashlight, yet never glanced inside. He remained oblivious to Whitney, who was openly filming at the time.
"They don't check to see if we're living, they don't check to see if we're safe," Whitney said.
The video confirmed that homemade weapons and violence are hallmarks of life at Martin Correctional Institution, which the Herald said had 31 deaths in the past six years, including five homicides. Whitney modeled a makeshift stab-proof vest for the camera in one scene; in others, prisoners held a homemade knife and a "lock-and-belt weapon."
The film documented mold covering the kitchen and mice popping in through crumbling walls. It also memorialized Hurricane Irma in 2017, when inmates from other prisons were transported to and housed at the facility, sleeping on the floor.
Most saliently, though, it captured the widespread drug use inside the prison.
"You got the war on drugs on the street, but once we get here you don't care about the drugs," he said to the camera.
Scene after scene showed inmates slumped over, stumbling to the ground, dragged across the floor and "twaking out." One man lay face down in a pool of his own blood and another was rolled out on a gurney.
The culprit, Whitney said, was K2, a synthetic cannabinoid also known as "twak;" the Herald listed the drug as the most frequently confiscated contraband and the leading cause of overdose deaths.
Whitney continued, "You know you might not wake up any day you smoke that."
The Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General has opened an investigation into the video.
The agency wrote in an email to The Post on Monday: "The Department uses every tool at their disposal to mitigate violence and contraband within our institutions. Correctional Officers are diligent in their efforts to search inmates and common areas to eradicate weapons and remove dangerous and illegal contraband. At the forefront of our priorities is an agencywide effort to recruit and retain correctional officers statewide."
Inmate-produced footage is extraordinarily rare, even more so when its trafficked out of a prison, Ron McAndrew, a prison consultant and former warden, told the Herald.
While gruesome and graphic photographs from inside prisons in Alabama and Mississippi were leaked and posted online earlier this year, the first example of footage from a contraband phone making its way online, he said, was in July at another Florida facility. A prison captain and two guards were arrested and fired after a video of officers beating an inmate was uploaded to YouTube.
Under Florida law, contraband cellphones can result in new felony charges and add prison time to an inmate's sentence. Or, there's the threat of solitary confinement - a fate Whitney has experienced, the Herald reported.
On September 19, Jordyn Gilley-Nixon, a prison reform advocate and former inmate, uploaded two minutes of Whitney's footage to YouTube. Since then, prison officials have housed Whitney in isolation. If he's released from solitary confinement, Whitney, whose drug trafficking sentence ends in 2040, promised to continue filming.
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Deanna Paul covers national and breaking news for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she spent six years as a New York City prosecutor.
Previously:
• 09/23/19: The whistleblower complaint has Congress and Trump at an impasse --- here's what the law says
• 08/14/19: Epstein's case will be dismissed, but his death has far-reaching legal consequences
• 05/07/19: A drunk man went on a killing spree. Police just arrested the bartender who served him
• 04/29/19: Trump said synagogue shooting 'looks like a hate crime,' but prosecutors might not
• 04/04/19: How fighting political disinformation could collide with the First Amendment
• 04/04/19: 5 former federal workers sue CIA, NSA saying they were censored
• 03/28/19: THIS CASE SMELLS? Man insists boss's flatulence 'was a form of bullying' --- and is suing for $1.2 million
• 03/04/19: Top Dem demands another apology from Rep. Ilhan Omar, accusing her of 'a vile anti-Semitic slur'
• 02/11/19: Are the National Enquirer's emails to Jeff Bezos coercion, blackmail, neither or worse?
• 02/01/19: Attorneys want a judge to force Trump to testify in a suit stemming from 2015 incident
• 12/28/18: FBI! Open the door!': The tactics behind the armed agents at Roger Stone's home
• 12/24/18: Women are sending love letters to Colorado man serving life sentence for killing his pregnant wife and two kids
• 12/21/18: Who are you accusing of treason, being a traitor!? Judge abuses terms in diatribe against Flynn. He SHOULD know better
• 12/12/18: Presidential election could determine whether Trump faces consequences for alleged crimes
• 11/20/18: Celebrating Trump's success in filling the courts
• 09/28/18: Death row inmates ask for execution by firing squad to avoid 'torturous' drug cocktail
• 08/02/18: Are they deadly? Are they free speech? Explaining 3-D printed guns
• 07/20/18: Trump promised to remake the courts. He's installing conservative judges at a record pace
• 07/19/18: Meet the man who might have brought on the age of 'downloadable guns'
• 07/13/18: Burgular who broke into an escape room repeatedly called 911 when he couldn't escape, police say