Kathy, from someplace called www.sexmonster.com, sent me this vid - I laughed - what a trip.
Hope you enjoy it.
Cheers !
InstantXchange
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Author/Artist Rashid Johnson is (W/Yr Help) Out of Danger - Maybe...
On 15/02/2012 6:18 PM, Carole Seligman wrote:
Friends,
Rashid called Prison Radio today with this new info.
He was transferred to Oregon. Guards came to his Wallens Ridge cell, shackled him and put him in a van (or ?) and drove him for two days (not telling him where he was going) to Wilsonville, Oregon, where he has been in a "holding cell" for one day in a receiving center, going through a "reception process", from which he will be transferred to another Oregon facility.
Here is his new i.d. number: 70384537 (he said this may change)
He has none of his personal belongings from Red Onion, including your address and phone number. He asks that you send these to him now.
He has a better means on calling people now with a prepaid debit account phone system. here is that number: 1-800-786-8521
There is a $25.00 initial minimum deposit, additional payments are $10.00 minimum. He will need to add phone numbers he wishes to call to a list soon.
Here is the address to write him (for 30 days):
Kevin Johnson
# 70384537
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
24499 SW Grahams Ferry Rd.
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070
Rashid sounded positive about this transfer. The authorities told him it was a "brand new slate". He said he would be in "medium security, not maximum security". He said the authorities asked him how he was going to act. He got the impression that the Virgina prison authorities had told the Oregon people that he was a crazy, out-of-control, person. He said he would be in general population, "a whole new start."
Rashid indicated that phone and mail will be less restricted, than in Virginia. He can receive mail as long is it is less than 1/4 inch thick. He says he can receive books from the publishers (and probably Amazon, but he wasn't sure about that.) [Mumia cannot receive books from Amazon at SCI Mahanoy in Pennsylvania.]
His main request was for you to write him immediately with your address and phone number.
In Solidarity,
Carole
Rashid called Prison Radio today with this new info.
He was transferred to Oregon. Guards came to his Wallens Ridge cell, shackled him and put him in a van (or ?) and drove him for two days (not telling him where he was going) to Wilsonville, Oregon, where he has been in a "holding cell" for one day in a receiving center, going through a "reception process", from which he will be transferred to another Oregon facility.
Here is his new i.d. number: 70384537 (he said this may change)
He has none of his personal belongings from Red Onion, including your address and phone number. He asks that you send these to him now.
He has a better means on calling people now with a prepaid debit account phone system. here is that number: 1-800-786-8521
There is a $25.00 initial minimum deposit, additional payments are $10.00 minimum. He will need to add phone numbers he wishes to call to a list soon.
Here is the address to write him (for 30 days):
Kevin Johnson
# 70384537
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
24499 SW Grahams Ferry Rd.
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070
Rashid sounded positive about this transfer. The authorities told him it was a "brand new slate". He said he would be in "medium security, not maximum security". He said the authorities asked him how he was going to act. He got the impression that the Virgina prison authorities had told the Oregon people that he was a crazy, out-of-control, person. He said he would be in general population, "a whole new start."
Rashid indicated that phone and mail will be less restricted, than in Virginia. He can receive mail as long is it is less than 1/4 inch thick. He says he can receive books from the publishers (and probably Amazon, but he wasn't sure about that.) [Mumia cannot receive books from Amazon at SCI Mahanoy in Pennsylvania.]
His main request was for you to write him immediately with your address and phone number.
In Solidarity,
Carole
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Canada vs. U.S. Justice Systems - Amazing Differences !
Compare THIS little gem w/ the US "Justice" System - where judges routinely hand out 10 and 15 year sentences for felons possessing a handgun !
Amazing the difference between here and the "Great White North", eh ?
www.theglobeandmail.comDeclaring that a three-year prison sentence for a man found with a loaded handgun would be ‘unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable,’ Madam Justice Anne Molloy of the Ontario Superior Court puts the judiciary on a collision course with the Harper government’s tough-on-crime agenda
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Author/Artist Rashid Johnson is in Danger - Please Support Him !
Author/Artist Rashid Johnson is in serious danger. They've moved him to Wallen's Ridge Prison in W.VA (see the video below). Please contact the prison, and let them know people care what happens to Rashid.
Wallens Ridge State Prison (address: P.O. Box 759, Big Stone Gap, VA 24219).
Alt. address & Ph.#:1052 Dogwood Drive Big Stone Gap, VA 24219-3825; (276) 523-3310
Here's a report by Rashid, on what's happening.
By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
On January 20, 2012, I was transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State
Prison. This transfer came on the heels of a December 12, 2011, incident where a
large portion of my hair was ripped out by a Red Onion guard, a staged investigation by a Virginia Dept. of Corrections Internal Affairs agent Johnny Acosta, and my having sent out an article and report on it all. Obviously, no coincidence.
From one set-up to another
On the morning of January 20, I was confronted at my cell by Red Onion’s C-Building Unit Manager, Michael Younce, and Lieutenant Delmer Tate, who both lied telling me that agent Johnny Acosta wanted to speak with me in the prison’s video-court area. I was, upon being handcuffed and leg shackled, “escorted” by them to the prison’s transport area and put into a cell, and told to strip down to be searched by security chief Kevin McCoy because I was “taking a trip.” Numerous guards entered the area including one Joseph Ely, a prior Red Onion guard who’d transferred to Wallens Ridge to be promoted to a Lieutenant. Ely was carrying transportation restraints and a 50,000 volt electric stun belt which prisoners are made to wear when taken on road trips. I instantly realized I was being transferred to Wallens Ridge.
I asked McCoy several times about my property. He assured it’d be right
behind me. It wasn’t. It was all left at Red Onion, where much of it will likely be
destroyed, “lost” and taken.
McCoy attempted to provoke a situation by having me given a pair of pants to wear
that were too small. I refused to wear them. After a standoff, I was given a pair in the correct size, restrained, belted and taken to a transport van. Inside the van, I was crushed and locked inside a tiny steel cage measuring about 5 feet high and 2 by 2 feet square, in which I could barely move. Once on the road, Ely asked if I knew where I was going. I answered “obviously to Wallens Ridge.” He then asked did I really not know I was being transferred? I told him no, that I was told I was going to see someone. He added, “You know why you’re going back, don’t you?” “Not really,” I answered. He then stated, “Well, you know a lot of people don’t like you. You probably won’t leave walking.” I was to receive numerous similar threats by guards that I was being sent to Wallens Ridge to be set up for violence.
Upon reaching Wallens Ridge, I was met by numerous guards, especially ranking
guards, whom I’d known from my 2000-2003 confinement at Wallens Ridge. All
displayed openly hostile attitudes. One of the guards, who was holding one of my
arms and “escorting” me from the van to the intake area, Dixon, repeatedly dug his fingers into my right arm. I was also accompanied during this walk by two large dogs barking loudly and straining wildly against their leashes.
I went through the strip search and endured another standoff over too-small
clothes, by Sergeant Cochrane and Lieutenant Swiney, both obviously trying to
provoke a situation to “justify” using violence. So I relented and wore the clothes for the brief walk to the unit.
I was leg-shackled, cuffed from behind and “escorted” by a mob of guards to the D- 3 housing unit. Every cell in the unit was empty. I was put into D-301, one of only two cells in the block with a steel box approximately 8" x 12" x 18" with a Plexiglas cover, welded to the outside of a cell door and around the opening in the door through which food and other items are passed and handcuffs applied and removed.
I was made to kneel to have the leg shackles removed, and to put my hands outside the slot into the box where the handcuffs were removed. I then removed my hands from the box and a steel plate was slid in place across the door opening, closing off access to the box.
Cochrane and Swiney came to the door in turns, repeating the same threats Ely had made, adding that “this time there won’t be any witnesses,” indirectly referring to my placement in a completely empty unit. Major Combs then came to the cell asking if I’d changed, commenting that I’d gotten grey hair since last he’d seen me and was “getting old.” Every guard I’ve encountered from then to now has been invariably hostile, and verbally insulting. I’ve been called a “nigger” no less than 15 times and subjected to numerous homosexual taunts in efforts to provoke and enrage me, which I pay no mind to. One guard, R. Ricketts has gone out of his way to repeatedly verbally taunt and threaten me with abuses to come.
I’ve had my meals and beverages dropped into the visibly filthy box on the door
which is never cleaned, indeed it can’t be where it contains rust, peeling paint,
fermented food and beverages residue, and one must place dirty clothes, shoes,
toilet cleaning items, etc. into the box to be searched by or exchanged with guards.
Using the box for meal service is a per se health hazard. Not only is my food
contaminated by being placed into direct contact with the box’s surfaces, but I’ve
found paint particles, dirt, lint, etc. in my food and beverages from the box.
I was also brought clothes by Swiney that had been sprayed with mace or gas.
I’ve been kept incommunicado – denied phone use, all property, and kept in a
completely empty unit.
I’ve also received two trays with foods containing broken pieces of metal and rocks. Guards, including Cochrane, refuse to provide me with or to accept for filing forms needed to pursuer emergency and other grievances and complaints. I had to go through a Lieutenant Bergan to obtain complaint forms from Cochrane, who then gave me only two out of five requested by me.
As indicated in my last report/update, the December 12, 2011, assault where my hair was ripped out was preceded by threats by the assaulting guard, in that I’m
now being faced with a consistent series of threats by a staff known to abuse and
even kill prisoners – which I’ll elaborate on below – it is important that this situation be made known as broadly as possible. I believe outside exposure, support and pressure has kept many of the more serious violent official intentions at bay. These threats under the circumstances must be taken very seriously.
Wallens Ridge: A Nest of Vipers
Several of the threats here have been accompanied by guards making disparaging
remarks about me being a “protester,” “Black Panther,” etc., often accompanied by racial slurs. It is well known that Black prisoners known to challenge or protest abuses or who are politically active are abuse targets at Wallens Ridge. John Gaskins, aka Mac, who was recently released from Wallens Ridge, has been bothwitness and victim. While at the prison, he witnessed prisoners inclined to protest being set up by guards, beaten and thrown into segregation. He was himself, for this reason, set up on a false infraction and thrown in segregation until he was released from Virginia’s prisons. He expected to be beaten by the guards himself at any time.
A----, aka Outlaw, the prisoner with whom I engaged in written political exchanges in my book, Defying the Tomb, was also brutally beaten and hospitalized at Wallens Ridge a couple years ago.
In my prior update/article, I discussed a 2001 beating by 3 ranking Wallens Ridge
guards of a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, which resulted in the guards being prosecuted. The charges were circumvented by the entire prison’s staff coming together to stage a scene at the prison to sway the jury to acquit the guards, and the investigator – Johnny Acosta – who found the guards to have assaulted Plummer, was in turn sued by them. Many of the guards involved in that cover-up still work at Wallens Ridge, including Major Combs, Cochrane, Swiney, etc.
Prisoners have also been killed by Wallens Ridge officials or at their prompting.
Most recent was the controversial killing of Harvey Lee Watson by his cellmate
Robert Gleason, who pled guilty to the killing and implicated Wallens Ridge staff
as complicit and responsible. Several were fired after-the-fact, when autopsies
found Watson had been dead for half a day when discovered by guards inside the
cell. The guards had falsified records claiming they’d been making routine checks of the prisoners. However, those who caused his death were passed over. Gleason personally told me numerous times that he only realized after killing Watson that Wallens Ridge officials had used him, set him up to kill Watson to remove a thorn from their side. He vowed to plead guilty to the killing and to use the case to expose what they’d done. Which he did, to no avail.
In that case, they wanted to silence Watson, who kept protesting that officials had knowingly transported him from Sussex One State Prison in Waverly, Virginia to Wallens Ridge with a dead prisoner sitting with him in the van. Watson had also just set his cell on fire the night before being transferred and had recently set another prisoner on fire. He had outstanding punitive segregation sentences to serve and was not supposed to have been released to population. He also was supposed at all times to have been housed in cells alone, even in population, due to mental health status. However, ranking Wallens Ridge officials and the counsellor, wife of Lieutenant A. Gallihar, conspired to put Watson in Gleason’s cell in population. Gleason was known to have been convicted, suspected, and charged with numerous killings. Officials felt he was their man for the job.
In the cell, Gleason complained to staff counsellor Gallihar, ranking officials,
the warden, even people on the outside that Watson was sick and needed to be
moved out of his cell before he was forced into a drastic reaction. Watson would
drink urine, masturbate in the open, talk loudly to himself all times of night, etc.
Lieutenant Gallihar, his wife and others told Gleason, “You know how to deal with it,” refusing to move Watson. Gleason admittedly snapped and killed Watson. The scandal has been widely reported in the media and Gleason is open about what happened and why. The day after the killing, A. Gallihar, who wasn’t at the prison the day of the killing, fabricated an incident report as thought he was, on his wife’s behalf to cover for her.
During or about 2003, a white Connecticut prisoner was strangled to death by
Wallens Ridge guards who claimed the death a suicide hanging. A similar attack
was attempted against another white prisoner, Michael Austin, now confined at
Red Onion, during or about 2010. The guards disliked Austin because he’d grown
up around and embraced Black urban culture and clashed with the prison’s rural
white guards who’d ridicule him and try to influence him with racist values. In his
case, guards premeditatedly rushed into his cell, claiming falsely he was attempting to hang himself, put a thick string around his neck and began choking him. Their designs to strangle him to death were foiled only because the string broke.
During 2003, another Connecticut prisoner, a Black man named Lawrence Frazier, was electrocuted to death by numerous Wallens Ridge guards while he was restrained to a steel bed frame by his extremities. The death was dismissed as caused by insulin shock, however an examining doctor found the electrocutions contributed to, if not caused, his death.
A documentary “Up the Ridge” was filmed by a local radio group exposing the
racism and abuses surrounding the prison and reporting on Frazier’s killing.
During 2001, I was myself the victim of a brutal assault by a mob of Wallens Ridge guards, including two who beat Plummer just months later. In my case, I was drawn out of my segregation cell while fully unrestrained by a guard G. Sexton, inviting me to an off-the-record one-on-one fight (what we call “a fair one” in prison). His intentions, however, weren’t to fight but to set me up for a mob attack. Sexton never once put up a fight, but was knocked down almost immediately and began
screaming for back-up. I was subdued without resisting and upon being handcuffed and shackled was repeatedly kicked in the face and head, electrocuted with multiple 50,000 volt stun weapons, had all but 3 of my then almost 2-foot-long dreadlocks systematically ripped out, and was left with multiple facial lacerations that had to be stitched closed, burns across my upper body and arms, and blood red and purple contusions covering the entire whites of my eyes across their front halves. The attack was covered up by Wallens Ridge officials at all levels and Internal Affairs agents who destroyed pod surveillance camera footage of the attack, moved all vocal prisoner witnesses to other units, and colluded reports claiming all my injuries were inflicted by Sexton defending himself against an unanticipated attack by me when the cell “accidentally” opened. At first they’d claimed I opened it, whereas Sexton himself told guards in the control booth to open it.
What’s more, Wallens Ridge’s present warden, Gregory Halloway, has subjected me to extensive past torture while a unit manager at Greensville Correctional Center, during 1998. At that time he kept me on an illegal status called “white cell status,” when I was left for 8 months, even during winter, with nothing inside the cell, but one pair of boxer shorts. No property was permitted. I could not even brush my teeth and ended up having to have several filled for cavities as a result. I was only allowed a mattress and bedding from 10 pm through 6 am. I contracted the flu, sinus infections and colds. Throughout the white cell confinement, my cell window to the outside was broken, letting in freezing and cold outside temperatures.
While on white cell status, Holloway accused me of knocking him unconscious in
the medical department while my blood pressure taken with my hands cuffed,
supposedly in response to his torturing me. I remained on white cell status until I
was transferred to Red Onion in 1998 from Greensville.
Therefore not only is Holloway an official who’s known to illegally torture and
abuse—and will admit having me on that illegal status—but one who has cause for
vengeance against me. It is highly unlikely I can expect to receive any semblance
of just treatment under him, nor that he would act to prevent threatened abuses.
Indeed it is probable that he is privy to such abuses. Furthermore, Holloway is
but a token Black figurehead, recently appointed to Wallens Ridge to counter a
widespread image and reputation for racism like at Red Onion. Similarly, at Red
Onion, a token Black warden was appointed in the early 2000s, under whose
supervision racism and abuse escalated. Indeed, he went out of his way to avoid
making waves with the local entrenched white supremacist status quo that de facto ran Red Onion, as it does Wallens Ridge.
Dark faces in high places is today’s chief tactic for masking institutionalized racism.
Conclusion
If officials did not send me to Wallens Ridge with deviant designs, then this admits I qualify to be housed at any other VDOC prison of the same level 5 security classification, such as Sussex One or Two State Prisons, where a more racially diverse and tolerant staff exists. At Wallens Ridge and Red Onion, I and other politically active prisoners and those who challenge abuses have been targeted in a clear pattern with official violence and abuse.
It’s my request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment, such as the Sussex prisons. And to also be aware of the foul conditions that we live under on these razor wire plantations. For me, it just went from bad to worse.
Dare to struggle! Dare to win!
All Power to the People!
Wallens Ridge State Prison (address: P.O. Box 759, Big Stone Gap, VA 24219).
Alt. address & Ph.#:1052 Dogwood Drive Big Stone Gap, VA 24219-3825; (276) 523-3310
Here's a report by Rashid, on what's happening.
By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
On January 20, 2012, I was transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State
Prison. This transfer came on the heels of a December 12, 2011, incident where a
large portion of my hair was ripped out by a Red Onion guard, a staged investigation by a Virginia Dept. of Corrections Internal Affairs agent Johnny Acosta, and my having sent out an article and report on it all. Obviously, no coincidence.
From one set-up to another
On the morning of January 20, I was confronted at my cell by Red Onion’s C-Building Unit Manager, Michael Younce, and Lieutenant Delmer Tate, who both lied telling me that agent Johnny Acosta wanted to speak with me in the prison’s video-court area. I was, upon being handcuffed and leg shackled, “escorted” by them to the prison’s transport area and put into a cell, and told to strip down to be searched by security chief Kevin McCoy because I was “taking a trip.” Numerous guards entered the area including one Joseph Ely, a prior Red Onion guard who’d transferred to Wallens Ridge to be promoted to a Lieutenant. Ely was carrying transportation restraints and a 50,000 volt electric stun belt which prisoners are made to wear when taken on road trips. I instantly realized I was being transferred to Wallens Ridge.
I asked McCoy several times about my property. He assured it’d be right
behind me. It wasn’t. It was all left at Red Onion, where much of it will likely be
destroyed, “lost” and taken.
McCoy attempted to provoke a situation by having me given a pair of pants to wear
that were too small. I refused to wear them. After a standoff, I was given a pair in the correct size, restrained, belted and taken to a transport van. Inside the van, I was crushed and locked inside a tiny steel cage measuring about 5 feet high and 2 by 2 feet square, in which I could barely move. Once on the road, Ely asked if I knew where I was going. I answered “obviously to Wallens Ridge.” He then asked did I really not know I was being transferred? I told him no, that I was told I was going to see someone. He added, “You know why you’re going back, don’t you?” “Not really,” I answered. He then stated, “Well, you know a lot of people don’t like you. You probably won’t leave walking.” I was to receive numerous similar threats by guards that I was being sent to Wallens Ridge to be set up for violence.
Upon reaching Wallens Ridge, I was met by numerous guards, especially ranking
guards, whom I’d known from my 2000-2003 confinement at Wallens Ridge. All
displayed openly hostile attitudes. One of the guards, who was holding one of my
arms and “escorting” me from the van to the intake area, Dixon, repeatedly dug his fingers into my right arm. I was also accompanied during this walk by two large dogs barking loudly and straining wildly against their leashes.
I went through the strip search and endured another standoff over too-small
clothes, by Sergeant Cochrane and Lieutenant Swiney, both obviously trying to
provoke a situation to “justify” using violence. So I relented and wore the clothes for the brief walk to the unit.
I was leg-shackled, cuffed from behind and “escorted” by a mob of guards to the D- 3 housing unit. Every cell in the unit was empty. I was put into D-301, one of only two cells in the block with a steel box approximately 8" x 12" x 18" with a Plexiglas cover, welded to the outside of a cell door and around the opening in the door through which food and other items are passed and handcuffs applied and removed.
I was made to kneel to have the leg shackles removed, and to put my hands outside the slot into the box where the handcuffs were removed. I then removed my hands from the box and a steel plate was slid in place across the door opening, closing off access to the box.
Cochrane and Swiney came to the door in turns, repeating the same threats Ely had made, adding that “this time there won’t be any witnesses,” indirectly referring to my placement in a completely empty unit. Major Combs then came to the cell asking if I’d changed, commenting that I’d gotten grey hair since last he’d seen me and was “getting old.” Every guard I’ve encountered from then to now has been invariably hostile, and verbally insulting. I’ve been called a “nigger” no less than 15 times and subjected to numerous homosexual taunts in efforts to provoke and enrage me, which I pay no mind to. One guard, R. Ricketts has gone out of his way to repeatedly verbally taunt and threaten me with abuses to come.
I’ve had my meals and beverages dropped into the visibly filthy box on the door
which is never cleaned, indeed it can’t be where it contains rust, peeling paint,
fermented food and beverages residue, and one must place dirty clothes, shoes,
toilet cleaning items, etc. into the box to be searched by or exchanged with guards.
Using the box for meal service is a per se health hazard. Not only is my food
contaminated by being placed into direct contact with the box’s surfaces, but I’ve
found paint particles, dirt, lint, etc. in my food and beverages from the box.
I was also brought clothes by Swiney that had been sprayed with mace or gas.
I’ve been kept incommunicado – denied phone use, all property, and kept in a
completely empty unit.
I’ve also received two trays with foods containing broken pieces of metal and rocks. Guards, including Cochrane, refuse to provide me with or to accept for filing forms needed to pursuer emergency and other grievances and complaints. I had to go through a Lieutenant Bergan to obtain complaint forms from Cochrane, who then gave me only two out of five requested by me.
As indicated in my last report/update, the December 12, 2011, assault where my hair was ripped out was preceded by threats by the assaulting guard, in that I’m
now being faced with a consistent series of threats by a staff known to abuse and
even kill prisoners – which I’ll elaborate on below – it is important that this situation be made known as broadly as possible. I believe outside exposure, support and pressure has kept many of the more serious violent official intentions at bay. These threats under the circumstances must be taken very seriously.
Wallens Ridge: A Nest of Vipers
Several of the threats here have been accompanied by guards making disparaging
remarks about me being a “protester,” “Black Panther,” etc., often accompanied by racial slurs. It is well known that Black prisoners known to challenge or protest abuses or who are politically active are abuse targets at Wallens Ridge. John Gaskins, aka Mac, who was recently released from Wallens Ridge, has been bothwitness and victim. While at the prison, he witnessed prisoners inclined to protest being set up by guards, beaten and thrown into segregation. He was himself, for this reason, set up on a false infraction and thrown in segregation until he was released from Virginia’s prisons. He expected to be beaten by the guards himself at any time.
A----, aka Outlaw, the prisoner with whom I engaged in written political exchanges in my book, Defying the Tomb, was also brutally beaten and hospitalized at Wallens Ridge a couple years ago.
In my prior update/article, I discussed a 2001 beating by 3 ranking Wallens Ridge
guards of a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, which resulted in the guards being prosecuted. The charges were circumvented by the entire prison’s staff coming together to stage a scene at the prison to sway the jury to acquit the guards, and the investigator – Johnny Acosta – who found the guards to have assaulted Plummer, was in turn sued by them. Many of the guards involved in that cover-up still work at Wallens Ridge, including Major Combs, Cochrane, Swiney, etc.
Prisoners have also been killed by Wallens Ridge officials or at their prompting.
Most recent was the controversial killing of Harvey Lee Watson by his cellmate
Robert Gleason, who pled guilty to the killing and implicated Wallens Ridge staff
as complicit and responsible. Several were fired after-the-fact, when autopsies
found Watson had been dead for half a day when discovered by guards inside the
cell. The guards had falsified records claiming they’d been making routine checks of the prisoners. However, those who caused his death were passed over. Gleason personally told me numerous times that he only realized after killing Watson that Wallens Ridge officials had used him, set him up to kill Watson to remove a thorn from their side. He vowed to plead guilty to the killing and to use the case to expose what they’d done. Which he did, to no avail.
In that case, they wanted to silence Watson, who kept protesting that officials had knowingly transported him from Sussex One State Prison in Waverly, Virginia to Wallens Ridge with a dead prisoner sitting with him in the van. Watson had also just set his cell on fire the night before being transferred and had recently set another prisoner on fire. He had outstanding punitive segregation sentences to serve and was not supposed to have been released to population. He also was supposed at all times to have been housed in cells alone, even in population, due to mental health status. However, ranking Wallens Ridge officials and the counsellor, wife of Lieutenant A. Gallihar, conspired to put Watson in Gleason’s cell in population. Gleason was known to have been convicted, suspected, and charged with numerous killings. Officials felt he was their man for the job.
In the cell, Gleason complained to staff counsellor Gallihar, ranking officials,
the warden, even people on the outside that Watson was sick and needed to be
moved out of his cell before he was forced into a drastic reaction. Watson would
drink urine, masturbate in the open, talk loudly to himself all times of night, etc.
Lieutenant Gallihar, his wife and others told Gleason, “You know how to deal with it,” refusing to move Watson. Gleason admittedly snapped and killed Watson. The scandal has been widely reported in the media and Gleason is open about what happened and why. The day after the killing, A. Gallihar, who wasn’t at the prison the day of the killing, fabricated an incident report as thought he was, on his wife’s behalf to cover for her.
During or about 2003, a white Connecticut prisoner was strangled to death by
Wallens Ridge guards who claimed the death a suicide hanging. A similar attack
was attempted against another white prisoner, Michael Austin, now confined at
Red Onion, during or about 2010. The guards disliked Austin because he’d grown
up around and embraced Black urban culture and clashed with the prison’s rural
white guards who’d ridicule him and try to influence him with racist values. In his
case, guards premeditatedly rushed into his cell, claiming falsely he was attempting to hang himself, put a thick string around his neck and began choking him. Their designs to strangle him to death were foiled only because the string broke.
During 2003, another Connecticut prisoner, a Black man named Lawrence Frazier, was electrocuted to death by numerous Wallens Ridge guards while he was restrained to a steel bed frame by his extremities. The death was dismissed as caused by insulin shock, however an examining doctor found the electrocutions contributed to, if not caused, his death.
A documentary “Up the Ridge” was filmed by a local radio group exposing the
racism and abuses surrounding the prison and reporting on Frazier’s killing.
During 2001, I was myself the victim of a brutal assault by a mob of Wallens Ridge guards, including two who beat Plummer just months later. In my case, I was drawn out of my segregation cell while fully unrestrained by a guard G. Sexton, inviting me to an off-the-record one-on-one fight (what we call “a fair one” in prison). His intentions, however, weren’t to fight but to set me up for a mob attack. Sexton never once put up a fight, but was knocked down almost immediately and began
screaming for back-up. I was subdued without resisting and upon being handcuffed and shackled was repeatedly kicked in the face and head, electrocuted with multiple 50,000 volt stun weapons, had all but 3 of my then almost 2-foot-long dreadlocks systematically ripped out, and was left with multiple facial lacerations that had to be stitched closed, burns across my upper body and arms, and blood red and purple contusions covering the entire whites of my eyes across their front halves. The attack was covered up by Wallens Ridge officials at all levels and Internal Affairs agents who destroyed pod surveillance camera footage of the attack, moved all vocal prisoner witnesses to other units, and colluded reports claiming all my injuries were inflicted by Sexton defending himself against an unanticipated attack by me when the cell “accidentally” opened. At first they’d claimed I opened it, whereas Sexton himself told guards in the control booth to open it.
What’s more, Wallens Ridge’s present warden, Gregory Halloway, has subjected me to extensive past torture while a unit manager at Greensville Correctional Center, during 1998. At that time he kept me on an illegal status called “white cell status,” when I was left for 8 months, even during winter, with nothing inside the cell, but one pair of boxer shorts. No property was permitted. I could not even brush my teeth and ended up having to have several filled for cavities as a result. I was only allowed a mattress and bedding from 10 pm through 6 am. I contracted the flu, sinus infections and colds. Throughout the white cell confinement, my cell window to the outside was broken, letting in freezing and cold outside temperatures.
While on white cell status, Holloway accused me of knocking him unconscious in
the medical department while my blood pressure taken with my hands cuffed,
supposedly in response to his torturing me. I remained on white cell status until I
was transferred to Red Onion in 1998 from Greensville.
Therefore not only is Holloway an official who’s known to illegally torture and
abuse—and will admit having me on that illegal status—but one who has cause for
vengeance against me. It is highly unlikely I can expect to receive any semblance
of just treatment under him, nor that he would act to prevent threatened abuses.
Indeed it is probable that he is privy to such abuses. Furthermore, Holloway is
but a token Black figurehead, recently appointed to Wallens Ridge to counter a
widespread image and reputation for racism like at Red Onion. Similarly, at Red
Onion, a token Black warden was appointed in the early 2000s, under whose
supervision racism and abuse escalated. Indeed, he went out of his way to avoid
making waves with the local entrenched white supremacist status quo that de facto ran Red Onion, as it does Wallens Ridge.
Dark faces in high places is today’s chief tactic for masking institutionalized racism.
Conclusion
If officials did not send me to Wallens Ridge with deviant designs, then this admits I qualify to be housed at any other VDOC prison of the same level 5 security classification, such as Sussex One or Two State Prisons, where a more racially diverse and tolerant staff exists. At Wallens Ridge and Red Onion, I and other politically active prisoners and those who challenge abuses have been targeted in a clear pattern with official violence and abuse.
It’s my request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment, such as the Sussex prisons. And to also be aware of the foul conditions that we live under on these razor wire plantations. For me, it just went from bad to worse.
Dare to struggle! Dare to win!
All Power to the People!
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Don't Stop Believin' - My New Pandora Internet Radio Station
I love Don't Stop Believin' - it's the name of my new "Internet Radio Station" on Pandora.
For those of you that don't know about it, Pandora is a free service, where you simply choose a name for your internet "station", type in your favorite music, and let 'er rip ! The more music you type in, the better Pandora gets at picking songs you like.
It's a nonstop stream of music that YOU get to choose.
My buddy Chill turned me on to it - pretty neat stuff.
Check it out - and check out my station.
Thought I'd share.
This is the link to my radio station -> text to click on
Cheers !
For those of you that don't know about it, Pandora is a free service, where you simply choose a name for your internet "station", type in your favorite music, and let 'er rip ! The more music you type in, the better Pandora gets at picking songs you like.
It's a nonstop stream of music that YOU get to choose.
My buddy Chill turned me on to it - pretty neat stuff.
Check it out - and check out my station.
Thought I'd share.
This is the link to my radio station -> text to click on
Cheers !
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Kevin Johnson Attacked at Red Onion State Prison - VA
Kevin "Rashid" Johnson Assaulted by Red Onion Prison Guard
On December 12, Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was assaulted by Sergeant Tony Adams at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. Rashid was accosted him as he was coming out of the exercise cage. He was handcuffed and ordered by Sgt. Tony Adams to turn his back on them, which he didn't do. Adams then ripped out a swath of Rashid's hair, extending from above his right eye all the way over to his left ear. The guards then threw him to the ground and dislocated his left collarbone.
As of December 15, Rashid still has not received adequate medical attention.
Rashid has spent the past 21 years in prison, 18 of which have been spent in segregation. Jailed as a young man, he has used his time in prison to educate himself, and, developing a political analysis of the society that condemned him and so many others to a life behind bars, Rashid founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, a revolutionary communist organization. In his years in prison, he has honed his skills as a jailhouse lawyer, an artist, and author, writing several exposés of ongoing conditions of racism, violence, and other forms of abuse at Red Onion prison, where he has been held since __.
In 2010, several of Rashid's writings, and his clandestine correspondence with another prisoner, were published in the book Defying the Tomb. Since that time, a website has been put up making Rashid's writings more widely accessibly (http://rashidmod.com/), and artwork by Rashid was used prominently by supporters of the California prisoners' hungerstrike in 2011. Rashid has also continued exposing the deteriorating conditions at Red Onion prison, especially since Randy Mathena replaced Tracy S. Ray as Chief Warden in October.
Over the past year, as Rashid has brought increased attention to conditions in Virginia's prisons, he has also been increasingly targeted by prison staff. His mail has been disrupted, both incoming and outgoing. Political essays and reviews of his book have been refused on the spurious grounds that they pose a risk to the security of Red Onion prison. He has been transferred to Red Onion's new B-3 isolation unit, where he has had his cell "searched" by guards throwing his belongings on the ground and the stamping on them with their dirty boots, and where he has been kicked and threatened by guards. Rashid has pointed out that this abuse has likely been intended to provoke a response whereby the guards could "justify" violent reactions.
This is the context in which the December 12 assault on Rashid took place. The prison guards, working for the new warden Randy Mathena, are clearly targeting Rashid for abuse as payback for his work in exposing the conditions at Red Onion.
The only means of defense that prisoners like Rashid have is outside support and attention. Letting those who run the prisons know that we are watching, and encouraging human rights and progressive organizations to speak out about such cases, can save lives.
Telephone the office of Harold Clarke, direcor of Virginia's Department of Corrections, at:
Demand that Kevin "Rashid" Johnson be provided with appropriate medical care, that Sergeant Tony Adams be suspended from duties, and that criminal proceedings be launched against him for assault. The incident apparently occurred in front of a video camera - this film footage should be secured as evidence, and made available to the public.
Telephone Warden Randy Mathena at:
Demand an end to the targeting of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson for abuse. Demand the Rashid be provided with adequate medical care, and that Sergeant Tony Adams be suspended from duties.
On December 12, Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was assaulted by Sergeant Tony Adams at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. Rashid was accosted him as he was coming out of the exercise cage. He was handcuffed and ordered by Sgt. Tony Adams to turn his back on them, which he didn't do. Adams then ripped out a swath of Rashid's hair, extending from above his right eye all the way over to his left ear. The guards then threw him to the ground and dislocated his left collarbone.
As of December 15, Rashid still has not received adequate medical attention.
Rashid has spent the past 21 years in prison, 18 of which have been spent in segregation. Jailed as a young man, he has used his time in prison to educate himself, and, developing a political analysis of the society that condemned him and so many others to a life behind bars, Rashid founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, a revolutionary communist organization. In his years in prison, he has honed his skills as a jailhouse lawyer, an artist, and author, writing several exposés of ongoing conditions of racism, violence, and other forms of abuse at Red Onion prison, where he has been held since __.
In 2010, several of Rashid's writings, and his clandestine correspondence with another prisoner, were published in the book Defying the Tomb. Since that time, a website has been put up making Rashid's writings more widely accessibly (http://rashidmod.com/), and artwork by Rashid was used prominently by supporters of the California prisoners' hungerstrike in 2011. Rashid has also continued exposing the deteriorating conditions at Red Onion prison, especially since Randy Mathena replaced Tracy S. Ray as Chief Warden in October.
Over the past year, as Rashid has brought increased attention to conditions in Virginia's prisons, he has also been increasingly targeted by prison staff. His mail has been disrupted, both incoming and outgoing. Political essays and reviews of his book have been refused on the spurious grounds that they pose a risk to the security of Red Onion prison. He has been transferred to Red Onion's new B-3 isolation unit, where he has had his cell "searched" by guards throwing his belongings on the ground and the stamping on them with their dirty boots, and where he has been kicked and threatened by guards. Rashid has pointed out that this abuse has likely been intended to provoke a response whereby the guards could "justify" violent reactions.
This is the context in which the December 12 assault on Rashid took place. The prison guards, working for the new warden Randy Mathena, are clearly targeting Rashid for abuse as payback for his work in exposing the conditions at Red Onion.
The only means of defense that prisoners like Rashid have is outside support and attention. Letting those who run the prisons know that we are watching, and encouraging human rights and progressive organizations to speak out about such cases, can save lives.
Telephone the office of Harold Clarke, direcor of Virginia's Department of Corrections, at:
Demand that Kevin "Rashid" Johnson be provided with appropriate medical care, that Sergeant Tony Adams be suspended from duties, and that criminal proceedings be launched against him for assault. The incident apparently occurred in front of a video camera - this film footage should be secured as evidence, and made available to the public.
Telephone Warden Randy Mathena at:
Demand an end to the targeting of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson for abuse. Demand the Rashid be provided with adequate medical care, and that Sergeant Tony Adams be suspended from duties.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Three Prisoners Die in Hunger Strike !
Hungerstrike News
| November 20, 2011 | Vol. 3, No. 1 |
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| Throughout the month of July, and for weeks in September and October, 2011, thousands of prisoners across California participated in a hunger strike against torturous conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit. Hungerstrike News documented their struggle and the actions of those who stood in solidarity with them. In the current period, Hungerstrike News will be released intermittently to provide updates about the struggle against isolation torture in the California gulag. |
Has Your Mail to Someone in Prison Been Refused?From Julie Tackett: Having your mail rejected is one of the most upsetting things to have happen when you have a loved one in prison. Whether is just a mistake on your part, a concerted effort cut family bonds or blatant retaliation for things like the Hunger Strike, it will help to keep track of trends. I have a spread sheet to record mail rejected by CDCR. I will watch for trends of increased rejections by facility, type of rejections, reasons for rejections, and otherwise keep an eye on things. If you ever have a piece of mail rejected by CDCR for any reason, just message me, email me at tackett.julie@gmail.com or call 206-214-8208. Thanks, Julie |
| UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUES IN DEPTH:
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| POWERPOINT BACKGROUNDER ON HUNGERSTRIKE |
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| MAKE CALLS AND WRITE LETTERS OF PROTEST TO: Secretary Matthew Cate CDCR 1515 S Street Sacramento 95814 TEL: (916) 323-6001 Governor Jerry Brown State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 TEL: (916) 445-2841 CDCR Public Affairs Office: (916)445-4950 & DON'T FORGET TO SIGN THE PETITION AT CHANGE.ORG! |
| GET SUBSCRIBERS If you have a website or blog and would like to help promote Hungerstrike News, get in touch. To subscribe, send an email to hstrikenews@yahoo.ca or go to:http://www.kersplebedeb. |
| SOCIAL MEDIA follow the Prisoner Hungerstrike Solidarity Coalition on twitter: |
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Oh Yeah - BranScam Needs a PenPal...
Brandon (the artist that did the devil-girl on the letter below) needs a female penpal pretty bad - so if anyone knows a girl who's willing to write him, he'd be grateful.
You can write him at: Brandon Begay, #83195-008, CADC, P.O.Box 6300, Florence, AZ 85232.
He's a good guy - 26, Navajo, a party animal, and a helluva artist. Write him, OK ?
You can write him at: Brandon Begay, #83195-008, CADC, P.O.Box 6300, Florence, AZ 85232.
He's a good guy - 26, Navajo, a party animal, and a helluva artist. Write him, OK ?
Finally...More Prisoner Art
Well, here's some prisoner art - been a while.
I receive it from time to time, but little lately has been worth a shit, frankly.
Anyway, have a Happy Halloween !
I receive it from time to time, but little lately has been worth a shit, frankly.
Anyway, have a Happy Halloween !
Friday, October 21, 2011
Burnin' a New CD
Hi Folks,
Just burnin' a new cd, and thought I'd share a little electronica tune I found.
Enjoy.
Just burnin' a new cd, and thought I'd share a little electronica tune I found.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Hungerstrike News
Prisoners at Calipatria Call Off Strike
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Why I Chained Myself to the State Building in LAby Keith James |
| Two videos of acts of Non-Violent Civil Disobedience in Support of the Prisoners Hunger Strike, to demand an end to the retaliation and torture at the hands of the CDCR and governor Jerry Brown, and a demand that CDCR and Gov. Brown immediately meet the Prisoners' Five Demands. Videos 2:27 and 2:24 in duration http://youtu.be/ pcAk5YjfKYMan http://www.presstv.ir /detail/ 204690.html | | In a word, torture… torture in a brutal and barbaric penal system hell-bent on the destruction of thousands of prisoners in high-tech torture chambers called Security Housing Units or SHU’s. In the SHU you’re locked up in a small, windowless concrete cell 23 hours a day, with minimum human contact and maximum sensory deprivation. Imagine your only human contact with the outside world is the punch of a prison guard, or a violent gas explosion as part of “extracting” you from your cell. Imagine never hearing music ever again. Think about everything that makes you human… that keeps you physically and mentally alive… that connects you with the world and other people… that gives you a reason to live, to love, to learn and think…. All this is what the SHU tries to extinguish. Of the 1100 prisoners in the SHU in Pelican Bay State Prison, over 500 have been literally buried alive in the SHU, entombed, for over 10 years; 78 for over 20 years. The cruelty and illegitimacy of the State of California ’s actions must stop and stopping torture requires such inhumanity becoming a MAJOR focus of resistance in society. Prisoners at Pelican Bay and other state prisons have rebelled against all this; for 20 days in July and now for 19 days, from September 26 to October 14, upwards of 12,000 courageous prisoners have carried out a hunger strike. The prisoners stopped eating, risked their lives, and made their just and reasonable demands to end long term solitary confinement and torture, and snatched the initiative from the prison authorities, spotlighting a towering crime that has been for far too long covered up. What these prisoners have done is truly heroic. They are an inspiration, setting an example for everyone fighting for an end to injustice, and we must come to their side. Yet in California the Governor supports the prison officials in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation(CDCR). As the CDCR viciously intensified their almost unimaginably cruel treatment of prisoners who are on a hunger strike with even greater repression and violence these past weeks and months, Gov. Brown fully backed the assault, saying: “We have individuals who are dedicated to their gang membership who order people to be killed, who order crimes to be committed on the outside. My recommendation is to deal effectively with gangs in prison.” No, Governor Brown - torture is unequivocally unacceptable, no matter what labels are put on prisoners. This is why I chained myself to the State Building in Los Angeles . *** The CDCR response to this hunger strike has been vicious, outrageous, and ominous: intimidation and retaliation against prisoners and their families; “general population” prisoners put into isolation for participating in the hunger strike; fluids and vitamins deliberately withheld to further incapacitate the striking prisoners; expulsion orders to two key mediation team lawyers who have been banned from Pelican Bay prison pending an investigation into whether they had “jeopardized the safety and security of the CDCR”; denial of family visits; further isolation of hunger striking SHU prisoners by placing them “down under” in Administrative Segregation Units, in extreme cold with no medicine and medical attention; brutal cell extractions of hunger striking prisoners, with the use of suffocating gas explosions in the prisoners cells…. What people do on the outside of prison will be a big factor in what happens now that the prison authorities have reacted with vicious reprisals against prisoners, families, and legal advocates. The hunger strike has been halted for now. The torture, despite an epic struggle, continues… the 5 demands of the prisoners have NOT yet been met… but many, many more people, millions more, learned about the SHU’s and thousands today are looking for ways to act to put an end to such inhuman, punitive treatment. We have a moral responsibility to act in a way that corresponds with the justness of the prisoners’ demands and with what is truly at stake. In the words of Revolution newspaper, a determined and bold movement outside the walls of prison is urgently needed to expose and demand an end to these high-tech torture chambers called “SHU’s”. That’s why I chained myself to the State Building in Los Angeles . |
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