Tuesday, January 31, 2012

'People Power' Pries Abu-Jamal from Punitive Administrative Custody

Jan. 29, 2012 This Can't be Happening

He’s out!

Credit ‘people power’ for getting internationally known inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal sprung from his apparently punitive, seven-week placement in ‘The Hole.’

For the first time since receiving a controversial death sentence in 1982 for killing a Philadelphia policeman, the widely acclaimed author-activist finds himself in general population, a prison housing status far less restrictive than the solitary confinement of death row.

Inmates in general population have full privileges to visitation, telephone and commissary, along with access to all prison programs and services, all things denied or severely limited to convicts on death row waiting to be killed by the state.

In early December 2011, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections officials, after the federal courts had removed his death penalty and the Philadelphia District Attorney opted not to attempt to re-try the penalty phase in hopes of winning a new death sentence, placed Abu-Jamal in Administrative Custody (a/k/a ‘The Hole’).

Administrative Custody is confinement in a Spartan isolation cell where conditions are more draconian than even death row.

The release of Abu-Jamal from Administrative Custody into general population on Friday, January 27, 2012 followed with a multi-layered protest campaign by his supporters worldwide that included flooding Pennsylvania prison authorities with telephone calls, collecting petitions containing over 5,000 signatures and a complaint filed with United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Public pressure to release Mumia Abu-Jamal from the "Hole" trumped the pressure from those trying to keep torturing him (photo b

Public pressure to release Mumia Abu-Jamal from the "Hole" trumped the pressure from those trying to keep torturing him (photo by Linn Washington

Supporters condemned the Administrative Custody placement, calling it retaliation for Abu-Jamal's having successfully defeated the state's efforts to execute him. Abu-Jamal, a model prisoner, did not meet any of the 11 specific circumstances listed in Pennsylvania DoC regulations dictating administrative custody placement.

Prison staff evaluations of Abu-Jamal since his December death row removal, sources said, listed him as “polite [and] respectful.” Those positive evaluations did not evidence any of the incorrigibility or other serious misbehaviors that usually trigger AC placement.

“When people are united around an issue they have power. This is the power of the people all races in many places,” said Pam Africa, director of the Philadelphia-based International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal, in a statement released through his wife Wadiya Jamal, thanked his supporters for their hard work. “I am no longer on death row, no longer in the hole, I’m in population,” Abu-Jamal’s statement noted. “This is only Part One and I thank you for the work you’ve done. But the struggle is for freedom!”

Media reports quoted Pennsylvania DoC spokespersons confirming Abu-Jamal’s placement in general population at Mahanoy Prison, a medium security facility about 100 miles from Philadelphia in central Pennsylvania where he was transferred last December from another prison in western Pennsylvania that houses the state's death row.

DoC spokespersons had previously declined comment on Abu-Jamal’s Administrative Custody placement, citing regulations covering inmate privacy.

Prison officials advanced ever-changing rationales for keeping Abu-Jamal in AC at Mahanoy, including the curious claim of that they were waiting for legal clarification that the courts had formally replaced Abu-Jamal’s death sentence with life in prison.

That Kafkaesque claim contradicted the DoC’s own documents specifically acknowledging that federal courts had vacated the death sentence (thus requiring a default life sentence) and Philadelphia’s DA having dropped appeals to reinstate the death sentence.

Typical of the way that Abu-Jamal’s long-running case has shone a bright light on grievous abuses within the criminal justice system, his AC placement exposed what independent prison monitors have long contended is a dirty secret of Pennsylvania’s prison system: authorities using Administrative Custody isolation to maliciously penalize inmates who are not violating prison rules.

Bret Grote, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Human Rights Coalition, said during a media interview that prison authorities misuse Administrative Custody as repression against inmates for their political activism, their complaining about poor conditions in prison, their roles as jailhouse lawyers and often for racist reasons.

Grote said Pennsylvania’s DoC holds approximately 2,500 of its fifty-thousand-plus prisoners in solitary confinement on any given day. That's five percent of the total.

“Andre Jacobs and Carrington Keys, two members of a group of prisoners known as the Dallas 6 [Dallas is a Pennsylvania prison] have been held in solitary for approximately 11 and nine years respectively as a result of their speaking out against torture and other human rights violations inside the state's control units,” Grote said during an interview with Prison Radio.

Philadelphian Russell “Maroon” Shoats, a former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member, has spent 30 of his 40 years in prison inside an isolation cell despite not having any prison infractions, said his daughter Theresa Shoats during a press conference in Philadelphia held one day before Abu-Jamal’s release.

“Prison officials keep my Dad in solitary instead of releasing him into general population because they say he is a leader. My Dad turns 70 this year and he has medical problems, some from being in solitary for so long. Keeping him in solitary is unfair,” Shoats said about her father, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia policeman.

“My Dad says he encourages young inmates to read to stay sane. Why does that make him too dangerous for general population? He told me that 15 young men hung themselves in SCI Greene during a one-year period.”

King Downing, director of the American Friends Service Center’s Healing Justice Program, said prison authorities nationwide misuse solitary confinement to “silence political prisoners.” Downing hosted the press conference where Shoats spoke alongside other speakers representing Abu-Jamal.

Last October, Juan Mendez, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, called on all countries worldwide to ban the use of solitary confinement of inmates as punishment and/or an extortion technique, except in very exceptional circumstances.

Mendez cited scientific studies establishing the mental and medical damage arising from prolonged isolation. His report stated that an estimated 20,000-to-25,000 persons regularly occupy solitary confinement cells across America.

Recently a federal jury awarded a New Mexico man $22-million for violations of his constitutional rights arising from his having spent two years in solitary confinement in a county jail in Albuquerque following a drunk driving arrest. Although during that entire time he was never even charged or brought to trial, authorities in Dona Ana County New Mexico vow to appeal that verdict, one of the largest damage judgements in history for illegal incarceration.

Ripple effects of Corcoran ASU hunger strike

January 30, 2012 SF Bay View

by William E. Brown Jr.

William E. Brown Jr. and his family

Written Jan. 16, 2012 – We here at Corcoran State Prison, prisoners in ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit), went on a united hunger strike, aimed straight at the beast: injustice and negligence. As a named petitioner, I was targeted for being a litigant and a spokesman for myself and the other Afrikans who are seeking justice and equal protection.

While we are going through the “due process” of Corcoran’s imperial domination, here are the ripple effects of our strike. The first slap in the face arose when they made the biased and discriminatory decision to send the ASU1 sergeant to move me and my young KAGE brother [another Black prisoner] away from our ASU cell F169 to a mental health building that’s used only for CCCMS (Correctional Clinical Case Management System) mentally ill inmates.

Since our protest was presented peacefully, we refused to partake in any violent resistance after being threatened with possible cell extraction, then an additional 115 citation for rule violations. As an older brother wise to CDC(R)’s trickery, I felt more than responsible not to lose control of the incident, which could have aggravated me and my young Black brotha’s present circumstances.

After allowing others alike involved to know that we will carry on strong and keep the revolt lit in honor of our united front, we agreed to move straight ahead.

The next slap in the face arose when an email came on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, 6:42 p.m., to [prison officials] Arnold Cruz and Vincent Marmolejo in hopes to use this coercion to end our civil rights to a peaceful protest. The email read:

“Can you speak to inmates Ryoo and Brown [the Corcoran ASU hunger strike petition was signed by Pyung Hwa Ryoo, Juan Jaimes and William E. Brown]? Please let them know the hunger strike is over and resolutions to some of the issues they presented (in the petition) are forthcoming, as I had discussed with Ryoo last week. The inmates in ASU-1 ate tonight and declared hunger strike over. Let me know what happens. Thanks.”

On Dec. 31, 2011, the prison officials came and pulled us from our cell and took our personal property based on illegal grounds. We continued our peaceful protest! After threats and more coercion, we both pondered our wellbeing and the odds were stacked against us, meaning harsher retaliation. We came to an adult understanding with Lt. Rush, who in exchange personally walked an emergency copy of our 602 inmate appeal (complaint) to the warden’s office.

The third slap in the face came when I was served an additional CDC 115 (Rules Violation Report) charging a violation of CCR Sec. 3005(a) and citing the specific act of “inciting and leading a hunger strike.” I’m like “Wow!” Under “Circumstances,” the 115 reads:


“On Friday, December 30, 2011, the Southern Hispanic, Black, and Other inmates in ASU1 participated in a mass hunger strike to address grievances in ASU1. Due to the ‘Hunger Strike,’ there was a disruption in the ASU1 program. A list of demands was sent to staff, and you inmate BROWN T-58106 (ASU1-169) were listed as one of the instigators of the Hunger Strike. Your actions caused a disruption to the normal operations of ASU1, and possible health concerns for the inmates involved. Your actions created additional work for staff, and time delays in which it was necessary for staff to address your issues. Attached is a list of demands with inmate RYOO F-88924, inmate JAIMES V-08644 (ASU1-165), and inmate BROWN T-58106 (ASU1-169), listed as the signers for the inmate grievance. Based on this information you are deemed as leading the Hunger Strike and causing the disruption in ASU1.”

Prior to this whole incident, all we had done was submit a peaceful civil rights/human rights group petition reflecting the colorful complaints of all races, and all we got is retaliation. CDC(R) fails and refuses to comply with our demands, which are protected by case law as well as federal and state law, California Code of Regulations Title 15 and CDC(R) Department Operations Manual (DOM).

For many years, we’ve been dirt under the rug, left for dead by those in society who turn a blind eye, only to be cast as outlaws and black, brown, yellow and white trash. Even now as I humbly await my next 115 hearing to be conducted, I’m preparing a civil suit.

For many years, we’ve been dirt under the rug, left for dead by those in society who turn a blind eye, only to be cast as outlaws and black, brown, yellow and white trash.

Those same biased prison officials continue to violate many more inmates’ due process by failing or refusing to allow certain evidence or documents or even answer relevant questions pertaining to our defense. Many times we are refused access to witnesses who could possibly assist with our defense in hopes of a much greater outcome than the guilty verdict.

Just because the official has the power, there’s never a preponderance of the evidence standard considered when a hearing officer is labeled as being unlisted as having gone “through the procedure of the State Bar.” How could it not be determined that a hearing officer hadn’t made an impartial decision in his or her fact finding when he has not been through the training of the State Bar to legally enforce an order without a predetermined belief system.

These underground rules are being used as a gateway to target certain inmates who CDC(R) considers too active, or to later validate them as alleged gang members for inciting or leading certain racial groups. This is to discourage further litigation, advocacy – standing against the very injustice that Martin Luther King and others alike marched for. As King stood against genocidal environments, me and my brothers will continue to rattle the KAGE.

These underground rules are being used as a gateway to target certain inmates who CDC(R) considers too active, or to later validate them as alleged gang members for inciting or leading certain racial groups.

There are three possible aims of punishment: restraint, revenge or reform. Capitalism only seems to succeed at the first two. As we the prisoner advocates for justice know, the retributive and vengeful “justice” of the present system has been a total and utter failure.

Attempting to reform people through coercion and force can never succeed. Arguments based on fear and terror are never convincing. The institutionalized murder – the death penalty – has never had the slightest effect on violent crime figures. It amounts to no more than revenge.

If prison achieves anything, it tends to perpetuate crime with minor offenders who often go on to commit greater crimes. The motto then goes, Why not re-offend if nothing has changed?

Capitalism cannot solve the problem. It creates the very conditions which lead to most crimes. The supposed system of justice amounts to a closed cast of judges and legal professionals who are initiated into a tangled web of complex rules and regulations, where any concept of justice or fair play intrudes purely at random.

Because the beast is on its knees, because the moment is ripe, I’m approaching the oppressor’s gates with unity like the ants, the heart of a lion and the rage of a bull to liberate my people. I won’t lose ambition so long as I’m still breathing. Mandela stayed strong for 28 years. Huey P. told us we bear rights. “Wait” sounds too much like never.

GLJ [George Lester Jackson] was a Soledad brother who made the jailhouse rock, saying, “You’ve got to find a way to make people know you’re there.” That’s crucial, whether in terms of making career gains, letting our families know we care or, like Malcolm, sending a message to our elected officials. I recommend that everyone read “Stride Toward Freedom,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first published book.

Send our brother some love and light: William E. Brown Jr., T-58106, P.O. Box 8800, Corcoran CA 93212. See his FriendsWithPens.com page.

Former Black Panther patches together purpose in Africa exile

In America, Pete O'Neal was an angry man, an ex-con who found a kind of religion in 1960s black nationalism. In a Tanzania village, he's been a champion of children.

By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times

January 28, 2012



Many of the young orphans gather round to watch, and lend their support, as Pete O'Neal has fresh ink applied to his fading black panther tattoo. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Many of the young orphans gather round to watch, and lend their support, as Pete O'Neal has fresh ink applied to his fading black panther tattoo. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Reporting from Imbaseni, Tanzania -- The fugitive shuffles to his computer and begins typing out his will. He is about to turn 71, and it is time. "My life," he writes, "has been a wild and wicked ride...."

All Pete O'Neal has amassed fits on two pages: A small brick home with a sheet-metal roof. A few road-beaten vehicles. A cluster of bunkhouses and classrooms he spent decades building, brick by scavenged brick, near the slopes of Mt. Meru's volcanic cone. Everything will go to his wife of 42 years, Charlotte, and to a few trusted workers.

He prints out the will late one Saturday morning and settles into his reclining chair to check the spelling. He signs his name. Then, to guarantee its authenticity, he finds an ink pad, rolls his thumb across it, and affixes his thumbprint to the bottom of the page.

"I think that'll do it," he says.

When last he walked America's streets, O'Neal was a magnetic young man possessed of bottomless anger. He was an ex-con who'd found a kind of religion in late-'60s black nationalism, a vain, violent street hustler reborn in a Black Panther uniform of dark sunglasses, beret and leather jacket. With pitiless, knife-sharp diction, he spoke of sending police to their graves.

This morning, he sits in his living room uncapping medicine bottles. A pill for high blood pressure. Another for the pain in his back and his bad knee. An aspirin to thin his blood. Time is catching him, like the lions that pursue him implacably through his nightmares, their leashes held by policemen.

He pushes through his screen door into the brisk morning air. A slightly stooped, thickset man with long, graying dreadlocks, he moves unsteadily down the irregular stone steps he built into the sloping dirt. He makes his way past the enormous avocado tree, past the horse barn with its single slow-footed tenant, Bullet, past the shaded dining pavilion.

His four-acre compound bustles with visitors, many of them preparing for a memorial service for Geronimo Pratt, a former Panther who died in his farmhouse down the road, his affairs untidy, his will unfinished, his death a sharp message to O'Neal not to put off the paperwork any longer.

Most of O'Neal's big dreams have faded over the years, or come to feel silly. Like beating the 42-year-old federal gun charges that caused him to flee the United States. Like the global socialist revolution that he was supposed to help lead. Like returning home to the streets of his Midwestern childhood. Like winning citizenship in his adopted African country, and the prize that's eluded him on two continents: the feeling of belonging somewhere.

This is what's left: the shell of a 20-year-old Toyota Coaster bus that bulks before him in a clearing. It's a stripped-and-gutted 29-seater that he bought for $11,500 after years of squirreling away money. It came with dents, a cracked windshield, a peeling paint job, rotting floorboards, frayed seats.

Still, it seemed like a good deal until he found the engine had to be replaced, costing an additional $4,000. He's hired mechanics and craftsmen to rebuild the bus nearly from the chassis up, and a few of them are milling around now, informing him in Swahili of their progress.

He rarely leaves home anymore. Crowds jangle his nerves; traffic makes his hands shake. Yet nothing feels more urgent than readying this bus for an improbable 300-mile trip to the edge of his adopted continent.

A group of American high school students, mostly white, is gathering in the dining pavilion. They've been coming by the busload for years, many drawn by the intrigue of staying with a former Panther. They pay him $30 a night for a bunk. The money — together with sporadic donations from sympathetic friends here and abroad — pays the bills.

O'Neal as a fierce young militant

Pete O'Neal in his Black Panther days. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

The students pause before the big poster featuring O'Neal as a fierce young militant, rifle in arms, Charlotte at his side. It's hard to reconcile that image with the grandfatherly host who greets them in Swahili as if they were old friends, booming, "Karibu!" Welcome!

He asks where they're from. A girl says Missouri, which happens to be his home state, and he hugs her theatrically. Everyone laughs. "All of you are welcome," he says, "even if you're from strange places."

He plants them before documentary footage about his life. It's easier than explaining the whole story himself. Where would he start? His childhood in segregated Kansas City, Mo., where the amusement park admitted black kids once a year, a day so cherished that they went in their Sunday best? Should he start with the stabbings and shootings in the projects where he grew up?

"I lived in the streets," he says. "I didn't have time to be happy."

After one arrest, he was given a stark choice: reform school or the armed services. The Navy threw him out after he plunged a butcher knife into another sailor's chest over an insult, nearly killing him. He drifted in and out of lockup. He pimped girls in three states. He wore $300 Italian suits and a blond wave in his processed hair.

To the FBI, the Panthers were homegrown terrorists who romanticized lawbreaking with overheated Marxist rhetoric. To O'Neal, who founded the Kansas City chapter of the party in early 1969, it represented a lifeline out of an abyss of drugs and aimlessness. He blazed with purpose: End racism and class inequality, fast.

"I would like very much to shoot my way into the House of Representatives," he declared in a televised interview, angry at a congressman who was investigating the Panthers. Pressed to clarify, he added: "I mean it literally."

He stormed into a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington, screaming accusations that the Kansas City police chief was funneling weapons to white supremacist groups.

Shortly afterward, a federal judge sentenced him to a four-year prison term on a conviction of transporting a shotgun across state lines. Out on bail, he decided to run. He and Charlotte fled in 1970 to Sweden, then to Algeria, and finally, in late 1972, to Tanzania, whose socialist government welcomed left-wing militants.

The O'Neals had $700. After a few years they bought a patch of inhospitable brush and volcanic rock in Imbaseni, a cobra-infested village of thatched-roof shacks in the country's remote northern interior. They were up before dawn, dancing with Al Jarreau on the tape deck, gathering locals for the day's work. Their two young African-born children, Malcolm and Stormy, carried bricks and water buckets.

Soon they had four walls, a roof, and little else. Plastic hung over the windows. No toilets

Soon they had four walls, a roof, and little else. Plastic hung over the windows. No toilets. It was the back-to-Africa experience so many black Americans talked about, minus the option of escape. They learned to grow corn and raise chickens. He jarred pickle relish, smoked sausages and bottled barbecue sauce for sale to local shops.

His temper was thunderous. When he heard something in Swahili that sounded offensive — such as wa-negro, a neutral description of black Americans implying no malice — he would scream, ready to fight.

"We were cowboys then," says Ikaweba Bunting, 63, a Compton-raised college professor who arrived in Tanzania in the 1970s and stayed for years. "We were big and hard-walking and hard-talking, and ready to beat people up — the whole street culture."

Exile was supposed to be temporary. O'Neal corresponded with other Panthers and planned to return home to help lead the revolution. He watched from abroad as the party collapsed from infighting, arrests and an FBI campaign of surveillance and sabotage. People stopped talking about revolution. Radicals found new lives.

O'Neal's exile became permanent. His fury abated. Some of it was age. Some of it was Tanzania, where strangers always materialized to push your Land Rover out of the mud, and where conflicts were resolved in community meetings in which everyone got to speak, interminably.

"It is so laid back, so reasonable, that to be otherwise makes you look, even to yourself, like a damn fool," O'Neal says.

Around that first crude brick structure, the fugitive improvised a little island of hope. He built a small recording studio for musicians and a workshop for artists. He gathered castoff computers and invited locals to come learn. He sank a well and opened the spigot to the village. It was, as he saw it, in the spirit of the free breakfast program he'd run as a Panther.

"He's had a chance to grow in a way that very few people get here," says his brother Brian O'Neal, 58, who lives in Kansas City.

Had he stayed in the States, Pete O'Neal believes, he'd be long dead from a shootout or street fight.

If exile saved him, it has also meant a life in which the sense of being a stranger never goes away.

"There's always a feeling of not being completely part of this culture. I know I am of a different tribe," he says. "People like me here, they love me, but I'm always other than."

Back in his house, he relaxes with a few shots of Jim Beam. He keeps a shotgun for snakes and a wall full of books. In mock-stentorian tones, he ridicules his early blood-soaked rhetoric. He puts a hand over his face, like an actor reminded of an embarrassing role, and says, "That was a man who was trying to find himself. He was trying to shed his skin, and emerge brand-new. I think he overstated and overacted."

For his radicalism itself, however, he won't apologize, even if — as he suspects — it is the one thing that might gain him safe entry back into the States.

"They will never convince me in my life," he says, "that what I was doing wasn't right."

All the orphans get a razored haircut -- both boys and girls -- and wash off the loose stubble under cold water at the tap.(Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

All the orphans get a razored haircut -- both boys and girls -- and wash off the loose stubble under cold water at the tap. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A few years back, an ambition seized him. The village had scores of destitute children, orphans from dirt-floor shacks and subsistence farms. He collected donations and built a concrete-block bunkhouse down near his tomato and pepper garden.

He spread word that he had room for a few kids. More than 100 appeared at his door, many shoeless. He had to send the majority away. The most desperate, a couple dozen, he informally adopted.

Now, they roam his grounds in lively packs, playing four square on the basketball court. They sleep in rows under malaria nets. Volunteers and a few staff members watch over the children and give them English and computer classes.

They call him Babu. Grandfather.

How big is the ocean?

So big you can't see across it.

Really?

So big you can go for weeks and never see land.

He shows them a globe.

See how much more ocean there is than land?

So is it bigger than Tanzania?

American high school students gather around Pete O'Neal in his compound's dining pavilion. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

American high school students gather around Pete O'Neal in his compound's dining pavilion. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

The American high school students have questions, so he takes a seat before them. It's late, and he's weary, but this is his living. They want to know what country he belongs to, exactly.

He has no passport, he explains, and the Tanzanian government has rebuffed his efforts to become a citizen. "I'm not sure where the hell I belong at this particular point," he tells the students.

For years, he sought a way home. He found American lawyers willing to work for free to fight the gun charges. He would like to see his 91-year-old mother in Kansas City one last time.

His longing for the States comes at funny moments, as when he sees shrimp sailing through the air in Red Lobster commercials. He still dreams about the Kansas City he knew as a child, the bakeries and the public swimming pool and the ladies with their hats. But the city seems wrong, somehow, becoming weirdly unrecognizable.

In other dreams, he finds himself fleeing from things he can't see or name, urging his wife, "Charlotte, you gotta run!"

He regards his complex of bunkhouses, workshops and classrooms as "socialism in microcosm," he tells the students, though doctrinaire Marxism left him disillusioned. People, he concluded, are basically selfish.

Have his views on violence changed?

"I don't have the particular type of courage that would allow me to turn the other cheek."

One fresh-faced girl says she's been in Tanzania a week, and thinks it might be neat to move here. Does he recommend it?

Patiently, he replies: "It ain't that kind of party."

Of late, he tells the students, he's been haunted by the deaths of other exiled Panthers. One died in France last February, another in Zambia in October.

Then there was his close friend Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, the Panthers' former field marshal, who spent 27 years behind bars on a murder conviction before a California judge overturned it.

In 2002, Pratt bought a big farmhouse nearby with his false-imprisonment settlement, and O'Neal felt as though he'd rediscovered a lost brother. They drove through the village listening to Richard Pryor CDs, laughing until they wheezed and tears rolled down their cheeks.

Pratt was hospitalized with high blood pressure in May. He hated any confinement. He pulled out his IVs and went home. Days later, O'Neal found him on his side, dead in bed, just 63. His memorial would be tomorrow.

"People are dropping, man," he tells the students. He doesn't say that his thoughts were circling his own mortality so relentlessly that he couldn't sleep last night, and climbed out of bed to tally up what he would leave behind.

Pete O'Neal's four-acre compound bustles with visitors, some of them preparing dance routines for the memorial service for Elmer

Pete O'Neal's four-acre compound bustles with visitors, some of them preparing dance routines for the memorial service for Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, the onetime Black Panther who died in his farmhouse down the road. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Hundreds gather for Pratt's memorial service. O'Neal sits on the stage under the avocado tree and tells a few stories about their friendship: How Pratt always told him his toes were ugly. How they joked endlessly about who was the bigger hayseed.

Amid the prayers and the singing and the tributes, he manages to steal away for a few moments to inspect the bus. The seats are lined up in the dirt, ready to be scrubbed and resewn. The windows are taped up so the painting can begin. Panther colors: black and light blue.

He remembers discovering the ocean.

He was in his late teens, a heartland kid who believed his fearful precinct of Kansas City was the absolute center of the world, its ugliness and bigotry a true picture of the world. It is why, to his mind, violent revolution looked logical and inevitable.

Then he arrived in California to report for duty in the Navy, and turned his head and saw the Pacific. His breath was caught short by the immensity of it, all that blue stretching out into other lands, other stories. It was the start of a decades-long lesson that the world is bigger, more complicated and interesting than his little plot of bitter experience had led him to suspect.

His orphans have never left this inland region of cornfields and malarial swamps. They've never tasted salt water, or felt hot beach sand between their toes.

"They have no idea — no idea — what the ocean is," he says.

Nights and weekends, they pile into his living room and watch documentaries about sea life. He tells them about whales, giant squid, blind fish in the lightless deep. He regales them with shark stories.

Will they eat me?

If they're hungry enough, they'll try.

Because they don't like me?

No, it's the natural order of things.

Now and then he indulges in what he calls "Kansas City exaggeration," and even the majestic sea gets some burnishing. The sharks in his stories grow bigger than houses.

The kids study the TV. The sharks don't look that big.

OK. But they do have sharks bigger than that car.

The 29-seater is ready by late summer. The engine has been replaced, the dents in the body hammered out. The exterior has been sanded and smoothed, primed and painted, with a Panther emblem emblazoned beneath the big front window.

One day soon, he hopes to take the children southeast across the country to the Swahili Coast, with its coral reefs and pale sand and bright-painted old dhows. He planned to do it over Christmas, but a new pill regimen left him enervated. And money was short.

He'll need $2,000 for diesel fuel, food, tents. He hates to beg, but he believes the trip will be the culmination of every good instinct he's ever had — "The highest point in my life," he says — and he's calling in every favor.

His blood pressure, alarmingly high, keeps reminding him to be quick. "I could hear Geronimo say, 'We got a place reserved for you, come on down and keep me company.'" He told his friend no. Not yet.

In his sleep, the lions give chase. In the morning, he stands dreaming before the bus. They're running into the Indian Ocean, a man without a country surrounded by children who have barely seen theirs. He gives them the gift of an enlarged world, before his ends.

Nizhny Novgorod criminal case – Interview with Artem Bystrov, framed Anti-Fascist activist



avtonom.org

On April 26, 2011, in the morning, six young people were arrested by
Center “E” detectives (so-called “Anti-Extremist” cops). Five
anti-fascists of Nizhny Novgorod were subject to home-searches. One of
the flats was stormed by OMON (Special Police Squad), the windows were
broken because nobody was at home.

During the searches the membership cards of a non-existing organisation
“RASH-Antifa” with photos and serial numbers, evidently made by Center
“E” (Anti-Extremist Center) detectives, were planted in suspects’ homes.

Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyI_3shZaMg

Currently funds are needed for court costs of Nizhni Novgorod
anti-fascists. If you are interested to help, you may contact Nizhni
Novgorod ABC directly:


achknn@gmail.com

, +7 910 874 0594

Or contact Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow: abc-msk@riseup.net.

Solidarity actions during upcoming court are also most welcome!

Forwarded by
Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow
abc-msk A riseup D net
http://www.avtonom.org/abc
http://www.facebook.com/abcmoscow
http://www.twitter.com/abc_moscow
http://www.myspace.com/abcmsc
P.O. Box 13 109028 Moscow Russia

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Jalil Muntaqim hit with 6mo. SHU

via Brooke Reynolds

Hello Everyone,

I am writing you urgently after a visit to Jalil Muntaqim yesterday (Saturday).
He is currently in SHU at Attica, having been hit with 6 months after
his trial on Monday. He put a full report about what happened in the
mail, which I will type up and send out as soon as i receive it, but
here is the basic jist of what happened:

On Monday, he was taken down to trial regarding the photograph that
was "recovered" in his cell (the photo was from Cetewayo's memorial
held at Hunter College this past March, in which a BPP banner was
hanging in the background. Guards confiscated the photo on grounds
that it demonstrated "unlawful organization.") This photograph had
been sent in through the mail, and therefore presumably been processed
through Attica's correspondence department. Jalil had lined up 3
witnesses for this bogus trial: 1. The head of Attica's correspondence
dept, to argue that mail sent in through correspondence could not be
considered contraband after the fact; 2. The head of Attica's gangs
unit to show that BPP is not a designated gang (originally, the
charges included gang affiliation as well); 3. Jalil's counselor, to
demonstrate good behavior and non-involvement in unlawful
organizations.
when he arrived to the trial, he was told all 3 of these witnesses
were denied on the basis of "irrelevancy." He was therefore
unrepresented and with no witnesses. A lieutenant was then brought in,
confirmed that the photo was of unlawful organization, and Jalil was
hit with 6 months SHU right then and there.

He has been in SHU since monday, with only the clothes on his back. He
has not been given any personal property, and was told he probably
won't receive any of it for weeks. He has no phone privileges, no
commissary, no packages, and will eventually be allowed 5 books and
limited legal materials. He will have only one visit weekly for the
duration, and these are no-contact visits which take place in Attica's
SHU.

He is asking that people contact NYS Attourney General Eric
Schneiderman, as well as Commissioner Brian Fischer to demand that the
charges be dropped, Jalil be released from SHU immediately, and that
this campaign of harassment come to AN IMMEDIATE END! These charges
are entirely fabricated and show premeditation on behalf of the prison
administration to lock Jalil away until his next parole hearing in
June.

NY Attourney General Eric Schneiderman:
Office of the Attorney General
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224-0341

Commissioner Brian Fischer
NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Building 2
1220 Washington Ave
Albany, New York 12226-2050

Mumia's Message to Supporters in call from General Population

Mumia's Message to Supporters in call from General Population, SCI
Mahanoy to his wife, Wadiya Jamal:

My dear friends, brothers and sisters -- I want to thank you for your
real hard work and support. I am no longer on death row, no longer in
the hole, I'm in population. This is only part one and I thank you
all for the work you've done. But the struggle is for freedom! From
Mumia and Wadiya, Ona Move. Long Live John Africa!

------------------------------------

--Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!--

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com, info@FreeMumia.com

Marie Mason support page on Facebook

A new page on Facebook has been set up for Marie Mason, Green Scare
political prisoner:

http://www.facebook.com/supportmariemason

"Like" it to get updates about Marie.

Jesse Waters gets 6 months in 2000 MSU action

Waters did not cooperate with authorities but has not asked for support.

Man gets 6 mos. behind bars in MSU arson case


Jan. 27, 2012

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A Detroit-area man has been sentenced to six months in
prison for concealing what he knew about a major arson by environmental activists at
Michigan State University.

Jesse Waters was seeking probation Friday, but the sentence still is far short of
the maximum penalty of three years in prison. He also was fined $5,000.
In September, Waters of St. Clair Shores pleaded guilty to knowing about the 2000
arson at MSU's Agriculture Hall and concealing it. At the time, he was friends with
Frank Ambrose and Marie Mason, who are now in prison for the arson and other violent
protests.

Mason and Ambrose were fighting plant research at MSU. In 2009, Mason was sentenced
to nearly 22 years in prison. Ambrose, her ex-husband, exposed her and got a shorter
punishment.

Erik Lankin Released!


Jan. 26, 2012 Guelph Anarchist Black Cross

Great News!

Today, January 26, 2012, Erik Lankin was released from jail in Penetang.
He served 60 days (2/3 of a 3 month sentence) for counseling to commit
mischief at the G20 in Toronto. We are ecstatic to have our comrade back
in our arms.

Special thank to all the people who send erik letters, postcards and
reading materials, We know he deeply appreciated all the support he
received.

-Sincerely, Guelph Anarchist Black Cross (GAyBC)

300 arrested in daylong Occupy Oakland protests

By TERRY COLLINS | Associated Press – Jan. 29, 2012

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard
around City Hall following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests.
Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a
U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing
rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.

Saturday's protests — the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully
dismantled an Occupy encampment in November — came just days after the
group said it planned to use a vacant building as a social center and
political hub and threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the
airport and take over City Hall.

An exasperated Mayor Jean Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police
action last fall, called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as
its playground."

"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop
making excuses for this behavior," Quan said.

Protesters clashed with police throughout the day, at times throwing
rocks, bottles and other objects at officers. And police responded by
deploying smoke, tear gas and bean bag rounds, City Administrator Deanna
Santanta said.

Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said about 300 arrests were made.

"These demonstrators stated their intention was to provoke officers and
engage in illegal activity and that's exactly what has occurred today,"
Santana said.

The group assembled outside City Hall late Saturday morning and marched
through the streets, disrupting traffic as they threatened to take over
the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.

The protesters walked to the vacant convention center, where some started
tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment"
shortly before 3 p.m., police said.

Police said they issued a dispersal order and used smoke and tear gas
after some protesters pelted them with bottles, rocks, burning flares and
other objects.

The number of demonstrators swelled as the day wore on, with afternoon
estimates ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 people.

A majority of the arrests came after police took scores of protesters into
custody as they marched through the city's downtown, with some entering a
YMCA building, said Sgt. Jeff Thomason, a police spokesman.

Quan said that at one point, many protesters forced their way into City
Hall, where they burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged several
art structures, including a recycled art exhibit created by children.

She blamed the destruction on a small "very radical, violent" splinter
group within Occupy Oakland.

"This is not a situation where we had a 1,000 peaceful people and a few
violent people. If you look at what's happening today in terms of
destructing property, throwing at and charging the police, it's almost
like they are begging for attention and hoping that the police will make
an error."

Dozens of officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of
the building looking for protesters who had broken into the building, then
ran out of the building with American flags before officers arrived.

The protest group issued an email criticizing police, saying "Occupy
Oakland's building occupation, an act of constitutionally protected civil
disobedience was disrupted by a brutal police response today."

Michael Davis, 32, who is originally from Ohio and was in the Occupy
movement in Cincinnati, said Saturday was a very hectic day that
originally started off calm but escalated when police began using "flash
bangs, tear gas, smoke grenades and bean bags."

"What could've been handled differently is the way the Oakland police came
at us," Davis said. "We were peaceful."

City leaders joined Quan in criticizing the protesters.

"City Hall is closed for the weekend. There is no excuse for behavior
we've witnessed this evening," City Council President Larry Reid said
during a news briefing Saturday.

Oakland Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, echoed Reid's sentiments and said
that what was going on amounts to "domestic terrorism."

The national Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces corporate excess
and economic inequality, began in New York City in the fall but has been
largely dormant lately.

Oakland, New York and Los Angeles were among the cities with the largest
and most vocal Occupy protests early on. The demonstrations ebbed after
those cities used force to move out hundreds of demonstrators who had set
up tent cities.

In Oakland, the police department received heavy criticism for using force
to break up earlier protests. Quan was among the critics, but on Saturday,
she seemed to have changed her tune.

"Our officers have been very measured," Quan said. "Were there some
mistakes made? There may be. I would say the Oakland police and our
allies, so far a small percentage of mistakes. "But quite frankly, a
majority of protesters who were charging the police were clearly not being
peaceful.

Earlier this month, a court-appointed monitor submitted a report to a
federal judge that included "serious concerns" about the department's
handling of the Occupy protests.

Jordan said late Saturday that he was in "close contact" with the federal
monitor during the protests.

Quan added, "If the demonstrators think that because we are working more
closely with the monitor now that we won't do what we have to do to uphold
the law and try keep people safe in this city, they're wrong."



Oakland assesses City Hall damage after Occupy break-in


Beck Diefenbach / AP

Occupy Oakland protestors burn an American flag found inside Oakland City
Hall on Saturday.

By NBC News, msnbc.com

Story updated 12:30 p.m. ET:

Oakland officials on Sunday were inspecting damage inside City Hall that
was caused by about 50 Occupy protesters who broke in and smashed glass
display cases, spray-painted graffiti, and burned the U.S. and California
flags.

The break-in on Saturday was the culmination of a day of clashes between
protesters and police. At least 300 people were arrested on charges
ranging from vandalism and failure to disperse.

At least three officers and one protester were injured.

Mayor Jean Quan said Occupy protesters have caused an estimated $2 million
in damages from vandalism since October. She said the cost to the city
related to the Occupy Oakland protests is pegged at about $5 million.

The scene around City Hall was mostly quiet Sunday morning. It was unclear
whether protesters would mount another large-scale demonstration later in
the day.
advertisement

Story updated 6:00 a.m. ET:

A U.S. flag was burned by a group of protestors inside City Hall,
according to City Council President Larry Reid. City officials also said
three police officers and one protester were injured during Saturday's
events.

Story updated 3:15 a.m. ET:

Sgt. Christopher Bolton of the Oakland Police Department told msnbc.com
that the number arrested was likely between 200 and 300. "We are still
processing the arrests," he said. He was speaking after the release of a
statement on the Oakland City website that put the number of arrests at
200. "That figure is probably on the low side and we don't have a
confirmed total yet," said. Sgt Bolton. In the statement, released in a
PDF file format, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said: "Once again, a violent
splinter group of the Occupy Movement is engaging in violent actions
against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using
Oakland as their playground." The statement also said there were reports
of damage to exhibits inside City Hall during the protest.

Story published 1:30 a.m.:

Police arrested about 300 people Saturday as Occupy Oakland protesters
were thwarted trying to take over a vacant convention center and a YMCA
but later broke into City Hall, where they burned a flag taken from
inside.

Police used tear gas and "flash" grenades in the afternoon against 2,000
protesters who tried to tear down fences around the vacant Henry Kaiser
Convention Center, where they hoped to establish a new camp. Police said
some demonstrators started throwing objects at officers. There were at
least 19 arrests in the afternoon.

After 6 p.m. (9 p.m. ET), police in riot gear declared a group of
protesters gathered near the YMCA under mass arrest for failing to
disperse, according to local media reports and livestreams. Police said
about 100 demonstrators were arrested at the YMCA.

Several protesters at the YMCA appeared to be put hard to the ground as
police moved in and at least one protester had blood on his face.

Protesters chanted, "Let us disperse," but instead were taken one by one
for police processing.

Some protesters claimed they were trying to flee police by running through
the YMCA rather than take over the building.
advertisement

Later in the evening, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while
others swept the inside of the building.

Police arrived after protesters had broken into City Hall, stole an
American flag from the council chamber and set it ablaze, the Oakland
Tribune reported. Officers stomped out the fire.

Earlier, protesters met at Frank Ogawa Plaza around noon and marched
toward the convention center in hopes of making it their new meeting place
and social center, NBCBayArea.com reported.

Read NBCBayArea.com coverage of the protest

Oakland officials said about 250 people were in the group when the protest
started but the crowd grew to about 2,000.

Earlier during the rally one of the organizers, Shake Anderson, said, "We
are here to protect each other and to be civil disobedient. ... We're
doing it to change the world, not just today but every day."

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Police officers arrest an Occupy Oakland demonstrator during a clash
Saturday in Oakland, Calif., where officers fired tear gas at hundreds of
protesters who tried to take over a shuttered convention center.

The protesters were walking through Laney College around 2:30 p.m. Some
people were wearing bandanas over their mouths and others were holding
signs saying, "We are the 99%." A marching band dressed in pink and black
tutus and neon pick tights also was in the crowd.

Officer Jeff Thomason said police started making arrests when some in the
crowd started throwing objects at them during the afternoon rally. Three
officers were injured, police said, but did not elaborate.

@OaklandPoliceCA tweeted around 3 p.m., "Area of Oakland Museum and Kaiser
Center severely impacted. Persons cutting and tearing fences for entry.
Bottles and objects thrown at OPD."

Once they reached the center, organizers planned to kick off a two-day
"Oakland Rise-up Festival" to celebrate the establishment of the
movement's new space.

Occupy Oakland spokesman Leo Ritz-Bar said the action would signal "a new
direction for the Occupy movement: putting vacant buildings at the service
of the community."

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Occupy Oakland demonstrators shield themselves from an explosion Saturday
during a confrontation with the police near the Oakland Museum of
California in Oakland, Calif.

He also warned that protesters could retaliate against any repressive
police action by blocking the Oakland International Airport, occupying
City Hall or shutting down the Port of Oakland.

City officials said that while they are "committed to facilitating
peaceful forms of expression and free speech, police would be prepared to
arrest those who break the law.
advertisement

"The city of Oakland will not be bullied by threats of violence or illegal
activity," city administrator Deanna Santana said in a statement issued
Friday.

This article includes reporting from NBCBayArea.com, The Associated Press
and msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger and Alastair Jamieson.

Occupy Oakland: Police Teargas Protesters, Use Flash Grenades

Occupy Oakland

01/28/12 11:51 PM ET AP Huffington Post

OAKLAND, Calif. — Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters for failing to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences.

Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of them entering a YMCA building.

Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in.

More help from other police agencies was also on the way, with busloads of Alameda County sheriff's deputies arriving in the downtown area late Saturday.

The nighttime arrests came after 19 people were taken into custody in Occupy Oakland protests hours earlier.

Police used tear gas and "flash" grenades on the group Saturday afternoon after some demonstrators threw rocks and other objects at them. Police said three officers were hurt, but they released no details.

Police said the group assembled at a downtown plaza Saturday morning, with demonstrators threatening to take over the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center. The group then marched through the streets, disrupting traffic.

The crowd grew as the day wore on, with afternoon estimates ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 people.

The protesters walked to the vacant convention center, where some started tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment" shortly before 3 p.m., police said.

Police said they issued a dispersal order and used smoke and tear gas after some protesters pelted them with bottles, rocks, burning flares and other objects.

Most of the arrests were made when protesters ignored orders to leave and assaulted officers, police said. By 4 p.m., the bulk of the crowd had left the convention center and headed back downtown.

The demonstration comes after Occupy protesters said earlier this week that they planned to move into a vacant building and turn it into a social center and political hub. They also threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall.

In a statement Friday, Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana said the city would not be "bullied by threats of violence or illegal activity."

Interim police Chief Howard Jordan also warned that officers would arrest those carrying out illegal actions.

Oakland officials said Friday that since the Occupy Oakland encampment was first established in late October, police have arrested about 300 people.

The national Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces corporate excess and economic inequality, began in New York City in the fall but has been largely dormant lately.

Oakland, New York and Los Angeles were among the cities with the largest and most vocal Occupy protests early on. The demonstrations ebbed after those cities used force to move out hundreds of demonstrators who had set up tent cities.

In Oakland, the police department received heavy criticism for using force to break up earlier protests. Among the critics was Mayor Jean Quan, who said she wasn't briefed on the department's plans. Earlier this month, a court-appointed monitor submitted a report to a federal judge that included "serious concerns" about the department's handling of the Occupy protests.

Feb 4 - International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

The Courts may not be able to act but Barack Obama, as President,
can. Please join with us to free an innocent man. On February 4,
2012, tell Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

Solidarity events will be held in various locations around
the world. Please plan to attend a scheduled event near
you. See or
.

Take a few minutes out of your busy day to write to the President,
too:

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Fax: 202-456-2461
E-Mail:


For guidance in writing to the President in favor of clemency,
see .

Thank you for all you do on behalf of Leonard Peltier.

-------

Background: Native American activist Leonard Peltier was wrongfully
convicted in connection with the deaths of two agents of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Despite the courts' acknowledgment
of FBI and prosecutorial misconduct in the case, Peltier has been
imprisoned since 1976, currently at the U.S. Penitentiary at Coleman,
Florida.

The evidence shows that the FBI was the aggressor in the firefight
that occurred on June 26, 1975. From 1973 to 1976, Indigenous
People on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota were
victims of beatings, drive-by shootings, and stabbings carried out
by local vigilantes who collaborated with the FBI. Peltier and
other Indigenous activists were forced into a defensive posture
to protect not only their lives, but the lives of others who
were present-elders, women, and children. Indeed, Mr. Peltier's
co-defendants, tried separately, were acquitted on grounds of
self-defense.

The evidence also clearly shows that the U.S. government's goal
was to orchestrate Mr. Peltier's conviction by any means-including
falsifying extradition documents and intentionally committing fraud
on a Canadian court, as well as suppressing evidence of Mr. Peltier's
innocence during his trial. By the government's own admission,
the critical part of the prosecution's case against Mr. Peltier
was the ballistics testimony which, years after his conviction,
was discovered to be false.

You can help to free an innocent man. Learn more about the Peltier
case at www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

Lauched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

Mumia Transferred to General Prison Population

As of 1/27/12, Mumia Abu-Jamal has officially been transferred to
General Prison Population after being held in Administrative Custody
("The Hole" or Solitary Confinement) at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA
for seven weeks. This is the first time Mumia has been in General
Population since his arrest in 1981.

This comes within hours of the of delivery of over 5,500 signed
petitions to Department of Corrections headquarters in Camp Hill, PA
and a compliant filed with United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Torture, Juan Mendez.

PLEASE NOTE that while this is a victory in transferring Mumia out of
the torturous Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), we call upon the closure
of ALL RHU's! Furthermore, we call upon the IMMEDIATE RELEASE of
Mumia Abu-Jamal and are not disillusioned by this transfer. FREE MUMIA NOW!

More at: http://www.freemumia.com/?p=867


Write to Mumia to send him some love!

MAILING ADDRESS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
#AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932


Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com, info@FreeMumia.com

Lynne Stewart about her appeal

(email Jan. 26, 2012)

About the Court Argument on the 29th of February
By Lynne Stewart

After the disaster in July 2010, when Judge Koeltl, following the
directives of the Second Circuit increased my sentence from 28 months
to 10 years, our righteous indignation fueled this appeal. The
government's argument will center on my testimony at trial and the
alleged perjury. All of those facts were before the Court at the
time of the 28 month sentence and were not the basis then of a
double digit sentence.

Our Brief attacks the increased sentence on two different fronts
--one on a doctrine of "substantive unreasonableness" meaning it's
just too much of an increase, five fold -- given the circumstances.
Secondly, we argued that the only "new" information before the Judge
were my statements after my first sentence in October of 2008 and
remarks I made on the Courthouse steps before I surrendered to
prison. We contend strongly that this is protected speech under the
First Amendment of the Constitution, and cannot be used to increase
or as a basis for sentencing. (even if they hate it !!!)

The same group of 3 Judges that heard and decided the original appeal
will also hear the arguments on the 29th. The government is not
asking for more time; they are satisfied with their pound of flesh
but it is not likely that this Court will take any action that will
help me. The times are askew for prisoners and their lawsuits. ( The
Brief is available at my web site lynnestewart.org)

The lawyers that argued in July of 2010 will be on board with the
addition of Herald Price Fahringer, an eminent attorney in the First
Amendment field (the win in the Larry Flynt Hustler case in the US
Supreme Court was his. He was also in the line of fire (no injuries)
when the shooting took place.) He will enthusiastically present our
case. I will not be present --not unusual once imprisoned. But my
spirit will be there to inspire !!!

Of course, my case has always been government firing warning
shots to Lawyers, that a vigorous defense,of certain clients, if not
conforming to government specifications, will be punished severely
. This chill effect in these days that we are confronted with Grand
Jury investigations and dismantling of Occupations is not something
we should contemplate with anything less than alarm. I have just
finished David Gilbert's book (Love Struggle) and the intercession of
lawyers when there are arrests of designated enemies of the "state"
are the only meaningful protection available.

A Large Outpouring of Support in Foley Square and Tom Paine Park and
in the Courtroom will signal to these arbiters of "Justice" that
attention must be paid, the 99% are watching them with suspicion and
tallying up the roads not taken.

Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest

A man in New Mexico has been awarded $22 million after being tossed in solitary confinement for 2 years following a DWI arrest. KOB-TV's Marissa Torres reports.

A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night.

"[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."

Slevin's medical problems extended beyond his dental issues, he said. His toenails started curling around his foot because they were so long, he told KOB.com. And his countless requests to see a doctor for depression medication were ignored, he said.

He said his lawsuit "has never been about the money. I've always wanted this to make a statement."

The $22 million, awarded by a federal jury Tuesday, is one of the largest prisoner civil rights settlements in U.S. history, according to KOB.com.

"I wanted people to know that there are people at The Dona Ana County Jail that are doing things like this to people and getting away with it," said Slevin, who now suffers from PTSD and believes he will have to take medication for life as a result. "Why they did what they did, I have no idea."

The mistreatment started from the moment his client was arrested, Slevin's attorney, Matt Coyte, told msnbc.com.

"He was driving through New Mexico and arrested for a DWI, and he allegedly was in a stolen vehicle. Well, it was a car he had borrowed from a friend; a friend had given him a car to drive across the country," Coyte said.

NBC News

Slevin was depressed at the time, Coyte explained, and wanted to get out of New Mexico. Instead, he found himself in jail.

"When he gets put in the jail, they think he's suicidal, and they put him in a padded cell for three days, but never give him any treatment."

Nor did they give him a trial, Coyte said. Slevin said he never saw a judge during his time in confinement.

After three days in a padded cell, jail guards transferred Slevin into solitary confinement without explanation.

"Their policy is to then just put them in solitary" if they appear to have mental health issues, Coyte told msnbc.com.

Dona Ana County officials were tight-lipped about the case, refusing to answer questions about whether any jail employees were reprimanded or fired over Slevin's treatment.

"We do not discuss personnel issues," Jess Williams, Dona Ana County's public information director, told msnbc.com.

Williams also wouldn't comment on whether the $22 million the county was ordered to pay would come from taxpayer money, saying only, "Dona Ana County will appeal the verdict."

He said no county officials would answer questions about why Slevin was held for so long without going to trial, or any other questions related to the legal parts of the case.

'Insanity builds'
While in solitary confinement, a prisoner is entitled to one hour per day out of the cell, but often times, Slevin wasn't even granted that, Coyte said. He was deprived of showers and grew fungus underneath his skin. He lost his will to even want to get out and live in the outside world, Coyte told msnbc.com.

"Your insanity builds. Some people holler or throw feces out their cell doors," he said. "Others rock back and forth under a blanket for a year or more, which is what my client did."

By the time Slevin got out of jail, his hair was shaggy and overgrown, his beard long, and his face pale and sunken, a drastic contrast from the clean-shaven booking photo taken of him when he was arrested two years prior.

"Without that picture, we couldn't have gotten where we were," Coyte said of the lawsuit.

Slevin has support from friends and his sister, Coyte said.

"That's very helpful to him. He does have people to look after him."

While Slevin spoke very briefly on-camera to KOB.com after the jury awarded him his verdict, his attorney said he is hoping for some privacy now.

"Hs life has been devoted to survival [since his release from solitary]," Coyte told msnbc.com. "He is totally inequipped; he is hollow. They've removed his humanity from him."

His suffering hasn't been in vain though, Coyte said.

"He's a brave guy. When he says it's not about the money, he really means it. He wants no one to go through what he went through. And people do, in New Mexico and across this country."

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Feeling death at our heels: An update from the frontlines of the struggle

January 25, 2012 SF BayView

from the NCTT Corcoran SHU

“Death is impossible for us to fathom; it is so immense, so frightening that we will do almost anything to keep from thinking about it. Society is organized to make death invisible, to keep it several steps removed. That distance may seem necessary for our comfort, but it comes with a terrible price: the illusion of limitless time, and a consequent lack of seriousness about daily life. As a warrior in life, you must turn this dynamic around: Make the thought of death something not to escape but to embrace. Your days are numbered. Will you pass them halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency? Cruel theaters staged by a czar are unnecessary; death will come to you without them. Imagine it pressing in on you, leaving you no escape, for there is no escape. Feeling death at your heels will make all your actions more certain, more forceful. This could be your last throw of the dice: Make it count.” – Robert Greene, bestselling author of “The 48 Laws of Power

“This photo was taken a few days after the first hunger strike ended. I was about 178 pounds; I’d lost 42 pounds,” Heshima Denham wrote on the back. He added these wise words: “Progress requires sacrifice; give up your life for the people.”
Written Jan. 8, postmarked Jan. 18, 2012 – Greetings, brothers and sisters: A firm, warm and solid embrace of revolutionary love and solidarity is extended to each of you from each of us.

Since the last hunger strike ended, we have weathered wave after wave of retaliation from the state’s prison administrators that continues unabated to this day. But before I catalog these manifestations of weakness on the part of state prison administrators, we feel it’s necessary to recount why this struggle began and the nature of our resolve to see the five core demands realized.

We have been consigned to ever more aggressive sensory deprivation torture units for 10, 20, 30 and in some cases 40 years, based on an administrative determination that we are members or associates of a “gang” – a term that encompasses leftist ideologies, political and politicized prisoners, jailhouse lawyers and most anyone who in the opinion of Institutional Gang Investigations (IGI) is not passively accepting his role as a commodity in the prison industrial complex.

“Gang” is a term that encompasses leftist ideologies, political and politicized prisoners, jailhouse lawyers and most anyone who in the opinion of Institutional Gang Investigations (IGI) is not passively accepting his role as a commodity in the prison industrial complex.

These administrative determinations are not due to some overt act of misconduct or pattern of rules violations. No, these “validations” are based most often on the reforms, words or accounts of debriefers, rats, informants and other broken men who will say and do ‘most anything their IGI and ISU (Investigative Services Unit) handlers instruct them to, to avoid confinement in the SHU (Security Housing Unit) or carry some other favor from their masters.

After decades of fruitless legal challenges, after years of suffering the deprivations of conditions so inherently evil, inhumane and psychologically torturous that most of you simply cannot comprehend the reality behind these words, most of us came to realize an immutable truth: that the state’s mantra of “the only way out of the SHU is to parole, debrief or die” was something that they not only meant, but was in fact a key feature in developing a subservient and passive pool of prisoner commodities upon which the orderly fleecing of taxpayer dollars could be based.

Thirty years of successful propaganda, of dehumanizing underclass communities and the imprisoned, of lobbying that’s led to the dominance of the CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association) in judicial and political elections and appointments – all to mislead an ill-informed public into submitting greater control of their lives and society to an industrial interest that runs counter to the public safety concerns they were vested to protect. Many of us watched this state of affairs progress unchallenged as our protestations fell on deaf ears, year after year, decade after decade, until advanced age and the decimation of our communities forced us onto “death ground,” where you may survive if you can resist, but you will most surely perish if you do not.

We took up a strategy which would pull back the curtain on the state’s practice of domestic torture which has been so well hidden from the people for so long, a strategy in which some of us may yet die: THE HUNGER STRIKE. We would rather starve ourselves, to risk inevitable death, than to be indefinitely subjected to the deprivations of the torture unit.

We took up a strategy which would pull back the curtain on the state’s practice of domestic torture which has been so well hidden from the people for so long, a strategy in which some of us may yet die: THE HUNGER STRIKE.

What must be understood is that existence here is, in many ways, a fate worse than death; and when advancing age brings that mortality into stark focus, the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, “Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day,” resonate. This simple observation defines our resolve in realizing our five core demands.

To say this is a protracted struggle is an understatement; this is a struggle in which we will win or we will die in the effort. Our actions thus far, and the awareness of this international community of their inherent righteousness, has made this adamantine resolve clear, so why then would CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) officials resort to petty retaliatory actions? The answer lies in the very nature of the tyranny and authoritarian power they represent.

Aggression is deceptive; it inherently hides weakness. Aggressors possess poor emotional control and little patience for challenges to their interests. The first waves of retaliation from these types of aggressors may seem strong to some; this is why so many non-SHU general population prisoners dropped out of the second hunger strike as those waves struck them. But, of course, we were unmoved; and the longer such attacks go on, the clearer their underlying weaknesses and insecurity become. It is an act of irrational desperation, but one they pursue out of sheer rote.

Since the second hunger strike ended, we experienced perpetual retaliation – some overt, some carefully disguised – all designed to erode the minds and wills of those committed to resist. We were denied any medical treatment for our starvation and when we filed emergency 602s to receive renutrition treatment and hunger strike-related injuries, they were not responded to until some 40 days later.

For example, during the first hunger strike, I (Heshima) passed out due to malnutrition and dehydration; the account was detailed in a previous statement. But simply put, their own guilt and fear caused them to assemble some 26 officers before opening my cell and piling on top of my unconscious form in order to shackle my arms and legs in chains and put me in an ambulance.

Their own guilt and fear caused them to assemble some 26 officers before opening my cell and piling on top of my unconscious form in order to shackle my arms and legs in chains and put me in an ambulance.

Mind you, according to witnesses, they casually, even jokingly, left me lying on my cell floor for 35 minutes before jumping on my body. Since then I’ve had a sharp, constant pain in my right side at the base of my ribcage. Though I’ve filed two medical appeals, as of this writing I have still not been treated or even diagnosed for this.

Zaharibu’s cholesterol, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure are so far outside of normal range he is at chronic risk for stroke, heart attack and diabetes – the nurses routinely “forgetting” to bring or administer his insulin when indicated.

Shortly after the second hunger strike ended, we were told, “One of the two pumps that delivers hot water to the institution is broken and we should have the part to fix it in two days.” That was over 50 days ago and we’ve had hot water for a total of three of those 50-plus days. In that intervening time, “due to the lack of hot water” we’ve been fed on paper trays, which ensures all meals arrive cold and grossly under-portioned. Because all we have to wash or shower with in these freezing cells is cold or lukewarm water, 80 percent of us housed in this 4BIL-C-Section short corridor have contracted a cold, upper respiratory tract infection or flu.

Because all we have to wash or shower with in these freezing cells is cold or lukewarm water, 80 percent of us housed in this 4BIL-C-Section short corridor have contracted a cold, upper respiratory tract infection or flu.

Despite numerous appeals and motions to the court, they have not run law library for any of us since August, making it impossible to access legal research, copying service or verified legal mailing, thus jeopardizing the viability of numerous legal pleadings in the courts.

We have often expounded upon the fundamental unreliability of reforms as nothing more than temporary pacification measures that can be repealed at the whim of administrators, and this analysis was again proven only weeks after the second hunger strike ended. Former Undersecretary of Corrections Scott Kernan made a big to-do about the concessions being made to improve the material conditions in SHU, including giving us action at a single special purchase order to purchase newly approved cold weather items by Dec. 31 – or those items would have to be included in annual packages.

Things like watch caps, thermals, tennis shoes etc. were all “approved” for SHU. Memos trumpeting this and Operational Procedure (OP) update chronos were issued to us all, only to be followed by a memo stating the warden of CSP-Corcoran-SHU was effectively repealing the single special purchase order for cold weather items without explanation. This was soon followed by another memo stating tennis shoes orders to SHU would not be allowed until after “Sacramento” made changes to the property matrix, something that was done by Scott Kernan back in October via emergency memo.

The warden of CSP-Corcoran-SHU was effectively repealing the single special purchase order for cold weather items without explanation.

Rolling power outages have suddenly become routine here. The mailroom suddenly devised new regulations directing any phony orders to be directed to one post office box, while letters go to another, making it more difficult and confusing for those who care to see to the welfare of their loved ones here. Not to be left out, CDCR trust account officials have raised processing fees on electronic trust deposits called “J-Pays,” some 500 percent, from $1 to $5, increasing the financial burden on underclass families while maximizing their own profiteering.

All of those things are designed to fuse with the daily mental struggles of the reality of indefinite sensory deprivation confinement to have the cumulative effect of eroding the psychology of resistance, and if this were a situation where there was some psychological threshold to breach, they may well have found some here who capitulate. But that simply is not the reality.

This is not a situation where multi-spectrum retaliation – or coercive force of any kind – will somehow diminish the resolve of those of us committed to ending the perpetual torture inherent in these indeterminate SHU units. In fact, quite the opposite is true; such actions only serve to crystallize in our minds the simple fact that we cannot lose. The alternative is simply more unpleasant than the relatively quick sacrifice of death by starvation. They can ratchet up the intensity on these petulant retaliation moves a hundredfold and it will have no other effect than increasing our resolve a thousandfold.

This is not a situation where multi-spectrum retaliation – or coercive force of any kind – will somehow diminish the resolve of those of us committed to ending the perpetual torture inherent in these indeterminate SHU units. In fact, quite the opposite is true; such actions only serve to crystallize in our minds the simple fact that we cannot lose.

We must win this struggle not simply because it is morally correct, upholds international standards of humanity, opposes governmental collusion in corporate exploitation of underclass people, and serves the interests – social, political and economic – of society as a whole, but also because it’s necessarily our survival. We are men in earnest; consequences have little meaning in the face of such conditions.

Some of you reading these words are no doubt grappling with the reality behind them, attempting to find some point of relatability, some common experience from which to draw a correlation. Unless you’ve experienced this firsthand, such an attempt is an effort in futility. But for the sake of this discussion, I challenge you to run an experiment: Go to your bathroom and close the door. Imagine that you will never leave that room. Your tub and shower, that’s your bed. Yes, your toilet is only a step or two away from where you lay your head. Your food will be brought to you here twice a day.

Stay there as long as you can. How long do you last? Twenty minutes? An hour? Six hours? Imagine you sit in that bathroom for a year, 10 years, 24 years, 40 years. You will never leave that bathroom unless you are released from prison, agree to be an agent for the same people who stuck you in that bathroom, or you die of old age and infirmity. How long would you last? How strong is your will?

Would you submit to snitchery, kowtow to your torturers and become a tool to condemn others to that same fate? Or would you fight, resist to the bitter end, give your life to expose such evil, greedy, draconian hypocrites for what they really are? Hold the mirror of social reality up to the face of every man and woman in U.S. society and force them to confront the human misery being carried to sicker and more depraved depths every day in their names? What would you do?

Would you submit to snitchery, kowtow to your torturers and become a tool to condemn others to that same fate? Or would you fight, resist to the bitter end, give your life to expose such evil, greedy, draconian hypocrites for what they really are?

Some would characterize our effort as insane, as crazy. In “Hagakure: The door of the Samurai,” Yamamoto Tsunetomo quotes Lord Naoshige as saying the way of the warrior (samurai) is in desperateness. Ten or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate.

None of us want to die, but all of us are prepared to do so to realize these five core demands. History dictates no less.

So we wait. We have been told the revisions and changes to the status quo in these torture units will be done this month or by February, but the relentless retaliatory blows we are absorbing as the sobering reminder of what we are dealing with: An entrenched labor aristocracy and political patronage of corporate speculators, who’ve grown rich and powerful off extorting billions from hapless taxpayers and criminalizing underclass people and communities, will resist any effort to curtail their wealth, privilege and socio-political status quo.

These vile and greedy people are extracting more of your tax dollars for their exclusive use than many nations’ gross national product by using us as scapegoats to frighten the people – when in fact many of us are servants of the people, political progressives who would willingly lay down our lives to advance the cause of freedom, social justice and economic equality in the nation.

In the case of the NCTT and those of like mind, ironically that’s why we were validated and consigned to these torture units in the first place. A common practice of corrupt political interests is to criminalize dissent and criticism. Who will care? We are prisoners; who will know these truths? They have already succeeded in lobbying to have media access to prisoners banned unless they consent to who will be interviewed. Again, who will care, who will know?

A common practice of corrupt political interests is to criminalize dissent and criticism. Who will care? We are prisoners; who will know these truths?

If you’re reading these words, you now know the only question that remains is: Do you care? Do you care that the very people who you’ve entrusted with ensuring public safety are in fact intentionally working against that interest to maintain a bloated prison industrial complex on your tax dollars and our souls? Do you care that the U.S., which is so vocally condemning other nations, is ignoring its U.N. treaty obligations and maintaining its own expansive domestic torture program in U.S. Supermax SHU prisons across this nation? Do you care that these evils, this blatant hypocrisy is being carried out in your name? Do you care? And if you don’t, exactly what type of society is this we’ve allowed to emerge?

If you are reading these words, you can no longer claim ignorance; to stand idly by now would be complicity. A wise man once said, “All that is necessary for evil men to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” We are under no illusions. The ultimate arbiter of our fate – and this society’s fate – is the people. YOU. YOU must rise up against this injustice and inhumanity. YOU must let the state know that substantive change at every level of society is something the people demand.

The ultimate arbiter of our fate – and this society’s fate – is the people. YOU.

We have supported, and will continue to support, progressive people’s movements, from the Dream Act to the Occupy Movement, because we recognize the inherent unity of purpose in this single political motive force, the reality that we do not represent disparate social interests but a single determined democratic imperative to put an end to the stranglehold that this greedy elite and its tools currently have on every area of people’s activity in the U.S., to put an end to these exploitive relationships that diminish and impoverish the many for the aggrandizement of the few.

To treat us this way is wrong, evil and unsustainable socially. Stand with us. Lend your voices, your labor, and your ideas to this historical work. We can win, but only with you all by our sides. In the final analysis, this is a struggle to determine the nature of humanity itself. We are on the right side of history; we encourage you all to stand on this same side with us. Our love, loyalty and solidarity to all those who cherish freedom, justice and human rights and fear only failure. Until we win or don’t lose.

For more information on the California prison hunger strikes or the NCTT, contact:

• Zaharibu Dorrough, D-83611, CSP-COR-SHU, 4BIL-53, P.O. Box 3481, Corcoran, CA 93212

• J. Heshima Denham, J-38283, CSP-COR-SHU, 4BIL-46, P.O. Box 3481, Corcoran, CA 93212

• Kambui Robinson, C-82830, CSP-COR-SHU, 4BIL-49, P.O. Box 3481, Corcoran, CA 93212.

Read these brothers’ previous stories: “California prison hunger strikers propose ‘10 core demands’ for the national Occupy Wall Street Movement,” “A brief hunger strike update from the front lines of the struggle: Corcoran-SHU 4B 1L C-section Isolation Unit” (second story in that post), “From the front lines of the struggle,”and “We dare to win: The reality and impact of SHU torture units.” This story was typed by Adrian McKinney.