Wednesday, October 25, 2006
DIFFERENT METHODS, ONE GOAL FOR ALL:
DRIVE COMRADES AND ANARCHY IN CHAINS JOIN HANDS IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST INMATES INHUMANE CONDITIONS AND THE DEATH PENALTY
On August 31, 2006, Hasan Shakur (AKA Derrick Frazier) was murdered by the State of Texas. Justin Fuller was also executed that month. He refused to walk to his own murder and others protested for him. Both men were death row comrades. Both executions were protested by others. And both protests were a battle cry of humanity, because both men were human beings, imperfect but striving for perfection.
The fact that they were torn from their loved ones did not make society shout out loud. Who was there to protest their execution? Why did society keep silent again? Maybe no one wants to know about the humanity within these walls, about our brothers and sisters inside. Meanwhile, the system continues its violent retaliations against these individuals: inmates have been gassed in response to nonviolent protests, property has been taken, disciplinary cases have been fabricated and rights have been severely violated.
Several testimonies have documented this exacerbation of harassment from Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees. DRIVE member Kenneth Foster stated that one inmate, Steven Woods of Anarchy in Chains, "was gassed… in protest of the continual abuse and neglect. A 37 millimetre crowd control cannon was shot at him with a 'Boom'. As he endured that, another spray of pepper gas was unleashed and then he exited the day room." The bomb, Foster said, smelled "like car tires burning. It's putrid and kills your lungs. It has a wicked stench." Foster doesn't hesitate to claim: "My god, we thought they'd killed him. All this for a man who weighs 140 pounds. This was an over-use of chemical agent. I truly believe they are trying to kill us with the gas.
Robert Will also testified about this incident and wrote: "The bomb they used had never been seen by anyone before," Rob said and added, "[It's] a huge, all silver, shaving cream canister with a pin on the top like a grenade. When it was thrown, the bomb shot about 8 inches of fire out each side and put out thick smoke. The new torture device put out so much chemical gas that people were choking in their cells".
This is not an isolated case but seems to be Texas Department of Criminal Justice's new policy against inmates. They have used these chemical weapons against inmates several times now, and the consequences on inmates' health are already visible: "The new tear-gas grenades they've been using made everyone extremely sick. Officers were even taking guys to medical in the middle of the night. People were coughing up blood, vomiting and everything else. I'm still coughing a little but now I can function well enough to write," stated Robert Will on October 16th.
The murders of death row friends and the unaltered terrible conditions have made the death row community even more determined to fight. Their struggle has become intense. Also, six men of strong resolve, started a 90-day hunger strike in solidarity on October 8th. They are using a different method to reach the same goals: to change the inhumane conditions inmates live under and to abolish the death penalty. Both struggles will continue until changes have been achieved.
Fortunately, the outside support continues to grow. Individuals, organisations, and prisoner activists have joined the DRIVE Movement; people have reached out to Anarchy in Chains; making sure the voice of the death row community will be heard. Solidarity both inside and outside the prison walls, and uniting both struggles will be the only way to abolish the death penalty once and for all and to change the inhumane conditions that prevail in US prisons in general.
Although the DRIVE Movement is growing, and the members of Anarchy in Chains have joined hands in sacrifice, we need support from more people to achieve our goals together. As Reginald Blanton concludes in his poem “Wounded”, "My wound cries for US, which means YOU. The child in me, in US, needs YOU. WE can heal, but it must be TOGETHER; I can't do it alone. My wound is bleeding my Soul. Please…please don't pass US by."
For more information and personal reports of the DRIVE Movement inmates, please visit: www.drivemovement.org. You can contact the Movement at drivemovement@yahoo.com
And for details and reports on the hunger strike, please visit: www.anarchyinchains.com. To get in touch with them, write to: admin@anarchyinchains.com.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/607/607_16_Texas.shtml
Prisoners organize against barbaric conditions
Texas death row: Cruel and unusual
October 27, 2006 | Pages 7 and 16
LILY HUGHES reports on the cruel reality of the Texas execution machine--and the challenge coming from death row itself.
“I DIDN’T do it.” Those were the words that Michael Dewayne Johnson scrawled in his own blood as he died from a self-inflicted slashed neck--hours before he was scheduled to be put to death in the Texas death chamber.
Johnson’s horrific suicide highlights the physical and mental cruelty inflicted on the men and women on death row in America’s execution capital.
Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1977, Texas has accounted for over one-third of all executions carried out in the U.S. The number of executions throughout the U.S. and in Texas gas been on a downward trend for the past several years, but the Texas execution machine still runs at an assembly-line pace, with one execution running up against another some months.
Johnson was to be the 22nd execution victim in Texas this year--put to death for a murder that he insisted was committed by another man charged in the crime, who testified against Johnson and is free today after serving eight years in prison.
But in the face of this barbarism, death row prisoners in Texas are organizing against brutal and inhumane conditions. Six prisoners are on a hunger strike that is close to a month old, and another group--which calls itself DRIVE, or Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement--is gaining recognition for its campaign of resistance from on death row.
Much of the grievances are focused on conditions on the Polunsky Unit--the “state-of-the-art” prison in Livingston, Texas, where death row was moved in 1999. In the new facility, inmates live in 23-hour administrative segregation inside 60-square-foot cells with sealed steel doors.
They have lost all group recreation, work programs, television access and religious services. There are also no contact visits allowed at Polunsky. Prisoners are only allowed one five-minute phone call every six months, their mail is often censored, the quality of food is low, and they have inadequate health and dental services.
This intolerable situation has prompted some prisoners to organize for better conditions--and to link their fight to the larger struggle against the death penalty.
The five DRIVE members--Kenneth Foster Jr., Rob Will, Gabriel Gonzalez, Reginald Blanton and Da’mon Simpson--say in their Web site statement that they are committed to “non-violently protest against this inhumane scheme called the Death Penalty.”
Protest tactics include distributing literature, addressing their issues with guards, and occupying day rooms, showers and visitation chambers. Prisoners are encouraged to protest on days when executions are scheduled, and to protest against their own executions by refusing to walk to the van that takes them to the Ellis Unit, where executions still take place; refusing last meals; and refusing to walk to the execution chamber.
As Gabriel Gonzalez puts it in his diary, “Many times, we have addressed the problems with conditions and suggested reasonable solutions to the problems, which would not cause any breaches in the security of the prison, nor cost the state any money--but to no avail, because our verbal and written grievances fell on the deaf, indifferent ears of a sadistic administration that enjoys torturing and treating us like any thing but human.
“Yet how do you physically, psychologically and spiritually torture and treat people like animals and expect them to act civil and humane? Those of us here who still have a sense of self and humanity have had enough of the state-induced carnage and the brutal rape of our human rights and constitutional rights! Therefore, with this nonviolent protest, we have drawn a line and decided to physically and nonviolently resist the oppression.”
Meanwhile, six other death row prisoners have been on hunger strike since October 5. The men--Travis Runnels, Steven Woods, Richard Cobb, Kevin Watts, Justin Hall and Stephen Moody--intend to stay on hunger strike until January 1.
“For the past several years, I and a few hundred others have been living out what can easily be called a nightmare,” explained Steven Woods. “After the injustice of being sentenced to death by a corrupt legal system, we are shorn of our dignity and our identity, caged and treated like animals. We spend these years stored in the Polunsky Unit in a segregated housing facility that has been designed to house over 500 people in a complete indefinite isolation.”
The hunger strikers’ demands include better meals, cell maintenance, adequate health care and proper hygienic and laundry necessities. They are also calling for a halt to the excessive punitive measures used against death row prisoners, especially those making protests.
One of the worst retaliatory practices used on protesting prisoners is gassing. Prisoners occupying day rooms and other areas are met by SWAT teams that use tear gas and pepper spray to remove them.
One of the hunger strikers, Steven Woods was gassed on October 9. “A smoke grenade was dropped on the outside yard, which filled it to the top with smoke,” DRIVE member Kenneth Foster wrote in his diary. “Steve endured that, and no less than 10 minutes later, another was dropped...My god, we thought they’d killed him. All this for a man who weighs 140 pounds. This was an overuse of chemical agent. I truly believe they are trying to kill us with the gas.”
That these prisoners are wiling to endure this abuse to fight for their basic human rights should be a wake-up call to the people of Texas and to the world. They need our support.
“We are neither violent or passive,” writes Foster. “We are combative. We are resisters. We are diverse activists, but more than anything else may we be looked upon as men that embraced the sacredness of life and sought to assert the full measure of their humanity in the face of those that would seek to destroy it.”
What you can do
Contact these officials and demand better conditions for inmates on Texas’ death row:
-- Polunsky Unit Wardens: Warden Massey and Asst. Warden Hirch, 3872 F.M. 350 South, Livingston, TX 77351, 936-967-8082 (ask for the warden’s office)
-- Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chair: Christina Melton Crain, 5521 Greenville Ave., Suite 104-944, Dallas, TX 75206
-- Texas Gov. Rick Perry: 800-252-9600
Come to the March to Stop Executions in Austin, Texas, on October 28, 2006. Marchers will gather at 3 p.m. on October 28 at the Texas governor’s mansion, between 10th and 11th Streets on Lavaca, then march to Austin City Hall Plaza for a rally. The Texas Moratorium Network Web site has additional information.
What else you can read
The DRIVE movement’s Web site contains extensive information on resistance actions on death row and what people can do to support the struggle. The Texas death row hunger strikers’ statement outlines their motivations and demands.
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s New Abolitionist newsletter contains regular coverage of the struggle in Texas and around the country.
For an inside look at the Texas death penalty system, read Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, by Rev. Carroll Pickett, who bore witness to the state-sponsored murder of nearly 100 prisoners in Texas.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/607/607_07_RobWill.shtml
“Refusing to support injustice with inaction”
A view from the death row resistance
October 27, 2006 | Page 7
ROB WILL is a DRIVE member who has kept a diary while on death row. Here, we publish an excerpt of his writings. Read the full entries at freerobwill.org.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
August 24, 2006
Approx. 10 a.m.: Today is Justin Fuller’s execution date. I was supposed to be out at visitation today, but I think they have the unit locked down. Kevin Watts is over in the B-dayroom, and he’s refusing to come out. He’s “occupied” the dayroom in protest of Justin (AKA: J-Wacc) Fuller’s unjust murder that’s set to be carried out later today. Kevin is standing with J-Wacc in complete solidarity!
Okay, they just put all of the other guys who were in other dayrooms back in their cells. I’m on the other side of the pod, so I can’t see the entire other half, but between me and my other neighbors, we’ll be able to see what all goes on. Sergeants and lieutenants and even the major are over there now. Kevin has a gas mask on. A bunch of officers are over there.
The Emergency Response Riot Team just came in the door. All of the officers have gas masks on. Damn! They just fired on Kevin with the 37mm Riot Control assault tear-gas weapon. It sounded like several 12-gauge shotguns fired simultaneously. The gun looks somewhat like an H&K MP5 assault submachine gun, the kind Army Special Forces units use. Kevin still hasn’t come out.
What you can do
Contact these officials and demand better conditions for inmates on Texas’ death row:
-- Polunsky Unit Wardens: Warden Massey and Asst. Warden Hirch, 3872 F.M. 350 South, Livingston, TX 77351, 936-967-8082 (ask for the warden’s office)
-- Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chair: Christina Melton Crain, 5521 Greenville Ave., Suite 104-944, Dallas, TX 75206
-- Texas Gov. Rick Perry: 800-252-9600
Come to the March to Stop Executions in Austin, Texas, on October 28, 2006. Marchers will gather at 3 p.m. on October 28 at the Texas governor’s mansion, between 10th and 11th Streets on Lavaca, then march to Austin City Hall Plaza for a rally. The Texas Moratorium Network Web site has additional information.
What else you can read
The DRIVE movement’s Web site contains extensive information on resistance actions on death row and what people can do to support the struggle. The Texas death row hunger strikers’ statement outlines their motivations and demands.
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s New Abolitionist newsletter contains regular coverage of the struggle in Texas and around the country.
For an inside look at the Texas death penalty system, read Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, by Rev. Carroll Pickett, who bore witness to the state-sponsored murder of nearly 100 prisoners in Texas.
Can you imagine how it would feel to have one of your friends led off to execution? Would you remain complacent and do nothing? Or would you stand up against injustice and protest?
The ER Team is lined up at the dayroom door. They just fired on Kevin with a canister of Crowd Control gas. They just ran in! The five-man Riot Team slammed into Kevin with the riot shield, and they are all struggling. The team is piled on top of him, and he’s lost under a blur of black-gloved fists, stomping combat boots and riot gear.
It looks like they have Kevin cuffed and shackled. Now they’re ripping all of his clothes off. This system attempts to dehumanize “inmates” in every way possible; this is especially true when a person challenges this system in any way.
Now the riot team is picking Kevin up. They’re about to bring him through the door separating the sides of the pod. There he is, completely naked in handcuffs and shackles, surrounded by the riot team and a bunch of officers.
Alright, they’re bringing Kevin on to this section. Let me holler at him to make sure he’s alright...“Hell no, I’m not alright, I’m burning up!” That was Kevin’s response. He’s alive, responsive and not beat down too bad, so that’s good.
Approx. 1:30 p.m.: The officers just finished feeding the lunch trays, but they skipped Kevin; they didn’t feed him. I’m about to holler at Officer Lane to see what’s up... “Watts jacked my dayroom, so now I’m jacking his tray.” I suppose Officer Lane thinks he can starve people without any consequences or repercussions. Lane is a fairly new officer, and he hardly ever works the disciplinary pod.
I’m about to cordially explain to him that if he doesn’t give Watts a tray, then I will be forced to commit a direct action, which will result in a “major incident.” Kevin is in an empty cell, completely naked and covered in gas. He just committed the courageous and righteous act of occupying the dayroom, which led to him being assaulted with chemical gas and beaten, in protest of Justin Fuller’s execution date.
How can I call myself an activist and allow Kevin to starve? Could I even call myself a human if I sat by and did nothing while such an inhumane and sadistic act occurred? No. They’re going to have to gas me and beat me today also if they don’t feed Kevin.
Officer McCoy just walked by, and I asked him if they were going to feed Kevin. He said, “Calm down, Will, he’ll get fed.” Well, we’ll see...okay, cool, Officer Lane and Officer McCoy just gave Kevin a tray. They also gave him a towel and some clothes.
Approx. 4 p.m.: I just found out that Justin refused to participate in his own murder! He stood up to this deplorable system, and he refused to walk to his execution!
I don’t know what all happened, but I do know that Justin protested his execution, and the ER Team had to physically put him in the execution van.
I was supposed to be out at visitation today, to stand with Justin in solidarity, but for some reason, my visitor didn’t show up. I hate that I wasn’t out there, but it’s good to know he protested. I knew he would; Justin always stood up for what was right.
Let me give you an example: One day when I was on A-pod, I refused to give back the handcuffs. The ER Team stormed on the pod, I was assaulted with riot control chemical gas; then I was left naked in a cell.
While all of this was happening everyone else was left in the showers, including Justin. A bunch of other inmates were whining and crying about the gas and being left in the shower. Justin wasn’t. He fully supported us protesting, and he was essentially a part of us protesting. He knew he might suffer from retaliation, but Justin still supported everything me and Tony were doing. He didn’t allow this system to dictate his morality.
In a few hours, Justin Fuller will be executed. He will be strapped down to a gurney and murdered. But Justin bravely refused to give justification to state-sanctioned murder by participating in his own execution. He refused to support injustice with inaction. Justin courageously protested his execution, and he now stands as an inspiration to me and he should definitely stand as an inspiration to others!
September 12, 2006
Yesterday was insane. Early in the morning, on the first round of recreation, my neighbor Rick Rhodes went to the outside rec yard. Sgt. Brown, accompanied by several officers, shook down Rick’s cell. During the cell search, they took some things that Rick didn’t want them to take, so he refused to leave the yard.
Rick was then assaulted with a tear-gas grenade, fired on with the crowd control tear gas assault weapon and physically removed by the ER Team. I attempted to write down a “play-by-play‚” account of the events, but I had to stop midway because of the tear gas--it forced my eyes to close, and I began choking and coughing.
About an hour later, the officers started putting people out to recreation, but they skipped our section. We were told that “because of Rick Rhodes, no one in F-section is going to go to rec or showers.”
So, we all got mad at Rick, cursed him out, and now, no one will talk to him...Yeah right!
Their little “divide-and-conquer” tactics do not work with some of us. Sadly, those type of tactics do work with most inmates, though. That’s why Sgt. Brown had the audacity to look me right in the eyes and say, “Blame Rick Rhodes, it’s his fault y’all aren’t going to shower or rec.”
Ah yes, and I suppose I should blame the poor for being poor, blame all Muslims for “terrorism,” and blame the “illegal immigrants‚” for...whatever they’re being blamed for this week! No, I don’t think so...
To show solidarity with Rick and to support his courageous act of protest, a bonfire was lit on 2-row, and then guys on 1-row started flooding. I’ve been around probably hundreds of fires since I’ve been here, and I’ve never seen such an outright sadistic act happen like what happened after the fire was lit: the officers shut off the power, turned off all the ventilation and let the fire burn.
Keep in mind that this is a completely enclosed space. There are no windows to open. Smoke began consuming the entire section. I tied a sheet to my door to try to keep the smoke out, but it didn’t work. Thick dark grey smoke began filling our cells. Everyone was hollering at the officers to turn the fans on, but they wouldn’t.
I wrapped a wet towel around my face, then I began getting dizzy. I crashed out on my bunk because I couldn’t stand up any more. I heard my neighbor screaming, “We need help! Get medical! 84 cell passed out!” The officers didn’t do anything.
I don’t know if I passed out also, but I remember trying to get up, and I couldn’t. Then, I remember an officer beating on my door, and I got up and some of the smoke was cleared out. I took the wet towel from around my face and it was black on the area where my mouth was.
No one died but many of us were pretty bad off, feeling extremely sick with severe headaches.
Either Sgt. Ludwig, Ms. Jager, CO Fisher or CO Smith was responsible for this blatant act of sadism. Or perhaps all of them. They were the only staff members on the pod at the time. If a decent officer wouldn’t have come on the pod and turned the exhaust fans on, we probably would have all died. Seriously, it was that bad.
October 14, 2006
The Invisible Victims of the State-Sanctioned Murder
By Charles Perroud
"What is capital punishment if not the most premeditated of murders to which no criminal act, no matter how calculated, can be compared." – Albert Camus
The debate surrounding the death penalty always fires up heated arguments between passionate advocates on both sides of the fence; crime prevention, lethal injection procedures, safety of the community, recidivism, costs, innocence claims, and so on are fiercely debated. We all know more or less the usual arguments in this regard and the point being raised here isn’t much about proving these right or wrong. Nonetheless, one major argument advanced by proponents of the death penalty is about bringing a so-called “closure” to the loved ones of the murder victim(s). The relative of such a crime become victims themselves, as we can all agree on, whose lives are totally changed forever; not only having to deal with the perpetual trauma of their great loss, but also having to cope with the loss of a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a friend, as well as possibly the fact of losing the main breadwinner in the family. However, as plenty of testimonies have demonstrated in the past, the real “closure” brought is a very debatable issue at best. Regardless, the question that needs to be raise about this is the following: are we not forgetting to consider a whole lot of victims here?
Not undermining the above-mentioned victims, however if the actual goals of the application of the death penalty are justice and to prevent having more innocent victims crying over the dead bodies of loved ones, the system is failing miserably as it is in fact doing the exact opposite for the latter. Why is it that the families of state-sanctioned murders are not even given as much as an afterthought in the equation? Are we to blame the parents as well for the atrocities that their sons and daughters might have committed as grown-ups?
It goes without saying that justice and a severe punishment need to be handed down for committing murder for the sake of the families affected by these crimes perpetrated against their relatives. However, it is preposterous to do it while ignoring and being blind to the trauma and permanent scars left by the judicial process leading to an execution and the actual killing. Just take a look at the recent case of Lamont Reese executed by the State of Texas on June 20th, 2006. As the drugs took effect, his mother, Brenda Reese, was in such a state of shock that she began pounding with her fists on the chamber window and began screaming repeatedly, “They killed my baby.” She then kicked two holes in the death chamber wall of the Walls Unit, in Huntsville, and had to be restrained. She was sobbing loudly and nearly collapsed as she reached the prison administration building across the street.
Do the parents of a crime victim really want to put another innocent human being in the same state of distress and pain as she/he is going through? …In the name of JUSTICE? I certainly hope they can not be blinded by such rage as to acknowledge this. The tragedy that brought horror to the Amish community in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, a couple of weeks ago, also taught us a mighty lesson. One of the very first questions people asked in the community on the very evening of the shooting was: “What can we do to help the family of the shooter?”
No, not shunning them; not making them feel like pariahs in their own community, but embracing their humanity. Recognizing they are victims in their own rights; that they are suffering more than enough already and will be forever tormented by the irreversible horrific actions of their own flesh and blood: their beloved son.
We need, as a society, to take a step back and look at the imposition of the death penalty with a clean slate; not with a vengeful eye, but with consideration for all the victims of the system. Is imposing more suffering our objective? I surely hope that it isn't the case. Is it releasing individuals into society that will strike fear in each and every one of us what we want? …Of course not. But let's stay objective here and recognize that the system is far from perfect as one hundred twenty three individuals released from death row have clearly demonstrated over the years in the United States. Therefore, in the meantime, let's keep this in mind and consequently humanity within prison walls as surely a few of these men might not have done what they stand accused of. Justice and adequate punishment are needed; not more and more innocent victims.
A thorough introspection of our conscience is in order; and I firmly believe we should do away with a punishment that is always creating more victims instead of preventing the exact opposite from happening.
The author is a human rights activist and supporter of the DRIVE Movement (www.drivemovement.org) on Texas Death Row to improve prison conditions. He can be reached at: innocent.criminal51@gmail.com.
