In the following report, Rashid details a vicious racist attack on his person by guards at Red Onion State Prison, which occurred on December 12, 2011. Since this report was written, Rashid's situation has gotten even worse, as earlier this week he was transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison (Virginia's other supermax), where he was confined between 2000 and 2003, a period when he was repeatedly singled out for abuse by guards (many of whom are still working there). Already, he has been subjected to death threats from guards, has had his food tampered with (i.e. has found metal in it), been given clothes that were sprayed with an irritant, etc.
A subsequent report on this transfer will be posted here shortly.
In the meantime, here is Rashid's January 10 article, detailing the December 12 assault:
Abuse Reports Culminate In Hair-Raising Assault By Red Onion State Prison Guards
Background to the Attack
On December 12, 2011, a Red Onion State Prison guard, sergeant Tony
R. Adams, ripped a large mass of hair from my head, much of it from the
roots. At the time I was handcuffed behind my back, leg shackled and
held pinned against a locked door by several other guards. The torn out
hair covered an area of about 3 inches by 7 inches across the front and
side of my head. (See Exhibit A). Prior to the attack I had a headful of
dreadlocks approximately a foot and a half long.
The attack follows a long history of reports I’ve sent out naming
Adams as a major source of abuse and cover-ups at the prison. Previously
employed in the prison’s dog kennel, Adams was appointed as
investigator – from early 2005 through October 2011 – by Tracy Ray, who
was Red Onion’s chief warden from October 2004 through October 2011.
Up through Ray’s appointment as warden, Red Onion maintained
national notoriety for extreme brutality, racism and abuse against its
predominantly Black prisoner population, by it’s almost exclusively
white rural staff. Resulting in several critical reports by human rights
organizations, a lot of bad media, U.S. Justice Department probes, and
outside protests. As reported in a prior article, Ray came onboard to
clean up Red Onion’s image, an agenda shared by Adams, who as
investigator was directly responsible for investigating abuse
complaints. Adams distinguished himself as a vengeful cover-up artist,
who’d retaliate against prisoners who complained of abuses and
especially those who challenged and complained against him. In addition
to frequently destroying and obstructing our mail, his direct abuses
included placing false gang profiles on prisoners including against me,
inciting and facilitating violence between prisoners, destroying our
property, etc. He quickly became and remained one of the most disliked
of all Red Onion guards.
Subsequently an outside family and I co-founded an advocacy group
called SPARC, to help organize exposure and challenge of abuses at Red
Onion. Adams took immediate personal interest and counteraction.
When A----, a SPARC member. contacted the prison’s mailroom clerk in
response to a complaint of missing mail from a prisoner D----, Adams
personally called her back. He tried various angles to discourage her
involvement with SPARC and supporting prisoners. When his efforts failed
he then threatened to tell Carter that A---- had lied to him about
contacting the prison about his mail issue, so to undermine her and
SPARC’s credibility with prisoners. He also threatened to ban SPARC’s
correspondences with prisoners by falsely accusing her of passing
messages between gang members. He then had much of SPARC’s mail
disappeared and blocked from delivery to prisoners, and confronted me
with routine threats and harassments.
He took very personal my persistence in exposing abuses at the
prison, involving outside people in doing so, and in effect
counteracting his entire agenda of trying to protect the prison’s image.
He also took personal offense to my winning support amongst whites and
having white visitors whom he disparaged as “nigger lovers”. One
frequent visitor and friend he had banned from visiting at Red Onion and
another prison close by – Wallens Ridge – under false claims that she
was trying to coordinate a prisoner uprising at various prisons. While
she was able to have visitation privileges restored at Wallens Ridge,
Adams succeeded in permanently banning her from visiting me at Red
Onion.
It was only after several prisoners violently died at the prison
under their watch, that Ray and Adams were removed during October 2011
as warden and investigator, respectively. Ray was reassigned to another
prison and Adams was restored to his prior rank as a petty sergeant.
Ray was replaced by Randy Mathena as warden. Mathena was Red Onion’s
assistant warden when the prison first opened in 1998 and during the
early years when it won nationwide notoriety as one of the country’s
most racist and abusive prisons. Mathena’s return has seen a resurgence
of open abuse and assaults by guards.
The Attack
On October 27, 2011, Adams confronted me with threats that he was
going to shut me up, that he had a better opportunity to do this now
since he was “no longer the investigator”, and Mathena was warden. I
made record of his threats by filing two emergency grievances, log
numbers 030238 and 030239.
Subsequently, on December 12, 2011, he accompanied several other
guards in confronting me on a segregation exercise yard while I was
locked inside an exercise cage, claiming falsely that I’d refused to
come off the yard when I had not. He immediately began threatening that
he was going to “get” me, wanted “a piece of” me, was going to “fuck
[me] up”, etc., obviously attempting to provoke me into actually
refusing to allow myself to be handcuffed and leg shackled to come off
the yard, so removal by force could be “justified”.
A portable audio video camera was brought out to film what followed, which made apparent they were expecting an altercation.
Ignoring the threats and provocation attempts, I allowed the guards
to apply the handcuffs behind my back and shackles, and was then
escorted from the exercise yard cage by two guards, holding both my arms
and with palms against my shoulder blades. (See Exhibit B. This method
of “escorting” segregation prisoners is used ostensibly so guards can
maintain complete control while remaining behind the prisoner so he
cannot butt, spit or otherwise assault them and can be easily maneuvered
to place and pin against a wall. During such escorts guards are to
remain behind and to the side of the prisoner.)
I was “escorted” in this manner from the cage to a doorway leading into
the unit. The door was closed and locked. I was walked up to the door at
which time the guard operating the audio video camera took the camera
off of me. Adams then quickly stepped directly in front of me and in a
low voice threatened to “fuck [me] up”. At that point he, claiming I
attempted to head butt him, grabbed and proceeded to forcefully rip out
handsful of my hair from the front and left side of my head. I never
did, indeed I could not, resist, as the other guards shoved me
face-first into and held me pinned against the locked door.
As Adams ripped out my hair I repeatedly stated so the camera could
record it that he was ripping out my hair for no reason which he
continued to do.
After he completely ripped out an area of hair about 3" x 7", they
then threw me sideways to the ground and piled on top of me. I was at
all times handcuffed behind my back and shackled at the ankles.
After several moments I was physically lifted from the ground, and
observed a large mass of my ripped out hair lying on the ground where
I’d been previously standing. I repeatedly asked that it be filmed
showing how much hair was torn out and dropped right where I’d stood
previously pinned securely against the door, before some four guards,
including Adams threw me to the ground unresisting. They refused to film
it.
I was then taken into the unit’s hallway, made to kneel, then
stripped completely naked in direct presence of a female nurse, which I
protested as an illegal and unwarranted cross-gender strip search. I was
then, because verbally protesting the assault and cross-gender strip
search, chained up in handcuffs and shackles inside a cell ‘til the next
day. Guards claimed my protests were perceived as “threats”.
Staged Investigation
On December 15, 2011, I was taken to the prison’s video-court area
to meet with Johnny Acosta, an investigator from the Virginia Department
of Correction’s Inspector General’s office, a.k.a. Internal Affairs
Unit. The very same office with whom Adams had worked for years covering
up abuses at the prison.
Acosta stated he was there to investigate the December 12th
incident. I recognized his appearance to be a swift official move at
damage control, to extract a statement from me that might be used later
against me, and to formally rationalize the assault to counter or answer
any outside protests likely to follow. According to sources, news of
the attack was already circulating on the outside.
In addition to the fact that Acosta is a VDOC employee himself and
his office routinely worked with Adams on “investigations” at Red Onion
that always absolve abusive guards of wrongdoing, Acosta himself has a
bit of baggage that further renders an “objective” investigation by him
dubious at best, which I’ll detail below under a separate heading.
Prior to “interviewing” me, Acosta showed me a box containing what
he conceded to be “a lot of hair”. It looked to be all of my ripped out
hair. He had a guard take still photographs and videotape of my head and
scalp where the hair was torn out, noting numerous bald patches across
the area – a lot of my hair had broken off near the scalp, other of it
was pulled out from the roots.
Acosta animatedly showed me a pair of leg shackles which he said the
guards claimed were the ones I was wearing during the assault. He
promptly demonstrated several times that the shackles had a faulty
locking mechanism, by locking them then yanking them back open. He
repeated over and over that the guards claimed I’d “gotten out of the
shackles” apparently as their justification for throwing me to the
ground after I was securely pinned against the door.
I told him I believed the guards were lying since I didn’t recall
the shackles coming off during the attack. I pointed out that the
shackles had a prison identification number on them, and suggested that
he check the equipment logs from the control booth in the unit where the
attack occurred, to see whether the number on the shackles actually
matched ones kept in that control booth. This because a daily record is
kept for all equipment kept and checked in and out of each building’s
control booth. If the malfunctioning shackles he had were actually ones
I’d worn on December 12th, the unit logs would show their being assigned
by number to that booth and when and if they were checked out that day,
and by whom. He reacted very defensively to my suggestion as though it
were an absurd proposal. He stated emphatically that he’d made no such
inspection, commented that I was “very observant” for having taken
notice of the identification number on the shackles, then quickly
changed the subject. This suggested he knew the faulty shackles may in
fact not have been the ones I’d worn on December 12th. I then told him
I’d submit to a polygraph test on the incident and the fact that the
shackles hadn’t come off. I asked him to ask each guard would they do
the same and document their reply. He said he would. I don’t believe
him.
He then gave several scenarios to “explain” how my hair had possibly
“fallen” out, several of them patently ignorant, racist stereotypes,
often heard to disparage Black/ New Afrikan culture. First he suggested I
may have pulled the hair out myself and had it “sitting” atop my head
before the incident occurred. He abandoned that line when I pointed out
he had extensive video footage of me leading up to the attack which
showed my hair firmly attached to my head at close range. Then he
suggested that dreadlocks are dryrotted hair that easily falls out. I
explained and demonstrated to him how absurd this was and racist in its
implications. He also claimed he’d heard dreadlocks are bound together
by dirt and filth and are worn by people who don’t wash their hair. He
ended in admitting neither account could be true since he’d filmed,
photographed and examined my scalp and hair and found them “very clean”
and “healthy”, showing no evidence of dirt nor even dandruff, nor was
there any foul odor to my hair and scalp. I pointed out that dreadlocks
are actually strong like rope consisting of not only hair still attached
at the root but also the shedded hair that most people comb or brush
out. So they are thicker and more dense than even plaits. He acted not
to comprehend how they form. I explained very simply that Black people’s
hair is of a thick tough texture that naturally forms into small tight
curls. If left alone it will entangle into thick tight masses, which
separate into cords called dreadlocks. That nothing has to be done to
make it do this, although some people use cosmetic methods (which I
don’t) to make dreadlocks form quicker than the many months it takes
them to begin to form naturally, or to make them all in a uniform small
size. My dreadlocks were/are naturally formed and range in thickness,
some several inches thick. I added that I wash my hair at least
bi-weekly and take care to keep lint and other foreign matter out of it.
Acosta, a white male, wasn’t secretive about his personal dislike of
dreadlocks, expressing that because I wear them “it’s obvious you don’t
care how your hair looks”.
He conceded a great deal of force was needed to rip out as much of
my hair as was in the box. And it was difficult to imagine that level of
force being justified under the circumstances of December 12th, even if
I did attempt to butt Adams as they’d alleged. He avoided explaining
why Adams would step so closely and directly in front of me, given the
security requirements governing remaining behind prisoners being
escorted, specifically to avoid any such potential danger. Acosta
admitted despite what they claimed I did, the force used could still
only be such as was needed to control the situation and no more. That if
I were pinned to the door, the hair pulling and multiple guards
throwing me to the ground were grossly excessive. He also admitted that
as I’d observed just before Adams attacked me, the guard operating the
camera took it off me so it didn’t film when Adams stepped in front of
me and ripped out my hair.
Acosta didn’t film nor have a nurse check my shoulder and collarbone
which I informed him had been dislocated when I was thrown to the
ground and piled upon, nor other reported injuries.
The interview statement he prepared seemed focused on constructing
the incident in a way that could be used to corroborate the guards’
false version of events, and to leave leeway for further “adjustments”
in their story. But Acosta did admit knowing Adams personally disliked
me, which he countered by expressing several times how he “couldn’t
help” commenting that I come across as an extremely likeable and
intelligent person. Also that he saw me as someone willing to put his
own safety in jeopardy to try to help and expose others being abused. He
didn’t record any of this however. I declined to sign the statement and
again requested a polygraph test.
Acosta, Himself A Broken Victim of The System He Serves
Acosta told me he was selected to conduct the investigation because
his superiors felt he was the only agent I’d talk to. This because a
decade ago an investigation by him led to three ranking guards who’d
beaten a prisoner at Wallens Ridge being prosecuted. But the system
turned on him, and the 3 guards were all acquitted in a scheme that saw
the whole staff body at Wallens Ridge come together to exonerate the 3,
and made Acosta the target of a subsequent lawsuit by the guards. I was
confined at Wallens Ridge during that time and followed the entire
drama. An experience it’s highly likely he’d be unwilling to repeat.
Halfway through the interview I reminded him of his experience. He was
visibly pained by the memory.
Here’s what occurred:
During 2001 a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, was brutally beaten
by several guards at Wallens Ridge. Wallens Ridge is located a few
miles up the road from Red Onion and employs guards drawn from the same
rural communities as Red Onion. Both prisons have shared notoriety for
racism and abuse. Indeed, a documentary film called “Up The Ridge” was
made about the abuses at Wallens Ridge.
Acosta was called in to investigate the attack. His investigation
concluded that three ranking guards had beaten Plummer. They being
Captain Isaac Hockett, Lieutenant Jeffrey Compton and Sergeant Matthew
Hamilton. They were criminally indicted and put on trial. Regularly
appearing on the local news these three guards were featured tearfully
professing their innocence, while the prisoners were collectively
demeaned. This to win local sympathy for the guards and provoke
animosity towards the prisoners.
Then came the real scheme.
The guards’ attorneys had the judge order that the jury be allowed
to tour the prison under criminal procedure that entitles the trier to
view the crime scene. Wallens Ridge’s entire staff body closed ranks to
give the jury an experience they’d not soon forget, to demonize the
prisoners as beasts who posed mortal danger to the guards, thus
justifying the violence used by the three ‘well-intentioned local good
ol’ boys on Plummer. The plan quite literally was to terrorize the jury.
Almost an entire housing unit was emptied out of prisoners a few
days before the scheduled jury tour. Wallens Ridge officials hand-picked
a group of flunky inmates to move into the unit, whom they’d bribed to
act out in front of the jury. Some were “paid” with extra meal trays,
one was given a job cleaning showers, others were given extra telephone
calls for the month, etc. in exchange for agreeing to create a
disturbance for a group that they were told was a “scared straight”
tour. They were told to do everything in their means to “scare” the
group. All were assured they’d receive no disciplinary charges for
misbehavior and should use their imaginations in devising ways to scare
them.
Guards announced to everyone at the appointed time when the group
was about to come in and to start acting out, which they all did on cue.
The shocked judge and jury got a taste of pure pandemonium, with the
prisoners doing everything from screaming vulgarities and threats of
violence and rape at them, to deafeningly kicking and banging on their
doors, to exposing themselves naked and smearing body waste in and on
their cells door windows etc.
Staff of all ranks, including the warden Stan Young, went around the
prison for weeks recounting and laughing about the scene and the jury’s
utter shock, to anyone who’d hear. And they really laughed at how the
jury returned to court to quickly acquit all three guards. Many of the
guards, nurses and counselors, took great pleasure in mocking how easily
they’d manipulated a few toady inmates to help exonerate guards caught
red handed for abuse. The day after the jury tour all the prisoners
who’d been moved around to stage the disturbance for the jury were
placed back in their old cells.
The acquitted guards returned to Wallens Ridge radiating arrogance,
and sued Acosta for his “false” investigative findings and causing their
“wrongful” prosecution.
As I recounted these events to Acosta he remarked, admitting in a
disconsolated tone several times, “I know what they did”, “I know what
happened”. He remarked too, “You have a good memory”. I pointed out that
all of what they’d done to create the scene to terrorize the jury is in
prison records. That their moving numerous prisoners around just before
and after the jury tour, and bringing the jury into the very unit where
all these conspicuous moves had been made, all to influence the jury
was blatant contempt, obstruction of justice, etc. And it involved the
entire staff’s participating or knowing about it. One could easily also
consult court records to identify and interview the jurors about the
experience. He didn’t seem interested to expose or challenge it. The
experience obviously took the fight out of him. He looked beaten, often
spaced out and glassy-eyed as I described the incident.
So I asked him, how he expected me to have any confidence in his or
any other official investigation or anything tangible coming out of it.
“Look how an entire prison staff came together to cover up an assault,
discredit your findings, protect their corrupt peers, then counterattack
you, and it’s obviously affected you deeply”. I pointed out to him. He
had no response. “Does it strike you as ironic”, I asked him, “that
you’re expecting me to trust your role and intentions when the very
guard who assaulted me was himself an investigator just like you?”
Knowing these things, only a fool would put confidence in such a system.
I rest my case.
All power to the people!
Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is a long-time revolutionary prison organizer, accomplished artist, Marxist theoretician, and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). Some of his writings have been published in the book Defying the Tomb (Kersplebedeb, 2010), available from
AK Press and
leftwingbooks.net. Other of his writings and artwork are featured on his website
rashidmod.com.
Rashid has been held in segregation for the past 19 years, since 1993. Six weeks after the above-detailed assault, Rashid was
suddenly transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison, Red Onion's "twin"
supermax, and the site of numerous human rights violations, as detailed
in the Appalshop documentary,
Up the Ridge. This transfer is doubtless a
result of Rashid's exposure of conditions at Red Onion; what the
Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) plans to do next remains
anyone's guess. For the time being, Rashid can be contacted at:
Kevin Johnson #1007485
Wallens Ridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA
24219
Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a
non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and
Washington DC, focused on building effective opposition to the
prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red
Onion and VDOC cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical
violence, harassment, and administrative repression against the cadre of
the NABP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of
suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC
facilities. Indeed, the assault on Rashid detailed in this article comes
just months after a September 3 incident where NABPP-PC cadre Kelvin
“Khaysi” Canada was beaten by four officers while he was similarly fully
restrained; Khaysi sustained a gouged left eye, dislocated right
shoulder, and a fractured rib. As has been the case with Rashid, the
medical attention he received was cursory and ineffective.
In a subsequent message, Rashid states:
"It's by request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment such as the Sussex prisons."
A petition to support these an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. People are also
encouraged to contact Director of VA DOC, Harold Clarke in support of
these demands:
Harold W. Clarke, Director
Department of Corrections
P. O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 674-3119
Fax: (804) 674-3509
Email:
harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, PO Box 345, Floyd VA,
24091
SPARC can also reached by email at
sparcdc@hush.com or
sparc@signalfire.org or search “Supporting Prisoners and Acting for
Radical Change” on Facebook for regular updates and news.
Those of the in the New York City area, who wish to learn more about
Rashid and conditions in Virginia's prisons, are encouraged to attend
the book event "Defying the Tomb - Struggle, Education, Survival and
Liberation in Lock-Down" to be held at Bluestockings Bookstore (172
Allen Street, New York, NY 10002) on Saturday, February 11, at 7pm. The
featured speaker is Rashid's comrade, John "Mac" Gaskins who was in a
neighboring cell with Rashid while at Red Onion and was recently
released from the tombs of Wallens Ridge. It promises to be an evening
where words will not be minced!