Kevin "Rashid" Johnson #185492
Red Onion State Prison
PO Box 1900
Pound, VA 24279
To: Concerned Parties
Re: Fourth Amendment to October 26, 2004 Report on Racially Motivated Abuses at Red Onion State Prison (ROSP)
Date: July 10, 2005
This is a fourth amendment to my October 2004 report supplemented on January 1, February 27, and May 10, 2005 originally entitled "Red Onion State Prison, an Exposé - Racism and Brutality Equals Kind and Usual Punishment in Virginia."
That exposé and its supplements described ongoing brutal and racist abuses of nonwhite segregation prisoners here at ROSP by white staff, and following is a factual account of such continued abuses.
On June 3, 2005 a black prisoner, Tyrone Shelton #158647 was targeted with a brutal, premeditated assault while handcuffed and shackled by prison guards (c/o) R. Boyd, R. Phipps, and W. Wright - the same group of white guards involved repeatedly in attacks on restrained and defenseless nonwhite prisoners. Shelton was, at the time of this assault, housed in the cell above me. On that date plgs R. Boyd and W. Wright were assigned to work the unit I was housed in, namely the C300 unit. (c/o) R. Phipps was assigned to work a unit on the other side of the building, namely the C400 unit. Guards working units on one side of the building have never in my experience left their posts to help guards on the opposite side escort prisoners to outside exercise or showers. However Phipps, along with several other guards, left their C400 posts and came over to the C300 unit under the pretense oh "helping" pull us for exercise and showers. However, the actual intent was to attack Shelton. While bringing me and other prisoners in off the exercise yard, Phipps remarked to another guard: "I'm going to get that nigger Shelton". Another guard remarked "I'll go ahead and get the ambulatory restraints."
Upon being returned to my cell, Plgs Wright and Boyd skipped over several prisoners who were next in line to receive showers and went directly to Shelton's cell, handcuffed and shackled him. Shelton was brought out, taken downstairs, and while en route to the showers and without warning, Shelton was picked up from behind by Boyd and slammed to the floor. This occurred directly in front of the unit surveillance camera. Shelton's face never touched the floor during this attack, his eyeglasses were still on his face, and no blood was evident anywhere in the unit.
Phipps then ran over telling Wright to let him take over, at which point Boyd and Phipps half carried/ half dragged Shelton up the stairs and ultimately back to his cell. At no point prior to Sheltons being taken into his cell was any blood or facial injury to Shelton evident. No blood was anywhere in the unit outside Shelton's cell.
Upon Shelton's being taken into the cell above me, I could very clearly hear repeated thumping and scuffling (obvious sounds of a beating) and Shelton repeating several times "Why are you assaulting me? I'm not doing anything." Wright also entered the cell and joined in the attack. Boyd was seen repeatedly slamming Shelton's face onto the floor, Phipps repeatedly punching Shelton in the face, and Wright kicking him in the groin. Shelton's face was badly lacerated, causing him a large loss of blood, and he ended in receiving 18 stitches in his eyebrow and chin at a local hospital emergency room. Sergeant T. McCoy entered the cell and, using Shelton's dark blue blanket, soaked up most of the blood from the cell floor to conceal evidence from the portable audio/visual camera that was being brought in as part of the procedure for putting a prisoner in ambulatory restraints. Just before the camera was brought in McCoy laid the blanket across the floor to cover up what blood he could not soak up; he also ran some of Shelton's legal documents through blood. McCoy did this to visibly taint them with blood and thereby justify throwing much of it away as "contaminated" with biohazardous fluid. Shelton is a prisoner known to litigate against prison officials, and won a money judgment in at least one case against prison officials, including one Captain David Taylor. Just prior to this attack on Shelton, I have witnessed him being repeatedly threatened and harassed by all ranks of ROSP staff because of his litigation activities - in fact Taylor specifically threatened Shelton on May 6, 2005 that he was going to be targeted with an attack. When the audio/visual camera was brought into Shelton's cell, I narrated what I'd heard and seen in the assault on Shelton, speaking through the ventilation shaft which connects our cells allowing my voice to be heard clearly inside his cell and recorded on the audio/visual tape.
He attack on Shelton was well-timed and calculated to occur while the prison investigator was on vacation. , when no complaints could be filed or processed for several days (the attack occurred on a Friday and no mail can be sent on weekends), while the warden was not at the prison, and Phipps had a relative in charge of the medical department. David Taylor was the shift commander that day, and according to Shelton told Shelton while he was in the medical unit awaiting transport to the hospital, "I told you I was going to get you."
On June 9, 2005, the day after I and several other prisoners spoke to the prison investigator about the assault on Shelton, I was moved from the C300 unit to the C400 unit where Phipps is assigned. From the first day Phipss repeatedly made provocative, harassing and veiled threatening remarks to me. On the day before I was moved I confronted Captain Taylor at my cell door and stated that it was obvious that he set Shelton up for attack. He replied that I was also "on the list." To make a record of his remark and admitting his role in the attack on Shelton I submitted an informal complaint log #3338.
Upon my move to C400 unit I heard the unit guards repeatedly refusing the prisoner in cell C402 (Walter Teal - number unknown) his meals. Over the past year I've witnessed Teal deteriorate from a normal mental state to one totally dysfunctional, paranoid, delusional, and dissociated from reality. He has lost some 30 pounds due to denial of meals by guards. He is treated not with mental health care but with guard abuses and violence. Mental health staff are content to merely act as spectators to his deterioration.
On July 1, 2005 on one of the few occasions he was given a meal tray, Teal refused to return it and was brutally cell-extracted and put into ambulatory restraints by (c/o) McConnell, Wright, Mullins, Boyd, and P. Lane, under supervision of Lieutenant R. Fowler and Sergeant T. McCoy. Several minutes after Teal was replaced into his cell and "checked" by the nurse, Fowler, McCoy, Wright and Boyd re-entered his cell and began beating Teal. The assault was clearly audible to all in the unit.
On June 26, 2005 I discovered that Fowler and R. Phipps had been propositioning an informant white inmate Dennis Webb #151452 to throw feces on me in the exercise yard, but to occur on a day when Phipps was not working to conceal his involvement. The attack was to have taken place on June 26 while Phipps, Fowler and David Taylor were not at work, but did not occur that day because the guard working the unit (Payne) told Webb he didn't' fell like going through the work of having the feces cleaned up and writing reports. I informed outside correspondents about the plot the same day I discovered it including members of the Fed Up! campaign in Pittsburgh, PA and the director of the organization Research Information Help for Disadvantaged in Richmond, VA. The set-up was then arranged to occur on July 5, 2005 and while being escorted from the shower to my cell had a feces mixture thrown on my back while the pre-alerted escorting guards (including Payne) stood or ran out of the way. Payne, who was well out of the way when the feces was thrown, fabricated reports that feces splattered on him so to mitigate the fact of his role in the set-up. The conspiracy was obvious in that first, despite the required search of the prisoner and his items prior to being brought out of his cell for a shower Webb had taken several bloated bags of the feces mixture to the shower. Second, only Webb, I, and one other prisoner were placed in showers in the unit next door to our own (C500 unit), which unlike our own C400 unit showers has no Plexiglas covering the shower fronts or locking covers on the handcuff slots. The C400 showers are designed this way to keep substances from being thrown from them. So, not only was Webb allowed to take the feces bags into the shower, but we were placed into showers in another unit from which Webb could easily throw the feces.
Webb admits both to throwing the substance on me and sent statements to prison officials (which he has voluntarily given me permission to use) - indeed he threw feces on me in front of the guards and waited until they were present to do it - (see attached affidavit from Webb) but he admits doing it for Phipps and other guards (although he states he will not state this in writing at this time since that may undermine the benefits from the guards for his actions). Payne and Phipps have since been allegedly removed from the unit and orders issued to keep Webb and I separated.
July 10, 2005
Kevin "Rashid" Johnson
#185492