Red Onion State Prison

Red Onion State Prison: an Exposé

Racism and Brutality Equal Kind and Usual Punishment in Virginia

By Kevin "Rashid" Johnson #185492

I am writing this paper to put the reader on notice of the persistent and unchanging patterns of racist brutality and abusive conditions existing here at Red Onion State Prison (ROSP), within Wise County, Virginia, and in prisons in general, inflicted against nonwhite segregation prisoners by white prison officials. These Virginia Department of Corrections (VDoC)prisons operating within this rural, remote, and near-totally white populated region of the state (viz, ROSP and Wallens Ridge State Prison (WRSP)), have distinguished themselves with nationally known reputations for racism against and abuses of nonwhite prisoners since they first began operating in 1998 and '99. But for independent, outside investigations by human rights organizations, prisoners' loved ones and other outside advocates, these conditions would never have been exposed and still refuse to be acknowledged by VDoC and other Virginia government officials. What follows is a factual account of such abusive conditions as prevails within ROSP.

Physical Assaults

The more extreme abuses here at ROSP are increasingly taking the form of routine attacks on nonwhite prisoners while they are fully restrained (handcuffed behind their backs and with leg shackles on), and each time this occurs, the abusing guards use a general perfunctory formula to speciously justify such attacks, claiming that the prisoner "pulled away" from them or "attempted" to carry out some vague and limited assault on the guards, thus "compelling" them to "take the inmate to the floor." The usual method of such a takedown is by guards tripping and bodily slamming the prisoner face-first to the concrete floor. Yet, more and more the types of injuries sustained by the prisoners and the complete absence of any injuries to the guards (except hand injuries sustained as a result of beating the prisoner) contradicts what guards claim to have done (viz, using only the "limited" force of merely pushing an already manacled prisoner to the floor.) In segregation, when prisoners are brought from their cells, they are handcuffed from behind, leg shackled, and "escorted" by two guards who stand on each side of the prisoner, one holding each arm. Handcuffs are

applied through openings in the doors of the cells, showers, or exercise yards; shackles are applied after having the prisoner kneel down on bare concrete floors before the cell door is opened; once the cell door is opened, the shackles are applied to the kneeling prisoner's ankles. The following is a listing--and only a very limited one--of such attacks as have occurred over the past year, always by white guards against nonwhite prisoners.

On January 8th, 2004, Maurice Hawkins #242361 was brought out of his

cell, slammed face-first to the floor, and beaten at length by prison guards (c/o's) R. Phipps, McCowan and others. Hawkins sustained facial bruising, swelling, and lacerations as a result.

During or about April 2004, John Blount #251510 was, while still kneeling after being shackled, slammed face-first to the floor and beaten at length (for at least a minute) by p/g's McConnell, R. Phipps, and others, resulting in extensive facial deformities, blackened eyes, swelling, bruising, and internal lacerations.

On April 6, 2004, Dewayne Williams #223702 was slammed face-first and punched by c/o's T. Austin, R. Boyd, McCowan, and others, resulting in a deep laceration across his right eyebrow, and swelling.

On July 16, 2004, a prisoner, last name Teal (he declines giving his full name and number for fear of reprisal) was slammed face-first and beaten by prison guards White, R. Boyd, McCowan, and T. Austin. He suffered facial bruising, swelling, and lacerations.

On July 29, 2004, Timothy Morgan #242086 was beaten while manacled by (c/o's) D. Lambert and sergeants D. Tate and T. McCoy in revenge for his allegedly having flooded his cell when guards refused to accept and process his emergency complaint of needing medical attention. Morgan suffered bruising and swelling to his body and legs.

On June 29, 2004, Maurice Hawkins was set up to be "cell extracted," i.e. subjected to having his cell gassed and raided by guards in riot armor with electric weapons. This situation was created by lieutenant R. Fowler, who staged an incident claiming Hawkins refused to allow guards to handcuff him and bring him out of the cell. Once gassed, tackled, and restrained, Hawkins was beaten by the suited-up guards who included T. Austin, R. Boyd, R. Phipps, and others. He suffered bruising, swelling, a blackened eye, and a deep laceration across the bridge of his nose, which has left a prominent scar. He was denied sutures by medical staff.

During or about July 2004, Jerry Scott (I do not have his number) was subjected to a cell extraction. After being restrained, he was beaten, resulting in blackened eyes and broken teeth.

On August 19, 2004, Roberto Mejias #306726 was slammed face-first and

beaten by prison guards Wright, B. Mullins, lieutenant Ronald Fowler, and others. He suffered facial bruising and swelling.

On September 6, 2004, Timothy Grimes #167493 was beaten brutally in presence of numerous other prisoners by p/g's Wright, R. Boyd, T. Frances, McConnell, and others, and observed by sergeant D. Damron. The attack on Grimes began while he was still kneeling after being shackled, and lasted some ten minutes. Grimes suffered as a result three broken front teeth, three broken ribs, blackened eyes, lacerations inside his mouth, a perforated eardrum, lacerations to his back and right eye, and severe facial and bodily bruising, swelling, and deformity.

On October 9, 2004, Bobby Borter #300453 was slammed face-first, beaten and kicked repeatedly in the face and body by p/g's Cox and T. Powers. Borter suffered internal eye injuries and fractures to the bone of his eye socket.

On October 19, 2004, Timothy Morgan #242086 was again attacked after he'd been placed into five-point restraints (i.e. strapped to a steel bedframe by his extremities with a strap across his chest to hold his body pressed to the bunk), for a suicide attempt. While he was strapped down in this fashion, lieutenant R. Fowler sprayed him in the eyes and face with mace and left him to suffer in extreme agony.

Again, this is not an exhaustive listing of such frequent attacks. Many more are known; however, I do not have the names of the prisoners and guards involved or the dates of their occurrences. Several of the above-named prisoners have been attacked on several other occasions.

Medical Complicity in Brutality

ROSP medical staff are in complete complicity with such patterns of attacks. Nursing staff generally go through the formal motions of "checking" a prisoner for injuries after force has been used on him, yet while the prisoner is directing the nurse to the usually obvious locations of his injuries, she will acknowledge only "minor" abrasions, scratches, and swelling, or remark "he says he's fine; I don't see any injuries," or otherwise claim that he "refused" medical attention.

Many ROSP nurses are married to, romantically involved with, and/or have children fathered by guards who routinely abuse prisoners. On account of these factors, in addition to general friendships, community affinity, racial loyalty, and being related by blood or marriage to guards, such nurses have a personal interest to conceal guards' conduct and injuries inflicted by them against prisoners. Even in the more extreme and unconcealable injury cases such as Timothy Grimes's and Bobby Borter's, medical staff keep their examinations, diagnoses, and treatments confined within ROSP so as to keep control of the injury records. Alterings, falsifications, and disappearances of prisoners' medical reports at ROSP are not uncommon.

Indeed, medical staff, in concert with security officials, often go out of their way to cover up and limit outside exposure of prisoners' injuries. One example of such practices occurred in the case of Bobby Borter. ROSP officials typically try and isolate me from prisoners whom they've recently abused because of their perception that I will engage, participate in, and encourage reprisals against abusive guards, or aid the abused prisoners in gaining outside attention and in their articulating complaints, and litigation against such abuses. On October 15, 2004, I was admitted to the ROSP medical department and placed into a cell next to Borter, who was in the medical department because of his injuries sustained in the October 9, 2004, attack on him.

I had been admitted by the prison's doctor for observation and testing because of suffering chronic intestinal problems. Upon guards overhearing Borter and I discussing his situation--they had a nurse, T. Phipps (the wife of chronically abusive guard R. Phipps) fabricate reports that my condition had improved and disappear body fluids which had been taken from me for testing (to cover up the fact that my condition had not changed). She thereupon had me discharged against the doctor's orders and returned to my prior segregation unit cell, all to get me away from Borter. One of the guards who "escorted" me from medical and back to the segregation unit was (c/o's)Cox, one of the two that had beaten Borter on October 9. Cox repeatedly attempted to question me as to what Borter and I had been discussing, and whether I was trying to help Borter sue him or get him fired.

Torture as Behavior Modifier

A practice that pervades ROSP is that of using meals and other entitlements as mechanisms to control and modify prisoners' attitudes and behavior toward staff. These treatments are a near-parallel to methods reportedly used as "brainwashing" techniques on US and UN prisoners-of-war during the Korean War (1950-53). Black prisoners are subjected to summary punishments when they do not show appropriate deference and submission to guards (e.g. are argumentative, are otherwise verbally disagreeable, do not "cooperate" with guards' whims, or are non-conversant with staff), when they do not engage guards in meaningless friendly conversations, or when they persist in speaking up on behalf of other prisoners' being abused.These summary punishments, which amount to physical and psychological torture, include frequent denials of meals, outside exercise, showers, breaking or trashing prisoners' property (especially television sets and personal photographs), frequent harassing cell searches during which property is ransacked and confiscated and "contraband" planted, housing prisoners under stress-inducing conditions (e.g. in cells next to prisoners with mental disorders or who are known chronic antagonizers that routinely bang, scream or argue incessantly with other prisoners, etc.) Conversely, those prisoners who do show the desired deference and submission, who engage in friendly rapport with guards, and informing on other prisoners, are rewarded with extra trays at mealtimes, extra hours of outside exercise, less stressing cell assignments, guards performing "favors" such as passing items between prisoners and "not seeing" or facilitating access to "contraband," etc.

Prisoners' mails are also used as a mechanism of behavior modification. The very same unit guards that impose abuses are the staff who collect and distribute our mails. Guards know that the mails are our principal lifeline to the outside, and thus regularly destroy and disappear prisoners' mail or give their incoming mail to other prisoners to create or exacerbate conflicts.

The denial of meals has been imposed for days on end and even weeks. The measures indicated above are used especially because it is virtually impossible for a prisoner to prove that such has been done to him, since guards will document that the prisoner is receiving his meals and mail or himself refusing meals, showers, exercise, etc. Furthermore, anything a white guard says against a nonwhite prisoner is always accepted as the irrefutable truth. And mail-tampering routinely extends to guards destroying prisoners' attempts to file complaints and grievances, so complaints only make it out of the unit if the unit guard "allows" them to.

The greater a prisoner's resistance to guards, the more severely the measures are applied. These methods effectively discourage most prisoners from being willing witnesses to the abuses of others, and moreover, even did they propose to be witnesses, the prison's complaint and grievance procedures strictly forbid any prisoner to make complaints or inquiries concerning or on behalf of another prisoner being designed to atomize prisoners and discourage us from voicing objection and concern about, or witnessing abuses or, others.

This method is furthermore calculated to minimize and eliminate records being made which corroborate and expose incidents of abuse by guards, and otherwise contradict their version of events, since all such records would be public records and valuable to an abused prisoner as evidence in litigation.

Every one of the prisoners whom I've listed above under the heading Physical Assaults as having been attacked by guards while restrained has himself suffered or witnessed other prisoners being denied meals, showers, outside exercise, and mail.

Suicide Attempts and Self-Mutilation

Predictably, the level of prisoners attempting suicide and mutilating themselves here at ROSP is extremely high, and occurs with a frequency which I've not seen before within my fourteen years of imprisonment. Such incidents occur multiple times per week. Guards themselves routinely instigate and encourage black prisoners to harm themselves, One very glaring example occurred on July 24, 2004, when sergeant D. Tate and other guards deliberately left torn strips of a sheet in a cell--C301--and then placed a black prisoner into the cell who was already supposedly on suicide watch because of a prior suicide threat or attempt (?!). This prisoner, later that same night, hanged himself and while hanging suffered a seizure and very nearly died. He had to be rushed to an outside hospital.

Guards that cut him down, including Sergeant T. McCoy, D. Lambert, and others, were overheard by neighboring prisoners slapping the unconscious prisoner and remarking, "We know you're faking; nothing's wrong with you!" In a ploy to cover up what the guards had done in leaving the cloth strips inside the cell, they claimed that somehow a neighboring prisoner gave him the cloth. This would have been impossible, since 1. the cells in that unit have been specially modified to prevent prisoners from passing items between cells, 2. there was a surveillance camera recording and monitoring and positioned directly in front of that cell, 3. the unit control booth, with guard and camera monitor inside, was also directly and continuously observing the cell, and 4. the prisoner in question was supposedly on a frequent monitoring status requiring the guard who was working the floor to observe the prisoner and sign a chart on his cell door every few minutes.

Nothing could have passed to his cell unobserved except if guards transported it, especially since he was on a total strip cell status, i.e., the cell was completely bare.

Prisoner Complaints, Disciplinary Actions, and Staff Misconduct

Investigations

Both in the ROSP complaint and grievance procedure, and in the prisoner disciplinary procedure, an open practice exists of race-biased bias, which takes the form of anything a white guard says in contradiction of a nonwhite prisoner being taken as the unrebuttable truth and the the prisoner's as an unrebuttable lie. Even a cursory review by anyone of ROSP's complaint, grievance and disciplinary records will confirm this hands down. This practice serves to condone and encourage guards' abuses, protecting them from any accountability for their wrongs. All prisoners' complaints and grievances complaining of staff abuses are deemed "unfounded" solely upon the involved guard's denial of any wrongdoing, no matter what other evidence exists proving the guard's culpability. Likewise, any charge of misconduct alleged by staff against the prisoner is presumed true no matter what evidence--including videotaped records--supports the prisoner's innocence.

In most instances, the guard's written report alone is the sole basis for finding the prisoner guilty at the "hearing" of the claimed infraction. Therefore, the frequent attacks by guards on prisoners are accompanied by bogus disciplinary records as cover to "justify" their abuse, and to make the prisoner appear the belligerent, since the guards know that the prisoner will almost never win at the disciplinary "hearing", and that the finding of guilt against the prisoner serves to corroborate and reinforce the guard's version of the story. Similarly, guards use fabricating disciplinary reports as another mechanism of behavior and attitude modification. This method has also proved an effective one, since prisoners know that a single disciplinary infraction will likely lead to additional months to years in ROSP's segregation. So long as he remains in segregation, a prisoner cannot obtain a transfer away from ROSP.

Investigations of abuses of prisoners within the VDoC and ROSP are sometimes referred to the VDoC's Internal Affairs office. ROSP has an onsite Internal Investigator who, consistent with the "white equals right" formula, works only to collect and construct evidence in such a way as to exonerate guards for their abuses. In fact, such nvestigators are themselves past prison guards who once worked side-by-side with guards at the same prison, and participated in the same sorts of abuses they presume to be "investigating." Although the majority of brutal attacks on prisoners are carried out inside the housing units in open presence of numerous witnessing prisoners, the "investigations" of such incidents never involve questioning such actual and potential witnesses as to what they saw or heard.

Furthermore, although each housing unit has a surveillance camera mounted at the front, that monitors and records activities inside them twenty-four hours a day, whenever attacks on prisoners occurs, the tapes usually "missed" the incident or were "recorded over". When prisoners request that such tapes be consulted as evidence in disciplinary hearings or in support of complaints of abuse, there is a blatant refusal to do so by officials. Investigations and inquiries by VDoC and ROSP officials are never

conducted with the intent to reach the truth or actual facts concerning an incident of staff abuse of prisoners, but only for the purpose of manipulating, distorting, avoiding, or creating facts which will support the guard's version or produce a version which absolves the guard of wrongdoing.

Guards Facilitating and Instigating Conflict

At ROSP the segregation housing units are operated so that guards remain within visual and/or hearing range of the prisoners. This by having guards remain inside each housing unit, and there being a two-way intercom inside each cell connected to the unit control booth. These measured allow guards to routinely listen in on prisoners' between-cell conversations. Consequently, guards remain aware of most prisoners' dispositions, those who have personal conflicts or those between whom conflicts may be easily instigated. Frequently, guards create conflicts between prisoners by playing off of criticisms they hear one prisoner make to or about another, creating false "snitch" labels against prisoners, or using actual informants and lackeys as instigators or to create or corroborate labels placed on others by the guards. Inducements which guards use to have prisoners carry out

their roles as instigators and character assassinators include extra trays, female guards, special favors, etc.

Once conflicts are generated between or against the targeted prisoners (typically these being prisoners the guards feel are not sufficiently submissive), the guards then facilitate the means for having one prisoner attack the other, typically by throwing containers containing mixtures of body waste and/or magic shave on the other. Guards arrange these acts by knowingly allowing one or both prisoners to take containers of such substances to the segregation exercise yard, and then placing them into exercise pens beside each other.

Ambulatory Restraints

The typical response of guards to any situation in which they claim a prisoner has been "disruptive" is to place him in ambulatory restraints for up to forty-eight hours. Ambulatory restraints (AR) consist of having a prisoner (with no clothing other than boxer shorts) handcuffed in front, placed in leg shackles, with a "black box" securing a heavy-link dog chain from the handcuffs to the shackles. The dog chain is usually applied so that the prisoner remains bent at the waist in a cramped position and unable to stand erect. Guards refer to this as the "slave treatment."

Any general movement by the prisoner while in AR causes the shackles to rub back and forth around the prisoner's bare ankles, quickly causing lacerations around the ankle. AR are standard procedure when guards use force on a segregations prisoner, particularly when he has been taken to the floor upon guards claims that he was "disruptive" and "combative". One telling exception was the attack that occurred on September 6, 2004, against Timothy Grimes, which resulted in his broken ribs, teeth, etc. The supervisory guard captain, K. Chris, declined to have Grimes placed in AR, because guards who attacked him reported that he was "calm". Grimes was simply placed back into his cell as though nothing had occurred and later taken to the medical department. So, if Grimes is admitted not to have been "disruptive" and "combative" or otherwise warranted AR, then this exposes completely the fact of his being brutally beaten, and without even the pretense of provocation or justification. The blatancy, severity, and lack of any real attempt to justify this attack reflect the extent to which guards perceive themselves to have free reign to brutalize Black prisoners

at ROSP. (i.e., the very same guards that beat Grimes continue to work around him every day.) Indeed, as stated at the beginning, the only reason that there have been lulls in brutality against ROSP prisoners has been because of the persistent actions of concerned people on the outside; however, after a minor shuffling of personnel and token reforms, after a settlement out of court of lawsuits, and a prevailing denial of any wrongs having been committed, the abuses ultimately resume as before; only now with officials being a little more sophisticated and consistent in covering up and carrying out abuses. Guards now target prisoners who are more readily painted in a derogatory light with the more extreme abuses, while when abuses of others are exposed publicly and protested, the abused prisoner is pacified with a transfer to a more moderate VDoC prison, and formal

pretenses at addressing the problem made. Yet those remaining at ROSP

are left to suffer when brutalities revive.

Prisoners placed in AR are generally denied meals throughout the time they remain restrained. Unit supervisors (lieutenants and/or sergeants) are to check the prisoner at least every few hours to see if he has ceased to be "disruptive", and thus eligible for release. The common practice is for the supervisors to not check the prisoner, but simply to continue documenting that he's still "disruptive", so to "justify" his remaining in AR for at least over twenty-four hours.

Tactical Uses of Known Abusive Guards

Guards with known and proven reputations for abuse are those frequently placed into positions to act out such abuses. The guards assigned to the "super segregation" (superseg) unit, see below, have been just such known abusers and given a general license to gratuitously attack and abuse prisoners assigned to that unit. As can be seen from the list of attacks listed above under the heading Physical Assaults, it is generally the same group of guards who've repeatedly attacked and beaten restrained prisoners, e.g. R. Boyd, R. Phipps, T. Austin, McConnell, McCowan, etc. Indeed, most of those attacks occurred inside the superseg unit, and all of the guards named as involved in the attacks listed under Physical Assaults are or were

at some time assigned to work superseg.

Furthermore, on the alternative shift, ROSP administrators keep a group of reserve guards on a floating duty--unassigned to a specific post--who also have an extensive reputation for abusing black prisoners, including S. Long, J. Ely, Stanley, and others. These guards are kept in such reserve positions so that they may be called on to perform cell extractions or otherwise respond to any situation where a prisoner is said to be acting "disruptive". This is the same group of guards who were called on to perform cell

extractions on six prisoners, including me, on October 5, 2003. These guards likewise have a general license to brutalize prisoners and work together to fabricate reports to make their attacks appear justified.

On October 5, 2003, this group of guards was assigned that weekend to work my assigned unit for the later revealed purpose of provoking a confrontation. Throughout the day, they were verbally provocative. This culminated in an incident stemming from their placing me and four other prisoners on the segregation exercise yard and then returning to bring us in after about forty minutes. Under policy, exercise periods are to last one hour. Several prisoners protested the attempt to shorten our entitled exercise period and indicated an intent to remain on the exercise yard until our full hour was completed. Words were passed, and upon each prisoner's being taken in, J. Ely, S. Long, and others proceeded to conduct retaliatory cell searches, ransacking and throwing belongings out of the cells as trash.

One prisoner, Elliot Hawthorne #261609, verbally protested S. Long's throwing a book of his out of the cell as trash. Long, Ely, and other guards, responded by rushing him to the floor while fully manacled inside the cell and beating him.

Consequently, several prisoners were accused of throwing items at the guards, who ended in cell-extracting six of us, myself included. I was charged with encouraging and participating in a group demonstration. Each cell-extracted prisoner was beaten after being restrained and put in AR. One prisoner, Anthony Smalls #281754, suffered a laceration to his eyebrow from being punched with handcuffs used as brass knuckles. He had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. All others suffered serious injuries also. After I was restrained, I was choked unconscious, had handfuls of my hair ripped out, and suffered a concussion.

Later that same night while in AR, I was attacked again by guards who entered my cell and ripped out more hair. They then went next door and proceeded to choke and punch Hawthorne. The principal attacker, lieutenant R. Fowler, wanting to instigate a cell extraction against another prisoner he dislikes, set up Lamont Douglas #209709, and had a cell extraction performed on him, during which Douglas was also choked unconscious and awoke with a deep lacerations above his eye and a dislocated thumb. Medical staff disregarded his injuries. The next day all the other prisoners who had been cell extracted were each moved to other units.

Several weeks later, on October 28, 2003, I was accused of fashioning a three-foot-long spear and stabbing a guard through the cell door hatch who'd participated in the October 5 attacks on myself and the others. I was then taken to the medical department under the pretext of being x-rayed to search body cavities for possible weapons. While in medical T. Austin, S. Long, J. Ely, and several other guards carried out a limited attempted retaliatory attack against me on videotape, while I was restrained in shackles claiming falsely that I was "resisting" them, which I obviously was not until they began first attacking me while in riot armor. They then had nurses corroborate their feigned injuries and fabricated several assault charges against me. Any review of the videotaping of this incident will expose the methods of guards' pretending that a prisoner has become combative so to justify violently attacking him and their theatrically feigning injuries.

This retaliatory attack on me took place under direct supervision of ROSP security chief Richard Fleming and numerous other ranking officials.

Super Segregation

The prevailing attitude amongst ROSP's staff is that they are entitled to beat and abuse prisoners with impunity and remain free from any accountability, whether by prisoners' acts of self-defense, counter-violence, or pressing complaints. I've already described above how, as a rule, they are exonerated from any accountability via the complaint, grievance, and "investigative" processes, thus leaving prisoners with no deterrent force or protection against guards' abuses except to resort to our own physical resistance or relenting to guard tyranny and working hand-in-hand with abusers to support their abusing others, the latter being no security against the capricious acts of a guard who simply dislikes the prisoner.

As a calculated method for weeding out and working ultimately to break all ROSP prisoners who were deemed to have any inclinations to persist in speaking up against abuses, or the resolve to physically resist abuses, the ROSP administration modified a unit in one building (the C400 unit), assigned guards to work that unit who have distinguished themselves as inclined to physically brutalize black prisoners, and appointed lieutenant R. Fowler as the unit's supervisor because of his distinction throughout ROSP's operation as a supervisor willing to orchestrate, cover up, and himself inflict abuses on black prisoners.

This modified unit began operating on December 3, 2003, and I and nine other hand-picked prisoners were assigned to it. This unit has developed the designation of "superseg". All ten prisoners assigned to this twenty-two cell unit except one were black. The lone white prisoner, George Slaughter #255923, was placed into superseg because of a prevailing dislike of him by ROSP staff, stemming from, among other things, his refusal to play into guards' attempts to turn him against black prisoners. He was also previously beaten by ROSP guards in revenge for his "attitude" and an alleged escape attempt. Guards broke both his wrists and injured his testicles. A prevalent practice of ROSP guards is to induce white prisoners, by appeals to racial loyalties and promoting white-supremacist ideologies, to not associate with black prisoners. Because Slaughter rejects these appeals, he is

routinely referred to be ROSP guards as a "nigger-lover". Consequently, and prior to being placed in superseg, Slaughter has been subjected to extreme retaliatory conditions including: being subjected to cell searches two to three times a day every day for over a year; placed on a cold food diet (not approved by the VDoC) for just as long, called a "finger food diet"; having all of his belongings, including television and radio, broken by guards; having "contraband" items planted in his property; being beaten as already mentioned; being housed indefinitely inside punitive isolations cells; etc.

ROSP administrative staff refuse to acknowledge in writing that this modified unit exists or to explain its purpose. As already stated, the majority of the above-listed attacks on restrained prisoners occurred in superseg. In superseg prisoners are stripped of various privileges which other prisoners in other "regular" segregation units enjoy, including the ability to have jobs, etc. The cells and cell doors in superseg have been completely modified and specially reinforced, as have the shower units.

Meals are served in an unusually filthy metal box, which is attached to the cell door when the hatches on the door are unlocked. This unit is basically designed and operated with the intent of making it impossible for prisoners to physically retaliate against guards, while giving the guards license to physically abuse all those housed in the unit with impunity.

When ultimately ROSP officials could not produce a hitlist of enough prisoners to assign to superseg, they opted to bring in prisoners beginning on April 26, 2004, whom they'd selectively stigmatized as prone to habitually masturbate in presence of female staff, an activity that female staff both encourage and indulge but only selectively report prisoners who aren't sufficiently deferent to guards, or many times falsify such reports against prisoners for the same reason. It is generally only black prisoners who are the targets of such reports. Yet officials still will not acknowledge the existence or purpose of this unit. Another unit was constructed upon the same model as superseg (the C300 unit), and, in an effort to keep me from assisting other prisoners in articulating complaints to the outside and from witnessing brutal attacks on them, I've been, since February 2004, bounced back and forth between these two separate units every few weeks, attacks on restrained prisoners usually occurring while I've been housed in the alternative C300 unit. From the October 5, 2003, incident up until recently, I was required to go to outside exercise and showers completely separated and isolated from all other prisoners.

ROSP Warden Daniel Braxton

Daniel Braxton is the first and only black administrative-level official at ROSP. Generally, ROSP has never had more than ten black employees total, many of whom have quit or transferred to other prisons because of racial harassment at ROSP. Braxton was placed at ROSP as a token black warden three years ago in the wake of numerous investigations and scathing reports by human rights organizations (See, e.g. Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Violations in the United States, Red Onion State Prison: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Virginia (April 1999)), and multitudes of lawsuits and complaints by prisoner advocates about the pervasive racism, brutality, and abusive conditions within the Wise County, Virginia, prisons (ROSP in particular). Braxton's role at ROSP has been solely as window-dressing; he has served in no way to address or correct the racist attitudes at

ROSP, but indeed avoids prisoners' complaints and furthermore condones such.

Braxton does not involve himself in any way with the internal operations of ROSP, but gives oversight to the very same white administrative and supervisory officials under whom ROSP first developed and maintained a nationwide reputation for racist brutality and abuse of prisoners, viz, assistant warden Jerry Armentrout, treatment supervisor Yvonne Elswick-Taylor, security chief Richard Fleming, and others. All prisoners' complaints directed to Braxton for response are either answered by his secretary or referred to other officials. Braxton makes no rounds inside the housing units--leaving this to Armentrout and Fleming. He generally goes out of his way to avoid knowledge of or involvement in addressing the internal abuses within ROSP. In effect, Braxton is a paper warden.

The only times Braxton has addressed prisoners directly about their complaints has been in response to a fed-up prisoner's persisting in counter-violent acts against abusive guards or in response to a prisoner's loved ones unrelentingly hounding his office with phone calls with complaints of the prisoner's being abused. These sessions Braxton conducts with the odd prisoner are by guards bringing the prisoner out of the unit and into an office where Braxton either subjects him to threats of having guards attack him or empty promises to look into the situation. Braxton's response to prisoners' loved ones is to play on their sympathy such as by claiming that he is a sick man with diabetes who is seldom at the prison, or to pretend that he is concerned because he's black himself, like the majority of ROSP's prisoners and their concerned loved ones. Essentially, his response is to use his position to either intimidate, retaliate, or play petty con.

It usually takes a multitude of phone calls to the prison for prisoners' loved ones to ever get to speak to Braxton, since his white secretary continuously shields him from calls by telling callers he's unavailable or not at the prison, and either takes a message that won't be returned, or the caller is referred to one of the white officials who's party to the ongoing abuses at the prison.

When an ROSP prisoner directs his complaints about ROSP's conditions to a higher-level government official, e.g. the state governor, the complaint is simply routed to Braxton for response, and he merely has a lesser-level white official conduct one of the pretentious "investigations" as described above, and evade and distort the issues in reply, to which Braxton merely signs his name.

Braxton is nothing more that a loyal black running dog and lackey of the institutionalized racism and abuse that pervades ROSP. The fact of his totally symbolic appointment as black warden was not intended and has not served to address or resolve such conditions. This token position has functioned as similar appointments of "dark faces in high places" here in the US have, viz, not to enforce or protect blacks' civil and human rights, as was stated in National Security Council memorandum #46 and the NSC's study response to that memorandum promulgated in 1978 (The NSC is the US domestic, military, and foreign policy making agency, whose members consist of the US president, vice president, and secretaries of state and defense.) In fact, that memorandum and study stated explicitly that such tactical schemes as appointing a few blacks to visibly prominent political

positions in future were to be implemented for the very purpose of destroying domestic struggles of blacks for human and civil rights, equality, and any possibility of "an independent black political party...." Specifically that policy proposed supporting and implementing measures "to elaborate and bring into effect a special program designed to perpetuate division in the black movement", "to support actions designed to sharpen social stratification in the black community which would lead to the widening and perpetuation of the gap between successful educated blacks and the poor, giving rise to

growing antagonism between different black groups and a weakening of the movement as a whole", to "take every possible means...to counteract the increasing influence of black labor organizations...including the creations of...adverse and hostile reaction among white trade unionists to demands for improvement of social and economic welfare of the blacks" (Apartheid in South Africa began with just such a scheme of white unions protesting against blacks seeking economic advancement by competing with whites for limited jobs in South African mines. Similarly, blacks here in Amerika have never been able to compete with whites for scarce jobs, leaving the vast majority of blacks economically insecure and with little option for subsistence except to resort to "crime") and--pertinent here--"to support the nomination at federal and local levels of loyal black public figures to selective positions, to government agencies and the court." Among the stated purpose of these diabolical anti-black tactics is that "it would be easier to control the activities of loyal black representatives within existing institutions." (Braxton is a self-concerned, high-level, loyal political appointee, is fully controlled, and, like the running dog he is, is well-trained to stay in his place and not upset or confront a prevailing white-supremacist status quo.) Again, this is not the same reactionary plot of a marginal whit-supremacist group railing against civil and human rights for blacks; this is declassified, official US government policy which has been implemented nationwide since the beginning of the 1980's, the very time that the federal and local governments began their offensives against minority communities under the pretext of a "war on crime", which led to the quadrupling of the overall US prison population in less than two decades and a "war" that has converted Virginia's 20% black social population into some 70% of its prison population. The US federal and local government have

never been a friend of the black movements for human or civil rights, or for political and economic independence. It has only refined and disguised the methods of destroying and neutralizing such movements, using the white population and political appointments to accomplish such ends. If, as these government policies expose, the objective of government has been to undermine and destroy blacks' access to functional (and not merely formal) control of political and economic power, then it becomes apparent that the US government at all levels serves today--as it has throughout history--to maintain blacks in an inferior and subjugated position, and to pressure the status quo of whites reigning supreme. Viewed in this light, the conditions within ROSP and Braxton's purely symbolic role are functioning as intended by those who own and control the economic and military power in the state and nation, with the humanitarian and noble-sounding rhetoric serving to confuse and divert the attention of the victims from the reality of their conditions, and from the fact that those conditions exist by design.

Conclusion

ROSP and WRSP were constructed and now operate with no rehabilitative purposes whatsoever. As past VDoC director Ronald J. Angelone expressed

as to the people to be confined to these prisons: "What are they going to be rehabilitated for? To die gracefully in prison?" (Margaret Edds,

Punishing Crime; Supermaxes Deserve Super-Security, The Virginian-Pilot, January 10, 1999.) These comments came as part of an ongoing and overtly false representation to the Virginian public, to support the construction and operations of these two expensive prisons (which contributed to driving the state into recession), that the prisoners to be housed within these two 1200-bed prisons were proven predatory and frequently violent people who'd never be released back to society. This lie was exposed by Human Rights Watch, (Human Rights Watch, Red Onion State Prison; Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Virginia) which demonstrated that the vast majority of prisoners assigned to these prisons were soon to be released back to society and very few met the VDoC's own criteria for supermax housing, (Because the VDoC has been repeatedly exposed as never being able to justify the need for

or existence of any supermax prisons, nor being able to fill these prisons, it has ended in changing the designation of ROSP and WRSP from that of super-maximum security prisons to maximum security prisons, and cut the number of prisoners housed at ROSP by half. And a large portion of these remaining prisoners being minimum security prisoners who are used to perform custodial, maintenance, and other work--they're actually just bed-fillers.)

and that the VDoC never had enough chronically disruptive prisoners to fill even a fraction of one, let alone two, 1200-bed supermax prisons. It should be noted that as described under the Supersegregation heading above, ROSP officials could not even produce enough prisoners whom they could characterize as chronic belligerents to fill a single 22-bed superseg unit, but had to use so-called chronic masturbators to fill over half those beds.

(Ironically, ROSP officials now deem it an extreme security problem that some prisoners do voluntarily what they were once compelled to do under force of being shot and electrocuted with 50,000-volt tasers and cell-extracted, vis, exposing themselves naked to guards of the

opposite sex. One prisoner, Rico F. Halliday #135555, won a federal lawsuit against ROSP officials for just such an attack on him, when he resisted to the common procedure of officials then compelling ROSP prisoners to submit naked to searches in front of female guards, during which the prisoner must manipulate his genitals. Indeed, it took yet another prisoner's lawsuit to motivate ROSP officials to put curtains up in front of the showers in the ROSP general population units, because female staff working the units and control booths have direct and unobstructed views into the showers.

Furthermore, there are still to this day no curtains blocking view of such female guards into showers located in the ROSP segregation units. One could logically say that ROSP officials created the very conduct that they now condemn, i.e. exhibitionism.)

As reflected at page fourteen of the Human Rights Watch report (See, e.g. Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Violations in the United States, Red Onion State Prison: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Virginia (April 1999)) in statements of James Austin, professor, in the Institute on Crime, Justice, and Corrections at George Washington University, "Virginia does not have a prison population with high levels of assaultive behavior."

The confinement of an 80% and higher black prisoner population to a prison staffed by an over 90% white socially segregated staff body, which has no sensitivity to nor experience with black urban culture beyond media stereotypes, would predictably produce and perpetuate conditions wherein the black prisoners would be continually abused and staff attitudes toward them would be hostile, insensitive, and alienated. "Racial and ethnic balance is critical in the minimization of anger, creation of perceptions of fairness, providing equity in interpersonal dialogue with underrepresented (in this case overrepresented) inmate groups in the population, and maintaining cultural sensitivity." (National Institute of Corrections, Supermax

Prisons: Overview and General Considerations Washington, DC, US Dept. of Justice, Aprill 1999, p. 17)

Official public accounts of conditions surrounding the construction, operations, and internal conditions of and within Wise County prisons

have been persistently proven to be lies. The racism, the brutality, the general abuses of prisoners inside them have never changed, except only to increase the sophistication of methods used by officials to carry out, mask, and justify such abuses. These factors only increase the impunity with which such abuses are carried out and the insecurity and senses of desperation experienced by the black prisoners on the receiving end of such abuses.

All expert studies agree that prisons do not stop crime; do not reduce recidivist rates, and do not "rehabilitate". Indeed, they create dysfunctional tendencies which spill over into society, e.g. the exhibitionist behaviors created by and within these prisons that have or will become habits in the practitioners, the race-based animosities that are being created and harbored by ROSP's black prisoners, etc. Perhaps officials desire to provoke violent reactions from those who are suffering their abuses, to serve as yet another deceitful "justification" for these prisons' existences and harsh conditions. But I see something building down the road, a situation and reaction that may be much larger and sobering than acts of isolated violence committed on the inside. Amerikan political and economic leaders have never been people of great foresight, only myopic and reactionary. It is my entreaty to the reader to move--if it is in their means to do so--to address the problems raised in this exposé, because if these problems are not realistically addressed in the short-term, the long-term may bring consequences that cannot be easily or readily contained, and will likely affect a much larger sector of society than a few expendable prison guards. The established avenues of official redress have proven ineffectual for us and empty of all meaning and content...as they are devised to be.

Kevin "Rashid" Johnson #185492

Red Onion State Prison

PO Box 1900

Pound, VA 24279