Retaliation at Pelican Bay

I'm writing to tell you of the recent retaliation I received from the officer's in the Pelican Bay SHU.

About two months ago the cops searched the unit I am in and when they got done searching, they took my TV. The officer that searched my cell said that I had all three TV seals on my TV broken. There are a couple of things that are wrong here.

First of all, I have a clear TV with no speaker, so there is no reason for me to go into my TV. Second, just two weeks before my TV was taken, the floor officer in my unit had searched my cell and found nothing wrong with my TV seal.

Well this is what I believe the reason was for them to take my TV. The day before I got a letter from a lawyer asking me some questions about an inmate that got the shit beaten out of him in a different unit I was in about two years ago. I don't know really, the real reason for them beating him to a bloody mess. I wrote back to him, telling him that I don't know much but I'll be willing to help him.

Well I guess the cops love it when another inmates gives up info on an inmate, but when it's about them (no matter how little the info) they don't like it.

When the officer took my TV I asked the officer on the floor what's going on. "He looked into it and said that somebody took their fingernail and cut the seals, it just happened to be a female officer who took my TV.

I had to wait 25 days to go to a 115 hearing "to plead my case." I told the officer at the hearing that I believe the cop must have broken my seals while searching my cell because I didn't break them. He said he looked at the TV and the seals were broken, he also looked inside my TV and found nothing wrong, so he kept asking me why I wanted to go inside my TV. I told the cop, man I didn't break my seals. I've had my TV for five years, I have to be a fool to mess with my TV while I'm in the SHU. He found me guilty for damaging state property because the seals belong to the state, and took 90 days of canteen.

The funny part is after he put in all the paper work for finding me guilty he told me "I don't believe a word you said to me, I think you're lying to me, I believe you wanted to get into your TV and now you wanted to put it all on the officer."

All this trouble because I received a letter from a lawyer and wrote back to him. What's even crazier is that the lawyer never came to see me or wrote back to me. We'll see if these cops try to pull a fast one on me again for writing this letter. There is only one good thing that came of all this whole mess. I started to read more. I won't be a part of these mind games these cops try to play on us inmates. There is nothing more for me to say except that I will continue to keep up the struggle.

- A prisoner at Pelican Bay, California, September 2005