I'm writing you in hopes that you can inform to the public the latest acts of injustice, discrimination, and mistreatment the U.$ commits on prisoners in their soil.
It started June 24 while we were on lockdown for another (I assume) unrelated incident. Pelican Bay officials asked several inmates to pack their property because they were going to be moved to another building in the facility. According to their reports, some inmates refused to move so they, the officers, in order to carry out their inmate housing restructuring, attacked the inmates with their Chemical Oleoresin Capsicum (also called OC or Pepper Spray). This clearly shows the bottom line measures they take when a prisoner shows any signs of "disturbance" as they called it.
Other inmates asked what that was about and why the extreme measures for a simple cell move. Well this was also too much for them and this, according to them, "disrupted their institutional count." The report says "Inmates began barricading and covering their cells, this disturbance required the use of immediate force."
To make it short they began spraying their chemicals at those cells they claim began to barricade. According to their report, 160 inmates were involved in the "disturbance." So they sprayed 160 prisoner with their chemicals in an attempt to "facilitate the institutional count." However, after spraying myself and others, the officers began yelling "cuff up" meaning to come to the cell door to be handcuffed. This was an absurd request since once that chemical OC spray hits you, you are blinded and your skin is burning while you are trying to breath in the chemical filled air that chokes you.
If these aren't obvious signs of torture I just don't know what else to call it. Because, as they yell "cuff up" in between they spray you with their chemical OC. You're being tortured into submission while you're trying to instinctively protect your well being. It is nearly impossible to open your eyes, breath, and at the same time follow instructions.
Well after these attacks, the officers escorted the prisoners in my housing block to the building concrete yard (a walled off patio yard) outside the building. There, some 50 inmates were left handcuffed behind their backs and only wearing boxers and socks. That's just to give you and idea of the scene but the torture behind it was worse. The handcuffs were on tight, so tight that it cut the flow of blood to your hands. They got swollen and purple. And not to mention the burning pinching pain that this position caused on your shoulders. It was almost night time and it was getting cold outside and the only heat (or burn) was that of the chemical OC spray still on our bodies that officials had tried to wash away by putting us in the shower to wash off (cuffed and no soap) for a few minutes, knowing this does not help. They call this decontamination (ironically admitting the chemical contamination.)
In the cold, muscles and skin burning, and not a word from officials, we stood in this concrete yard from 5pm to 10am the next day. One officer even mockingly commented from the tower "it's gonna get colder once the sun comes up."
The next day we were escorted to our same cells that were by now emptied of everything. Nothing in there but the inmate in the same position as in the concrete yard.
We got no mat to sleep on, no change of the chemical filled underclothes, no cleaning supplies to clean some of the chemical still on the cell walls and floor. We got only a half issue of the basics: one bar of soap and a limited amount of toilet paper. For 5 days we slept on solid steel bunks with still no change. They then began a slow process of what I call the psychological torture. Little by little things were given to us. First a sleeping mat, then a full roll of toilet paper, a toothbrush and toothpowder. But that's as far as their act of psychological torture went.
They began moving the first of the 160 prisoners out to ad-seg (the hole) but just as this process of rehousing began, the official claim that some inmates refused to move and the chemical attack began all over again.
They say that prisoners began barricading again, an impossibility since I already mentioned the only things we had in the cell at the time. They sprayed the same prisoners who were targeted last time, again torturing us out of our cells. We were taken through the same procedure except this time we were escorted to what I usually term the inmate waiting area to see the medical technical assistant and instead of seeing this medical personnel we waited as the officers committed attacks on the rest of the targeted prisoners.
Within a few hours we were escorted barefoot, in boxers, and cuffed to ad-seg for housing, where again they went through the whole slow process of giving us the basics over a period of time. They say it's a "30 day security precaution as a preventative measure to discourage future incidents of the same nature." What?!
Many inmates are now facing long term lockups in SHU and ad-seg, perhaps even prosecution since they presented us with DA referrals. Their reports say "the disturbance was carried out in a sequential, structured, and organized manner, clearly demonstrating that these actions were planned." In translation, we asked for the torture.
I will make no assumptions but as I hear the change from CDC to CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) will cost millions and to many people in CDC this is a burden. I'm sure you are aware of the great political power of the CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association). Well it's worth mentioning the CCPOA chapter president R. Newton was present for the whole debacle.
The details of the report that consist of over 500 pages are far too many to explain. But its rhetoric would fool anyone into believing their explanations of why such actions by them were carried out (hmm, sound familiar?).
This is to let the public know that there will never be rehabilitation in a California prisons - it's a strategically designed system and a business. The adding of the R to CDC is an attempt by government to sugarcoat the futileness of their "Rehab" programs!
Of course the problem is much bigger than just this incident in this prison. It's 500 years old and it's expanded globally but the root is here in "the great U.$."
- a California prisoner at Pelican Bay, July 2006