In your letter you asked me to breakdown my move. First off, the administration at Lompoc had been doing its best to agitate its SHU/hole [solitary confinement] prisoners over the past 12 to 18 months via: mail tampering, assaults, destruction of personal property, serving cold food, misplacing our canteen slips, not providing razors with the mandated thrice weekly showers, etc. Even though the aforementioned are usual prison protocol, Lompoc's overt acts stem from a couple of reasons.
Last January (2003), a number of prisoners (myself included) stood up on the staff as they intended to assault a prisoner. Our intervention negated this move which put all of us under pig radar as "militants." Although we went to SHU, the overall masses (multi-cultural) support forced the administration to release us back into general population in a month. At that time, the Capt. Roy (of Beaumont fame) and the A.W. Karem told us (3) that we were too influential and they didn't like us because of this.
In March, an Afrikan prisoner was stabbed by two neo-nazi prisoners. During the subsequent lockdown, approximately 10 of us prisoners were placed in SHU under some type of investigation! The Capt. says we "would've" maybe incited others to retaliate upon said nazis. All but 3 were released back to general population, the same 3 who stood firm on the kitchen stand-off. (That was just some background for you.)
After both the Southern Mexican gang and the nazi gang members (in 2 separate incidents) attacked kops the SHU became hell! We'd been slowly building up mass support to resist this treatment through food strikes, rec. lay downs, refusals to comply with their mandatory 21 day cell rotation moves. On December 5, my tier refused to move and they cell extracted us! At approximately 3 AM, a Lt. came and told me that I was being moved out of the facility! When I asked why, he replied, "You are doing too much agitating and organizing and you are a real threat to the safety of staff."
As of today I'm being told that I'm a hold-over awaiting re-designation to a SHU facility. As in A.D.X. Florence or Marion. They have the choice of accepting or rejecting the recommendation. Either way, I still stand firm in the spirit of resistance, USW.
--California Prisoner, January 2004