Texas Prisons

The free, I see, living and existing, without me
They lock man away in a cage, while the birds fly free & away
In this kennel for days, awaiting my day to escape the chains
a long time coming, awaiting for change
deserted in a dry desert, awaiting the rain
to wash me away, back on my way, where the road is paved
This system can’t feel my pain
This system can’t understand my brain
My soul, my heart, nor my spirit, or mind for that matter

Yesterday, I was a sleeping victim
victimized by class segregation
Yesterday, I was comatose, to
those who inflicted economic degradation
These Imperialist weapon of mass Destruction
is capitalism smoked screened by spiritual materialism
The irony is that of a materialist in prison
Yesterday, I was unconscious, to the drugs
and guns that they sponsored
Yesterday, I was out cold, to the bold
manipulation, out-of-control of my own
Yesterday, I dreamed the Amerikkkan dream
thinking living free, was greed
Today I have awoken, Eyes wide open
Betita, Corky, Che, Zapata, and Poncho have spoken
The spell is broken

I just finished reading “Texas Pack”, updated January 2016. I found very helpful information and it’s good to know exactly what A.P. 06.08 says. I was charged a copayment last 10/9/17 but didn’t know about it until I received my trust fund statement November 9, 2017. Excuse that was the date that money was taken from my account and the statement I didn’t receive until December 2, 2017. I wrote the senior practice manager, Kevin Moore, explaining what happened. He answered saying he needed to know the date I was charged not the date it was taken from my account. I don’t have access to that information, so I filed an I-127. His reply was that according to A.D. 06.08, I had 90 days to appeal this issue and had run out of time. My grievance was dated December 30, 2017, and my letter was dated December 30, 2017. That was well within the 90-day limit. I filed a Step 2 and will be very surprised if it makes it to Huntsville. He has a habit of holding on to medical grievances. I filed 5 grievances from October 2017 to December 1, 2017 and never received an answer. I filed one after T.D.C.J. sent him to Beto 1 because of all the grievances I was filing at Powledge. The grievances I have filed have vanished until I wrote a Mr. Phillips in Huntsville about it. It quit happening but I think he will stop my Step 2.

Even the grievance coordinator is in on this. Before I knew what A.D. 06.08 said, I had claimed Mr. Moore has no authority to take money from my trust fund account because I came to prison January 16, 1975. That is before there was a copayment of any kind. I believe it violates Art 1 Sec 10 of the United States Constitution. As you know, Art 1 Sect 10 prohibits any state for passing or enforcing any legislation that will burden a man’s sentence once it is legalized.

The problem is I believe, this practice manager used to be a warden. I’m sure we can all agree someone who has been a warden doesn’t decide suddenly they want to be a practice manager unless T.D.C.J told him he could take that job or take a hike. He has a past, that’s for sure.

I’m now writing from segregation. They have really gone off the rails now. The L/L staff now disallow nonverbal communication as well as verbal communications. I found this out by allowing the prisoner seated next to me in the L/L to read my memorandum. He didn’t make it to page 2 before a staff member (same one who stole my legal documents out of my cell) came up and SNATCHED my memo out of his hands.

Knowing that this act was, once again, generated by the A.T.C. supervisor/law librarian I got up and asked her “under what rule do you have my legal document taken?” I was expelled from the L/L when, in response to her telling me to sit down, I asked the question a second time. According to the A.T.C. 040 and VIII we are allowed to pass legal material during a session in the L/L.

I packed my stuff up and signed out. Then I asked for my legal document—which, by the way, is exhibit “B” in my active TORT action where these two state employees are named defendants. She stared at the ceiling (15 feet from me) and ignored me. I stated “I want my damn document” and palmed the counter twice to get her attention. What I did was wake up the Medusa within her. I found out 3 hours later that in doing what I did I:

1. threatened to inflict harm on an officer (?)
   
2. disobeyed a direct order (?)
   
3. used vulgar language or gesture (??) (Damn)
   
4. Then the “troll” staff member fabricated that I said to her, “Woo, if we were in the free world” which too is sensationalized into “threatening to inflict harm on an officer”…HA! (Those words never passed my lips).
   

At the same time I was in neither within 15 feet of the “threatened” officer.

My ultimate disgrace is that no inmate interviewed gave a useful accounting or admitted that I did not say what the “troll” staff member claims I said. My brothers in incarceration left me high and dry giving zero support. Shame shame on every one of them. Institutionalized scared pussies. They just don’t realize that these folks only do to us that which we allow. We make these units TDCJ run.

What these defendants have done have elevated my state TORT action to a state 1983 civil rights violation suit. Due to their conspiratorial relative acts. I will prevail!!

In getting put into lock up these F…olks have…oops…misplaced 12 of my law books and my dictionary.

Please send a copy of the Texas Pack. I’ve been in prison since 2002 and h ave never written a grievance. The information you offer makes it a no brainer for all prisoners the opportunity to correctly address situations with supporting codes.

A writ writer let me borrow his copy so I could fight a disciplinary case that was never investigated. That’s a normal practice on this unit that needs to be corrected.

That resource is priceless and wanted to say thanks. This puts me on an even playing field to filing grievances with confidence. Won’t let situations slide by when I’m in the right. I’ve enclosed 3 stamps.

In January, I had open heart surgery. I now am in possession of a pig-part-heart. My aortic heart valve was removed and replaced with a porcine aortic valve. The surgery was to have been performed January 2, 2018, but was postponed as I had contracted methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a most virulent strain of staph.

The 24th day of December, 2017, I had scrubbed my cell floor on my hands and knees, something I had done thousands of times before. After having cleaned my cell, I noticed a small abrasion at my left knee on a scar from an old ACL surgery. Being ever mindful of infections, I wrapped the abrasion in a powered bleach poultice. The next day the abrasion had metastasized and my leg had begun to swell. I knew I had contracted staph.

December 25th, 26th and 27th, I submitted to the Estelle Unit Medical Dept. requests for medical treatment (RMT), citing MRSA for cause. These RMTs were ignored. Thursday, December 28, at 0500 hrs., when the cell doors were first opened for the day, I made a beeline for the infirmary. In route to the infirmary I attracted a gaggle of prison guards ordering me back to my cell or be subjected to physical assault. By the morning of the 28th, my leg had swelled to where my pant leg was stretched tight against my skin and the wound had drained pus and blood, not only through my trousers, but through my thermal underwear as well. The need for medical attention was readily apparent.

Standing outside the prison infirmary, I informed this gaggle of guards there were two options available to us. 1. I be allowed to access the infirmary; 2. They place me in isolation, but if it was to be option #2, I wasn’t going easily.

At this juncture a nurse intervened advising me to return to my cell and I would be summoned to the infirmary when a primary healthcare provider arrived. I responded I would go for the okey doke one time and did return to my cell. Several hours later I was returned to the infirmary and immediately placed on a vancomycin IV for MRSA.

December 29th, I was transported to the prison hospital in Galveston per the aforementioned open heart surgery. The only reason I boarded the transport bus was I was in the hope I would be hospitalized and treated for MRSA. No such luck. When it was determined surgery could not be performed, as I knew it couldn’t, I was treated like a leper. Swollen leg, pus and blood encrusted clothing, difficulty ambulating and all my pleas for medical attention were totally ignored. Twenty-four hours later I was returned to the Estelle Unit and immediately placed on an IV regimen of vancomycin, and extremely strong antibiotic. There was talk among the Estelle medical staff of saving my leg. Yeah, it was like that.

While on the vancomycin regimen I was informed by medical personnel it would be at least a couple of months before open heart surgery would even be considered as the porcine aortic valve I was to receive was extremely susceptible to infection and before the surgery could be performed it must be ascertained the MRSA had been absolutely eradicated. January 9, 2018, the plug was pulled on the vancomycin treatment. January 17, 2018, I had a porcine aortic heart valve implanted to my heart.

January, I was transported from the hospital in Galveston, to the hospital at the TDCJ Beto Unit in Tennessee Colony. Once arriving at Beto, it was determined my white corpuscle count was high, indicating I had an infection, further indicating my body was rejecting the porcine aortic valve, indicative the open heart surgery had been performed too soon after the MRSA treatment. I am currently on an IV regimen of Ancef, another very strong antibiotic.

Presently, it’s wait and see.

Aside from the dry run to the prison hospital December 29th, once the MRSA treatment was commenced, overall, I have few complaints concerning the instant medical care I have received. But there have been occasions of incompetence and ineptitude that a University of Texas Medical Branch, John Sealy Hospital, Galveston, TX medical worker confided to me would not be tolerated on the “free-world” side of the hospital.

So here I am, an 18” surgical scar, running slightly left to right between my pectoral muscles. It looks like Picasso put me back together. I have always relied on my physical strength to see me through adversity. In the future, I’m not so confident that will be the case. PTT’s statement “Our militancy tends to be inherently ableist,” keeps running through my mind. On top of everything else, January 2nd, while I was being infused with vancomycin, a dumbass pig gave my prison issue jacket to a prisoner being transported away from the Estelle Unit. That, in and of itself, is no biggie–except the jacket had my corrective lensed eye glasses in the pocket. TDCJ does not want to replace the glasses, though I am designated visually disabled.

A day in the life…

I work at the farm shop at Ellis Unit. I am indigent here and this trusty camp refuses to feed any more than it has to. I have lost 54 pounds in just a few short months. Everyone here refuses to stick as one. I even received a case for socks that a church gave me on Xmas. “Free world contraband.” Wow!

I work 7 days a week 7 to 4. The drama from other fellow prisoners is like a nightmare. I tried to transfer to a different camp because of all the drama. It’s calmed down some in the last two months but still the officers treat us bad.

Here is a story of my seemingly solo fight. So, that said, I can describe that these bastards are out to kill me and no, I am not nutzo. No. There are “things” I am still very savvy to, that would get me killed. I’ve yet to disclose. The Stoke lied about what and why I did what I did.

Decades later the “Stoke” or federal officials came up with “PREA” (Prison Rape Elimination Act). To check it out, I, along with another, cried out. Lt. XX chewed me out. He screamed how easily he could place me in a certain sector of the Stiles Unit. What is this “certain sector”? A section where men can’t stop raping and masturbating, (killing as it is called), would be where they or he would place me. Therefore, “PREA” turns a person into shark bait and tossed into a shark tank. I may have misunderstood what “elimination” meant.

Well I wrote to several state and federal officials of the above event. Plus, I let them know how PREA is now a major joke that is shouted among both the officers (C.O.s ; S.O.s) and inmates alike. Suddenly, something strange began to happen. A letter was torn in half. It had the inside-flap-stamp to WARN the recipient that the letter had come from inside a prison camp, from a prisoner. This, alone, proves I was not the last person to touch this letter. If the one-half side was returned to me by the U.S. Postal System, the other went on to whom I had written.

Also, persons, organizations I’ve written to for years, if not decades, had the RTS (return to sender) tag upon them. On several occasions, I received an RTS, with a letter or package, from the people of the RTS-simultaneously.

Several bible study or other studies I do ask “Do you enjoy our studies; why have you stopped sending your correspondence studies?” I did NOT!

I was called to the mail room. At least 6 to maybe 10 times, my legal mail has been an error. This notice comes on a Friday night. So, I wonder what my legal response (to get out) will be; only to hear “there is no legal mail; sorry.” Then, once more, to the mail room. “I’m sorry, this letter is uninspectable.” How? Why? It was open. It was in the mail-lady’s hands. The letter was from a known girl friend that I have written for the past 8 years.

“I’m sorry this comes from Huntsville”. That is the main office admin. This is a 3 1/2 hour drive away. How did they see or determine a letter- the day before- become uninspectable. It was not a package. The letter was a letter of 2 pages.

“Let me see it.” The mail lady let me see front and back of each page. There was no shit, taped on poison, explosives, zero. It had: “I love you Pearl.” Uninspectable from Huntsville! “Ma’am, how long do I have to send this 2-page horrific, uninspectable, whatever it is, back to whoever sent it to me?” “Sixty days.”

So, that night I wrote a letter. “I will explain about this Dumb Ass Letter when you visit Saturday.” I placed 2 stamps on the envelope, I sent to the mail room, this envelope with a I-60 (an official document to an official to do something) to mail back this letter. At 5:05 a.m., an inmate awoke me and handed me something. It came from the other side (B-side) of this unit. “This inmate knows you. He got this letter by mistake.” I will give every reader 10 guesses what letter this was.

Then, on one night I received about 12 letters. Five were from the same person, over a 2 1/2 week’s amount of time. Every one was well over 3 weeks late. A turtle with a broke leg could have gotten one of the letters to me in a day.

I have all of what I’ve stated documented. I have that uninspectable and both sides of the torn-in-half letter and also the letters of “why don’t you write more?” letters.

24 OCTOBER 2016 – I have received y’all’s latest newsletter. I love reading the ULK newsletters. Always very informational. Which has helped me a lot!

Here at the McConnell Unit in Belville, Texas, it is very, very, hard to get prisoners involved in such issues as 1) Campaign to resist restrictions on indigent correspondence; 2) Petition the Federal Trade Commission: TDCJ’s monopoly on stationary; 3) We demand our grievances are addressed in Texas, etc, etc.

I’ve shared the Texas Pack with several prisoners and some just say that they are not interested. As long as they let prisoners here watch TV, go to the commissary, use the phone, play dominoes, chess, and scrabble, people don’t care. It’s all they care about, which in reality is very sad. Because these are issues that affect us all as a whole group. And in some cases violate our civil and constitutional rights.

The Texas Pack has given me very helpful information for not only my own benefit but to help other prisoners who ask for help, and especially those that are monolingual and don’t know how to file a grievance, etc. The information that y’all supply me has not only helped me but for me to help others, which I do almost on a daily basis. Thank y’all very much!

MIM(Prisons) responds: This author is using the Texas Pack exactly as it’s intended – not to be hoarded as a persynal reference, but to be shared with others so we can all benefit. Ey also brings up an all-too-frequent complaint about prisoners in Texas: that they are checked out and unwilling to stand up for their rights or the rights of others. What is the difference between this writer, and the people ey is saying only care about board games and TV? Obviously there are activists in TDCJ facilities. How are they made?

Even people who seem to only care about board games and TV, we know they’re not just lazy or don’t care. It is likely a defense mechanism they’ve developed over time. If i only care about TV, i can have some happiness even though i’m in prison. If i only care about TV, i can for the most part avoid attention from prison staff. If i only care about TV, i can access something i want; i can escape from my reality for a short time; etc.

It’s unlikely, though, that these folks only care about TV, even though that’s what they’re projecting. Presenting the grievance petition to them, while it’s a righteous campaign, often just makes people defensive. They’re defensive because they need to protect this narrative that they’ve created about their “values,” often times in order to just get through the day, and cope with their harsh reality.

Certainly with some people we can present a valid campaign, they’ll recognize it as a valid campaign, and they’ll come on board. But people who are defensive or prone to stagnation need a different approach.

A good place to start in trying to organize these folks is to figure out what they do care about, besides TV. They may not want to talk about it, it may be sad and upsetting to care about things you can’t have (such as affection with your children while you’re in prison, for example). But we can still try to help them figure it out. Help them develop their identity around their own value system, rather than the value system put upon them by bourgeois society and imprisonment.

How do they want to be seen by the world, their family, their peers? What do they want to stand for? What have they done in the past that they felt good about, that represents how they see themselves? When we know answers to these questions, we can help show how their values actually relate to the campaigns outlined in the Texas Pack and the pages of ULK.

Issue 63 of ULK is going to be focused on this topic of tactical organizing approaches, and the nitty gritty of building the United Front for Peace in Prisons. We want our subscribers to send in methodology and tools which have helped them in their organizing efforts. Even if it doesn’t have a formal name, can you spell out your approach for dealing with ambivalence, or ignorance, or even a disorganized study group meeting? We want to hear about it and share it with others!

1. Lack of opportunities to go to outside recreation.
2. Cold food being served every meal at the Ad-Seg/High Security Unit.

There are a lot of similar problems here at Eastham Ad-Seg and some of the common denominators which allow these problems to continue are:

1. Serious Shortages of Staff all over TDCJ
2. Lack of funds to make repairs on anything
3. Deliberate Indifference and Abuse by uncaring Staff at Allred!

One issue that I’d like to bring to your attention is that prisoners who are housed in Ad-Seg (all over Ad-Seg, but especially at the Allred Unit) are more vulnerable to abuse by TDCJ prison employees because they are more isolated from the general public, the media and their FAMILIES!! Hunger Striking is the last ditch effort to have their grievances heard. This is a cry for HELP! We cannot ignore them.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The Texas grievance process is abysmal, and in most (if not all) facilities, the instructions on how to use the grievance process are not even made available to prisoners. We saw no other choice but to compile this material and distribute it ourselves. So when this correspondent says “hunger striking is the last ditch effort,” we can attest to the lack of progress using official channels. Eventually it gets to a point where humyns can’t take the abuse and neglect anymore, and the prison admin is only frustrating their attempts to go the “proper” route. Hunger striking is one of the only forms of protest left. We are trying to work toward a society where people don’t need to starve themselves to be allowed outdoors, and asserting ourselves, such as in this hunger strike, is one step toward that new society.