From: SolitaryWatch, Oct. 24th, 2012
By Sal Rodriguez
Utah State Prison’s Uinta 1 facility serves as the prison’s super-maximum security unit, where inmates are held in solitary confinement. Inmates in Uinta 1 may be there for disciplinary infractions, notoriety reasons, protective custody, or because they are security/escape risks. The unit is divided into eight sections with twelve inmates in each section, for a total of 96 maximum inmates. Currently, there are 90 inmates in Uinta 1. The Utah Department of Corrections, in response to a government records request by Solitary Watch, claims it has no records regarding its use of segregation.
Several inmates have recently written Solitary Watch about the conditions in Uinta 1.
L., who has been in Uinta 1 for five months and previously served 28 months there, reports that he is only able to leave his cell three days a week, for a shower and 1 hour alone in a concrete yard. He reports that, in being transported to a 15 minute shower, “we have to wear a spit mask over our faces and handcuffed from behind with a dog leash hooked to us.”
“The rest of the time except on the shower days we are locked down in our cells with the door window closed so you can’t see out,” he writes.
A., who has been in Uinta 1 for a year, adds that, “just the other day, the [Correctional Officers] came and shook our cells down and took away all of our hygiene. They took away shampoo, lotion, conditioner, everything…they also don’t give us anything to clean our cells with.”
A. is in Uinta 1 for his own protection, following what he says was a decision to leave gang life after much “self-study.” Despite this, he says, he is treated as if he committed a serious offense.
Inmate Brandon Green, who has frequently written on the conditions of Uinta 1, describes the environment in Uinta 1 as reinforcing a vicious cycle in which inmates placed in solitary usually end up back not long after they are released. Green, who has been in Uinta 1 for five years, previously served 18 months in Uinta 1 before a brief period on parole before returning to Utah State Prison. He has been held in Uinta 1 following an escape attempt and refusal to take psychiatric drugs, which he says will only harm his health.
“So alone. So much internal turbulence with nothing like T.V., radio, magazines or conversation to hide [this pain] beneath,” he writes, “a man leaves this place to go to general population or to a less secure facility where you have electronics and a cellie. You can just count down the months before he will return…We learn we can do without anything. And we become content with nothing. The more they take away from us year after year, the more family disappears, the more one doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want a wife and a job and bills and an Amerikkan future…It is like waiting for the world to give us a reason to live. But the world just keeps giving us reasons to not give a shit.”
This situation leads many inmates to report severe mental health problems that are aggravated by the long-term isolation. The prison routinely responds to such crises by placing suicidal inmates in a strip cell, where they are to be alone in a cell with and checked every fifteen minutes. Included in many of these cells are cameras.
L. writes that “if someone is gonna kill themselves they take them and out to a strip cell and you sleep on the hard floor and treated like a dog.”
A. reports that “if I lose control because of something I have no control over, they’ll punish me and put me on strip cell for three days…when a mentally ill inmate feels suicidal, they send us to the infirmary to be on suicide watch…then we get from suicide watch back to Uinta 1 and the staff put us back in the strip cell when we get back to Uinta 1.”
In Uinta 1, suicide is not an uncommon occurrence. In 2009, two prisoners in Uinta 1 committed suicide. One was Danny Gallegos, who was found hanged in his cell in June. Another was a friend of Green, Spencer “Spider” Hooper, a “Pink Floyd fan and singer on medications for schizophrenia and depression.” Months after a previous suicide attempt, Hooper was found dead in February 2009, hanging in his cell.
A. and L. also independently confirm that sandbags at the cell doors of inmates gather bugs, which enter their cells. “They got sandbags around all the cells but never pick them up and clean under them so there’s all kinds of bugs and dirt that comes right under our doors,” A. writes.
Green also writes about the declining array of services provided to Uinta 1 inmates. “Years ago indigent captives received five envelopes a week. Now its one. We had five outside contacts a week. Now one. We used to be fed enough to stay full. Now we are starved. We used to have shampoo and lotion. Now we don’t. We grumble for an hour each time something is taken from us. Then move right along to inventing the creative willpower to survive with no penpals and mail, a full stomach or clean hair. Moving right along. We expect tragedy.”
Solitary Watch will continue to report on Uinta 1 as more information becomes available.
Brandon Green welcomes letters. His mailing address is:
Brandon Green #147075, Uinta One 305, Utah State Prison, PO Box 250, Draper, Utah 84020. His blog, updated by an outside supporter, can be seen here.
Showing posts with label solitary confinement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solitary confinement. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Greetings of resistance (June 2012)
On Prison Action News Vol 5, issue 2 (2012), Brandon's update is published on page 31:
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/215603/index.php
Draper, UT June 25 2012
Greetings of resistance from the bowels of an infamous Amerikkkan solitary torture chamber, the beast’s mask titled “Draper,” where the most heinous state-sanctioned murders pop off, literally, still 30-30’s, starvation, mental and physical tortures, medical malpractice, unconstitutional censorship a la “Corrections,” a la “Freedom,” a la “democracy spreading” fascist camo-weenies. Just another day at the beach called “bye bye Babylon.”
Green v. Downs 2: 12-CV-00432 was filed in opposition to the tortures. Green v. Turley is being filed, if the shady contract attorneys don’t shred it, against the unconstitutional policy fdr 25 that upholds censorship. No more though. After I’m through with it, bank on it. And Green v. Abbott will put the hands on the medical malpractice going on. I’m about to light ‘em up. Please, all, look for Memorial Day essay on BrandonGreensblog.blogspot.com and more on SolitaryWatch.com for a gaggle of us in contact with the salamander who puts in work for us for Solitary Watch news.
Do comrades remember my first essays in PAN on the “sit-down-plug-the-bastard-up” strike in Unita one? Well, it’s going strong. Food portions were cut last month. It’s fucking horrible, but we maintain. Rattling clips off of doors and swallowing them, leading to x-rays and doctors putting in orders to remove them, is a tactic we’ve been voting to settle the score ‘tab-wise.’ $375.00 per lawsuit is hateful to us who get $25.00 from senior grandmothers per month. But they steal more than from just old ladies here in Utah. Lest we forget Abu Grahib and those two sadistic punks, Gary Deland and O’Lane McCotter, taken from Division Director/Warden positions here in Draper to run that disreputable Middle East gulag.
Shady strategies like hanging ourselves, cutting ourselves, grabbing pigs’ arms and biting off fingers (at least trying to), throwing piss and shit have resulted in SWAT extractions and riot style crowd control smoke being set off in our cages. Flooding cells by sprinklers or toilets, with the swallowing of the metal sprinkler pieces, occur as the rage boils and the hunger gnaws at our sanity.
Right now my liver’s shutting down from my Hepatitis C and the prison’s not helping me. I’m in pain like no other. Dying’s no joke, comrades. I’m seeking liver biopsy and CT scans, as these liver enzyme testing procedures smokescreen the medical malpractice. It’s common medical knowledge liver enzyme testing is pointless, but it’s all the Kamp offers. The prison’s phone number is 801-576-7000 and the Warden can be contacted through the post at: Warden A.C. Bigalow, USP PO Box 250, Draper, UT 84020-0250. Y’all got my back out there, amigos? Put it down for a fellow living dead and I promise I’ll haunt you with Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. Pack in a couple bottles of gin, 2pac style.
Death to the PIC...death to imperialism. Captive unity. Bury me smiling with lawsuits in my pocket. Strength eternal.
Brandon K. Green #147075
Utah State Prison
PO Box 250
Draper, UT 84020-0250
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/215603/index.php
Draper, UT June 25 2012
Greetings of resistance from the bowels of an infamous Amerikkkan solitary torture chamber, the beast’s mask titled “Draper,” where the most heinous state-sanctioned murders pop off, literally, still 30-30’s, starvation, mental and physical tortures, medical malpractice, unconstitutional censorship a la “Corrections,” a la “Freedom,” a la “democracy spreading” fascist camo-weenies. Just another day at the beach called “bye bye Babylon.”
Green v. Downs 2: 12-CV-00432 was filed in opposition to the tortures. Green v. Turley is being filed, if the shady contract attorneys don’t shred it, against the unconstitutional policy fdr 25 that upholds censorship. No more though. After I’m through with it, bank on it. And Green v. Abbott will put the hands on the medical malpractice going on. I’m about to light ‘em up. Please, all, look for Memorial Day essay on BrandonGreensblog.blogspot.com and more on SolitaryWatch.com for a gaggle of us in contact with the salamander who puts in work for us for Solitary Watch news.
Do comrades remember my first essays in PAN on the “sit-down-plug-the-bastard-up” strike in Unita one? Well, it’s going strong. Food portions were cut last month. It’s fucking horrible, but we maintain. Rattling clips off of doors and swallowing them, leading to x-rays and doctors putting in orders to remove them, is a tactic we’ve been voting to settle the score ‘tab-wise.’ $375.00 per lawsuit is hateful to us who get $25.00 from senior grandmothers per month. But they steal more than from just old ladies here in Utah. Lest we forget Abu Grahib and those two sadistic punks, Gary Deland and O’Lane McCotter, taken from Division Director/Warden positions here in Draper to run that disreputable Middle East gulag.
Shady strategies like hanging ourselves, cutting ourselves, grabbing pigs’ arms and biting off fingers (at least trying to), throwing piss and shit have resulted in SWAT extractions and riot style crowd control smoke being set off in our cages. Flooding cells by sprinklers or toilets, with the swallowing of the metal sprinkler pieces, occur as the rage boils and the hunger gnaws at our sanity.
Right now my liver’s shutting down from my Hepatitis C and the prison’s not helping me. I’m in pain like no other. Dying’s no joke, comrades. I’m seeking liver biopsy and CT scans, as these liver enzyme testing procedures smokescreen the medical malpractice. It’s common medical knowledge liver enzyme testing is pointless, but it’s all the Kamp offers. The prison’s phone number is 801-576-7000 and the Warden can be contacted through the post at: Warden A.C. Bigalow, USP PO Box 250, Draper, UT 84020-0250. Y’all got my back out there, amigos? Put it down for a fellow living dead and I promise I’ll haunt you with Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. Pack in a couple bottles of gin, 2pac style.
Death to the PIC...death to imperialism. Captive unity. Bury me smiling with lawsuits in my pocket. Strength eternal.
Brandon K. Green #147075
Utah State Prison
PO Box 250
Draper, UT 84020-0250
Friday, 6 July 2012
Voices from Solitary: From the Vortex of Uinta One
From: Solitary Watch
The following comes to Solitary Watch from inmate Brandon Green at Utah State Prison, Draper’s Uinta One facility. The facility currently holds 91 inmates in solitary confinement, including the state’s death row. Green has been in isolation for five years, after a brief period released from prison before being rearrested. He has been corresponding with Solitary Watch since February, and has been a prolific writer, chronicling his harrowing experience in isolation. He has described his situation, and the challenge of expressing his situation, this way: “I told my cousin that it’s like he and everyone out on the street is building a life, a “house,” while we sit holding up the roof to our past “houses” as it slowly just crumbles. How does one who is busy building understand how it is to just sit and hold up a roof? They can’t.” The following is a sampling of his writings. –Sal Rodriguez
Where to begin? How to begin? One fellow captive described Uinta One as a vortex. It just keeps sucking you in. My first experience of solitary was in 2004. I was around 21 years of age. I was put in a shower in handcuffs as they searched my cell and I slipped handcuffs from behind my back to the front, then was unable to put them back when ordered to. Thus solitary. My first taste.
I remember crying a lot at first. At night mostly, as the night crept up on me. My neighbors would want my cookies from my white sacks. And they offered all these colorful pills. “Green to sleep, red to wake up,” they’d say. So I fished off my cookies under my door to my neighbor so I could sleep instead of cry.
I remember paroling in 2006 after I’d done two stints in solitary. My mom picked me up and just to hear the music on the radio gave me cold chills. Being so long without music. Mom took me to a restaurant and we sat down to eat. I got nervous because of all the people, hopped up, went to the car and waited for her as I listened to music. I sat paranoid looking in the mirrors at all these people coming and going from their cars to stores and back. I felt like…like a bad guy. Outlaw. That no one will know what it was like to sit alone for so long with just my thoughts.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t imagining my moms “just cried out face” as she hopped back in the car and drove us home. “How could he,” she probably thought “after all that time. Does he hate me?”
“How could she,” I thought, “after years of eating all alone, how could she not know I’d be nervous.”
Neither understanding. Both blaming the other while feeling guilty ourselves.
It’s been almost five years since we’ve spoken.
I sit going on five years straight in the hole. A sound of buzzing comes from my exhaust vent because I place a piece of paper there to create sound. My door is plugged off, with white sacks, except for a small place at the bottom to allow air and mail. I go through these periods of extreme abdominal pains, blood shot eyes, dizziness because of my Hepatitis-C. I’ve not shaved or had a haircut for almost five years. I do not leave my cell unless guards do a search or I get blood tests for my disease.
My knee is pulled because of overexercise and pacing. To pace, then turn, then pace, then turn, really screws up the knees after a while.
We have these sandbags surrounding our doors so we cannot fish. Bugs get trapped under these and set up little colonies and infiltrate our cells. Most of these toilets do not flush correctly and most cell toilets stink with green moss inside the bowls. Most air vents are clogged and one can taste the city exhaust smoke as one chews ones carrots.
Just this week, a captive was antagonized by a guard. The captive requested mental health. Was laughed at (at his door and over the cell electronic speaker). He snapped, took all his “fish oil” medications, pulled his cell sprinkler then proceeded to swallow the metal sprinkler. He’s been gone days. Probably in section four–suicide watch.
Section one is death row. Sections two and three are general hole, intensive management unit. Section four is suicide watch with an officer in section 24/7 with 15 minute checks. All other sections have hourly checks.
Uinta One tortures 96 people in all. 8 sections of 12 a piece. We cannot see out our doors into the sections because of a metal window flap that is clipped on. Month back someone swallowed a window clip.
Some captives have been known to stuff shampoo bottles up their ass. Shove staples in their penis. Head butt the walls. Bite holes in their wrists with their teeth. Cut out veins with fingernails–I’m guilty of that one.
No phone calls since April 2008. No radio, T.V., magazines, visits, sunshine. Here in Uinta One we are handcuffed behind the back, dogleashed, pillow-case over the head, shackled, taken to and from shower every Tues, Thurs, Saturday. It’s degrading.
Trust me
Waking up to a nosebleed
Falling Asleep in a nightmare
Growing old minus the growing up
Adolescent at almost thirty
Buried in Cement
Pig mindgames, taxpayers hate, facial hair
Cant kill yourself because they watch
Camera mounted up in the corner
Razor cut scars on inside of elbow
Brain damage, swollen liver, tired heart
Does the crazy man know he’s crazy
Dead people don’t know they’re dead
Do those who hate me count as family
Those who can’t trust me don’t count as friends
King James! Version of the Holy Bible
Verses one of his slaves’ version of peoples liberation
White nation labor aristocrats bought off by King
Off with their heads–Away with their playthings
Give them cowards three meals and smelly mattress
Flatscreen TVs
Tuned 24/7 to the new
Revolutionary TV
Lynch mob soda repackaged justice soda
Law and order on can
Inside a caffeinated Jim Crow
Flavored with a War on Drugs
AKA PIG social control quota
Waking up to the nightmare
Falling asleep to the mindwash
Old man at almost thirty buried in cement
Growing old without the giving up
The following comes to Solitary Watch from inmate Brandon Green at Utah State Prison, Draper’s Uinta One facility. The facility currently holds 91 inmates in solitary confinement, including the state’s death row. Green has been in isolation for five years, after a brief period released from prison before being rearrested. He has been corresponding with Solitary Watch since February, and has been a prolific writer, chronicling his harrowing experience in isolation. He has described his situation, and the challenge of expressing his situation, this way: “I told my cousin that it’s like he and everyone out on the street is building a life, a “house,” while we sit holding up the roof to our past “houses” as it slowly just crumbles. How does one who is busy building understand how it is to just sit and hold up a roof? They can’t.” The following is a sampling of his writings. –Sal Rodriguez
Where to begin? How to begin? One fellow captive described Uinta One as a vortex. It just keeps sucking you in. My first experience of solitary was in 2004. I was around 21 years of age. I was put in a shower in handcuffs as they searched my cell and I slipped handcuffs from behind my back to the front, then was unable to put them back when ordered to. Thus solitary. My first taste.
I remember crying a lot at first. At night mostly, as the night crept up on me. My neighbors would want my cookies from my white sacks. And they offered all these colorful pills. “Green to sleep, red to wake up,” they’d say. So I fished off my cookies under my door to my neighbor so I could sleep instead of cry.
I remember paroling in 2006 after I’d done two stints in solitary. My mom picked me up and just to hear the music on the radio gave me cold chills. Being so long without music. Mom took me to a restaurant and we sat down to eat. I got nervous because of all the people, hopped up, went to the car and waited for her as I listened to music. I sat paranoid looking in the mirrors at all these people coming and going from their cars to stores and back. I felt like…like a bad guy. Outlaw. That no one will know what it was like to sit alone for so long with just my thoughts.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t imagining my moms “just cried out face” as she hopped back in the car and drove us home. “How could he,” she probably thought “after all that time. Does he hate me?”
“How could she,” I thought, “after years of eating all alone, how could she not know I’d be nervous.”
Neither understanding. Both blaming the other while feeling guilty ourselves.
It’s been almost five years since we’ve spoken.
I sit going on five years straight in the hole. A sound of buzzing comes from my exhaust vent because I place a piece of paper there to create sound. My door is plugged off, with white sacks, except for a small place at the bottom to allow air and mail. I go through these periods of extreme abdominal pains, blood shot eyes, dizziness because of my Hepatitis-C. I’ve not shaved or had a haircut for almost five years. I do not leave my cell unless guards do a search or I get blood tests for my disease.
My knee is pulled because of overexercise and pacing. To pace, then turn, then pace, then turn, really screws up the knees after a while.
We have these sandbags surrounding our doors so we cannot fish. Bugs get trapped under these and set up little colonies and infiltrate our cells. Most of these toilets do not flush correctly and most cell toilets stink with green moss inside the bowls. Most air vents are clogged and one can taste the city exhaust smoke as one chews ones carrots.
Just this week, a captive was antagonized by a guard. The captive requested mental health. Was laughed at (at his door and over the cell electronic speaker). He snapped, took all his “fish oil” medications, pulled his cell sprinkler then proceeded to swallow the metal sprinkler. He’s been gone days. Probably in section four–suicide watch.
Section one is death row. Sections two and three are general hole, intensive management unit. Section four is suicide watch with an officer in section 24/7 with 15 minute checks. All other sections have hourly checks.
Uinta One tortures 96 people in all. 8 sections of 12 a piece. We cannot see out our doors into the sections because of a metal window flap that is clipped on. Month back someone swallowed a window clip.
Some captives have been known to stuff shampoo bottles up their ass. Shove staples in their penis. Head butt the walls. Bite holes in their wrists with their teeth. Cut out veins with fingernails–I’m guilty of that one.
No phone calls since April 2008. No radio, T.V., magazines, visits, sunshine. Here in Uinta One we are handcuffed behind the back, dogleashed, pillow-case over the head, shackled, taken to and from shower every Tues, Thurs, Saturday. It’s degrading.
Trust me
Waking up to a nosebleed
Falling Asleep in a nightmare
Growing old minus the growing up
Adolescent at almost thirty
Buried in Cement
Pig mindgames, taxpayers hate, facial hair
Cant kill yourself because they watch
Camera mounted up in the corner
Razor cut scars on inside of elbow
Brain damage, swollen liver, tired heart
Does the crazy man know he’s crazy
Dead people don’t know they’re dead
Do those who hate me count as family
Those who can’t trust me don’t count as friends
King James! Version of the Holy Bible
Verses one of his slaves’ version of peoples liberation
White nation labor aristocrats bought off by King
Off with their heads–Away with their playthings
Give them cowards three meals and smelly mattress
Flatscreen TVs
Tuned 24/7 to the new
Revolutionary TV
Lynch mob soda repackaged justice soda
Law and order on can
Inside a caffeinated Jim Crow
Flavored with a War on Drugs
AKA PIG social control quota
Waking up to the nightmare
Falling asleep to the mindwash
Old man at almost thirty buried in cement
Growing old without the giving up
Monday, 20 September 2010
Declaration of Modern Day Independence
All experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed…
December 26th, 2009: US led forces raided a home in Kanur province and
pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them and gunned
them down execution style. The pentagon initially reported that the
victims had been running a bomb factory, although distraught villagers
were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, age 11-18, were
seven normal school boys and one shepherd boy. Following courageous
reporting by Jerome Starkey (The Times UK), the US military carried
out its own investigation and of February 24th, 2010, issued an
apology, attesting the boys innocence.
…But when the long train of abuses and usurpations pursuant invariably
the same object evinces a design which reduces them under absolute
despotism…
Control Unit prisons confine people to small cells in isolation for
long periods of time. These Control Units are used for political and
social control of prisoners already locked in secure. They target
Black, Latino and First Nations People who are a disproportionate part
of the Control Unit populations (relative to their already
disproportionate representation in prisons in general). While
conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of these units is
always to achieve the spiritual, psychological and physical breakdown
of the prisoner.
Utah State Prison Modern Day Abu-Ghraib.
Don Harley 74 years old in solitary 8 years.
Jason Dhalquist 10+ years
Ronnie Gardner 20+ years
Paul Payne 20 years
Troy Kell 20 years
Andrew Lindsey 8+ years
Brandon Green 2 years
John Chaney 5 years
Phillip Hart 2 years
Frankie Vilarino 2 years
Travis Wycherly did 4 years (in part) and now going on 1 year
*Some have paroled. Travis, Jason. But they come right back* Wonder Why?
Spencer Hooper deceased 02/19/2009 in solitary.
The United Nations has put forward clear documents outlining
acceptable treatments of prisoners. These documents reaffirm that
prisoners retain fundamental human rights. Control Units are physical
and mental torture and they very clearly violate the human rights of
prisoners.
…It is their right and their duty to throw off such government and to
provide new guard for future security.
February 12th, 2010: US forces raided a home during a party and killed
five people, including a local District Attorney, a local police
commander, two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl to be married. An
April 5th, 2010 New York Time article clarifies that the US troops
engaged in a deliberate cover-up.
Am I some monster? I got drunk and high and bounced a check. I was
twenty at the time. I’ve been in a cell for almost eight years because
of this and I got until 2021 until I even come from under the shadow
of my probation/parole schedule. I’m from a poor family. Do you think
I’d be here in this prison if I was rich? Seriously.
What about the men who supervise our soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan. Do
you think they might be a tad bit over twenty years of age? Then why
do they continue to do these atrocities? Can we blame them because
they’re just a youngester like I was and lock them away?
These people murdered pregnant women. This Control Unit murdered my
friend Mr. Spider Hooper. If an apology is good enough so that no
punishment needs to occur, I apologized for being stupid and bouncing
that check. Why am I still here?
Mr. Spencer Hooper’s family didn’t even get an apology from UTDOC
administration. Just lies and cover-up.
To blame the soldiers who killed in cold blood (accidentally) is like
blaming these “corrections” officers running Unita One. Who are used
to taking orders. Who have been schooled and boot camped into obeying.
But can’t we blame the Sgt. Or the General? I mean, it’s okay to blame
isn’t it? I’m feeling 1-15 years of blame right now for my actions.
What is the Sgt's or Generals feeling? Applause. Handshakes. Sun on
his face?
Whatever happened to the war protesters and beatniks of the 60’s? Is
General McChrystal an ex-beatnik? Because I’m pretty sure Sgt. F.and
Officer S. were/are.
America, you cannot ignore these atrocities. Can you, and be okay
inside? I myself am ashamed and sad. I want to do something about our
country’s stupidity/cruelty. But I’m in one of its torture chambers.
I’m caged like a rat and fed like a mouse. I’m sick with Hepatitis-C
and deranged from talking to myself. What can I even do? I’m sure not
going to turn on the TV (haven’t seen a TV for over two years anyway)
and shrug the old shoulders and walk away.
Let me touch on some points here. Olympus is Utah’s Mental Health
Unit. It’s over flowing so they send the extras right here to Unita
One.
Now Mr. John Chaney came from Olympus the same way Mr. Spider Hooper
did. The reason you haven’t heard from Mr. Chaney is because he has
made himself a covenant with god not to file grievances or drink water
from his sink (I am not joking). His other idiosyncrasies include
defacing his out-going mail with stupid remarks, so his mail never
makes its destination. Mr. Chaney believes himself the one and only
prophet of god.
Now they starve him as my accounts of abuses show. That includes
withholding milks and juices each meal. This man is in a bad way, in
several ways. He can’t stand up. When they force him out of his cell
every six or so months he is dragged out on a mattress. He has been in
prison for almost twenty years and could go home if he’d only attend
the Board of Pardons. But he refuses to do this. Something to do with
his god covenant.
Now add insult to injury. Mr. Chaney is a fundamentalist Latter Day
Saint. A Mormon who still believes in the polygamist doctrine (kind of
like Mr. Warren Jeffs) the old school Mormons. These guards guarding
us are new school Mormons. So Mr. Chaney is a sort of burr in their
dogma saddle.
Also as I just looked out my window and observed several “corrections”
officers goose-stepping while carrying rifles. Must be another run
through for the upcoming execution. Do you ever wonder what these five
men who shoot a defenseless, tied and blindfolded man will do directly
after they murder an inmate? Will they attend a Mormon service and
christen their granddaughter? Maybe go to their son’s T-ball game or
go to the local Chuck-O-Rama restaurant for hot wings.
I personally would be sick for years, for life actually. That’s one
cloud I do not want to be under, no matter the price, no matter the
command, commandment, direct order or law. No sir’ee.
Where was I?
Remember how I explained how the program works here? They take on man,
the ‘undesirable’ as our Nevada Comrades spoke, and place him in a
section. Each section has one of these usually, sometimes two but
usually one. Then they, the guards, pick and pick until it gets the
inmates to pick. Pretty soon the ‘undesirable’ tore up emotionally and
mentally.
Let me touch on this ‘undesirable’ word here. To use that tag is
dangerous, especially when you yourself are an ‘undesirable’ in many
folk’s eyes. It goes like this:
If you’re a free person, you hate prisoners. If you’re a prisoner, you
hate snitches. If you’re a snitch, you hate sex offenders. If you’re
sex offender, you hate murderers. If you are a murderer, you hate free
people (society) for not allowing you to murder. And on and on.
You should see the look on these guards faces when I stick up for
these damn near “picked-clean” individuals. Not to mention the fellow
convicts uneasiness and anger at ignoring the “code” or whatever.
Inmates get mad, too, when their favorite officer gets fired or loses
face.
I’m beyond all of that. I’m beyond giving a single care about what my
upcoming parole chances are after I’ve pretty much taken on the whole
Mormon state; thumbed my nose at them so to speak.
In comparison to our Nevada comrades, which most you are familiar
with, our situation and what’s happening is going to be their
situation if their demands don’t bear fruit. We have nothing, no phone
calls and no visitors. All we can order is stamps, pens and cards
(birthday, mother day, etc.) No books. Sporadic mail. There’s not even
electricity in our cells. The plugs are all cemented over. We do have
light, though it is on 24/7 and we cannot shut them off.
I hope this doesn’t sound weak but its past demands here and more like survival.
But back to Mr. Chaney, after I’ve sort of explained his horrid
condition, look at the abuses. Look at what they’re doing to him. Both
abuser and torture believe God is with them. It’s downright nasty and
horrible and it continues day after day, night after night. The man
withers on his mattress in dehydration fits.
This is just the one section, our section Two. There are seven more
sections at play here, eight in all. Who right now is sitting in
section three or four being abused? If you want to get right down to
it, we all are abused. Long term solitary confinement is considered
torture, at least by the world community and by the United Nations.
Then we look around our country and see Pelican Bay State Prison’s
torture chambers. We see one in Illinois and Colorado’s Florence
facility. Each American state has a solitary, where-as all other
countries have done away with the cruel practice.
This is a shot in the dark here, but I believe along with the US
ignoring torture they’ve ignored UN peace treaties and such in the
Middle East and the Geneva Convention. I remember the whole George W.
Bush controversy. I remember when it was discovered that Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction. I vividly remember watching the ‘shock
and awe’ bombardment of Iraq from a small house in Monterrey Bay,
California.
I was still a teenager and I was sitting with our puppy and my
girlfriend. I was free then and now I’m not because I made a mistake.
I got drunk and high and thought I was “superman-with-a-checkbook”.
Now I’m paying for that mistake, but why hasn’t America paid for its
mistake? Why is Afghanistan now paying it instead?
I beg somebody to tell me why. I plead for somebody to help me with
any misunderstanding.
According to a March 3rd, 2010 Save the Children report “The world is
ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from
treatable diseases like Diarrhea and Pneumonia, focusing on fighting
the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid”. The report
notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before
the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished
and suffer from physical or mental problems. The UN Human Development
Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in
the world, second only to Niger in sub-Sahara Africa.
Most of my fellow inmates don’t care what happens to Mr. John Chaney.
It seems most of America doesn’t care what happens in Afghanistan. I
keep telling myself, ‘but at least the world and the United Nations
notices and cares about both wrongs’.
Then I am left with the fear that something might have grown callous
in my country after years of seeing such torture and slaughters.
Frankly, it frightens the crap right out of me. I hate to say it but
somebody’s got to. Keep in mind these words from a white
“non-undesirable-classed” convict.
Why all the hate and anger toward a handful of fundamentalist Mormons,
but not a single uneasy glance at the men in charge of these third
world slaughters?
Why such a disparity between the number of non-whites and whites in
prison? Whites, in prison are outnumbered four to one in a country of
80% whites. Are we all racist? If that is a ‘negative’ the why do we
keep voting for more prison expansions?
Why do we spend all this money on Boob Jobs and Viagra when millions
of children starve to death in Africa, Asia, Afghanistan, etc. or die
of preventable diseases?
Why is the American prison system set up for profit? Wouldn’t a
not-for-profit system be more able to focus on “correcting”
individuals? Unless the whole point is to warehouse all non-white
undesirables. No? Maybe the entire nation’s poor?
Why am I the one sitting in a UN declared torture chamber and not the
person who called the Iraq “Shock and awe” disaster? General Petraeus
wasn’t it?
February 21st, 2010: A three car convoy of Afghans was traveling to
the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital
in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much needed
medical treatment. US Forces saw Afghans traveling together and
launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car. Women in the second
car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to
communicate that they were civilians. The US Helicopter gunships
continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed
and 13 were wounded. General Stanley McChrystal issued a videotaped
apology….
What about General McChrystal?
Who does this guy think he is? A druggie / alcoholic / check bouncer?
What gives him the right to say these sorts of things?
I’m a felon in a Supermax Dungeon. I have no rights, but I am also a
human being with a social conscience who has to live with myself. I’m
the one who has to close my eyes at night and seek an untroubled
sleep. You can call me any name in the book. You can pin on me any
jacket. You can “Undesirable” me to hell and back, but you’ll never
say I didn’t speak up when I saw a wrong committed. You’ll never count
me as one of the living dead.
…The creation of prisons as places designed to break peoples will to
resist, to think and to live is the most compelling testament to the
role of prisons as a means to extermination…
pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them and gunned
them down execution style. The pentagon initially reported that the
victims had been running a bomb factory, although distraught villagers
were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, age 11-18, were
seven normal school boys and one shepherd boy. Following courageous
reporting by Jerome Starkey (The Times UK), the US military carried
out its own investigation and of February 24th, 2010, issued an
apology, attesting the boys innocence.
…But when the long train of abuses and usurpations pursuant invariably
the same object evinces a design which reduces them under absolute
despotism…
Control Unit prisons confine people to small cells in isolation for
long periods of time. These Control Units are used for political and
social control of prisoners already locked in secure. They target
Black, Latino and First Nations People who are a disproportionate part
of the Control Unit populations (relative to their already
disproportionate representation in prisons in general). While
conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of these units is
always to achieve the spiritual, psychological and physical breakdown
of the prisoner.
Utah State Prison Modern Day Abu-Ghraib.
Don Harley 74 years old in solitary 8 years.
Jason Dhalquist 10+ years
Ronnie Gardner 20+ years
Paul Payne 20 years
Troy Kell 20 years
Andrew Lindsey 8+ years
Brandon Green 2 years
John Chaney 5 years
Phillip Hart 2 years
Frankie Vilarino 2 years
Travis Wycherly did 4 years (in part) and now going on 1 year
*Some have paroled. Travis, Jason. But they come right back* Wonder Why?
Spencer Hooper deceased 02/19/2009 in solitary.
The United Nations has put forward clear documents outlining
acceptable treatments of prisoners. These documents reaffirm that
prisoners retain fundamental human rights. Control Units are physical
and mental torture and they very clearly violate the human rights of
prisoners.
…It is their right and their duty to throw off such government and to
provide new guard for future security.
February 12th, 2010: US forces raided a home during a party and killed
five people, including a local District Attorney, a local police
commander, two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl to be married. An
April 5th, 2010 New York Time article clarifies that the US troops
engaged in a deliberate cover-up.
Am I some monster? I got drunk and high and bounced a check. I was
twenty at the time. I’ve been in a cell for almost eight years because
of this and I got until 2021 until I even come from under the shadow
of my probation/parole schedule. I’m from a poor family. Do you think
I’d be here in this prison if I was rich? Seriously.
What about the men who supervise our soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan. Do
you think they might be a tad bit over twenty years of age? Then why
do they continue to do these atrocities? Can we blame them because
they’re just a youngester like I was and lock them away?
These people murdered pregnant women. This Control Unit murdered my
friend Mr. Spider Hooper. If an apology is good enough so that no
punishment needs to occur, I apologized for being stupid and bouncing
that check. Why am I still here?
Mr. Spencer Hooper’s family didn’t even get an apology from UTDOC
administration. Just lies and cover-up.
To blame the soldiers who killed in cold blood (accidentally) is like
blaming these “corrections” officers running Unita One. Who are used
to taking orders. Who have been schooled and boot camped into obeying.
But can’t we blame the Sgt. Or the General? I mean, it’s okay to blame
isn’t it? I’m feeling 1-15 years of blame right now for my actions.
What is the Sgt's or Generals feeling? Applause. Handshakes. Sun on
his face?
Whatever happened to the war protesters and beatniks of the 60’s? Is
General McChrystal an ex-beatnik? Because I’m pretty sure Sgt. F.and
Officer S. were/are.
America, you cannot ignore these atrocities. Can you, and be okay
inside? I myself am ashamed and sad. I want to do something about our
country’s stupidity/cruelty. But I’m in one of its torture chambers.
I’m caged like a rat and fed like a mouse. I’m sick with Hepatitis-C
and deranged from talking to myself. What can I even do? I’m sure not
going to turn on the TV (haven’t seen a TV for over two years anyway)
and shrug the old shoulders and walk away.
Let me touch on some points here. Olympus is Utah’s Mental Health
Unit. It’s over flowing so they send the extras right here to Unita
One.
Now Mr. John Chaney came from Olympus the same way Mr. Spider Hooper
did. The reason you haven’t heard from Mr. Chaney is because he has
made himself a covenant with god not to file grievances or drink water
from his sink (I am not joking). His other idiosyncrasies include
defacing his out-going mail with stupid remarks, so his mail never
makes its destination. Mr. Chaney believes himself the one and only
prophet of god.
Now they starve him as my accounts of abuses show. That includes
withholding milks and juices each meal. This man is in a bad way, in
several ways. He can’t stand up. When they force him out of his cell
every six or so months he is dragged out on a mattress. He has been in
prison for almost twenty years and could go home if he’d only attend
the Board of Pardons. But he refuses to do this. Something to do with
his god covenant.
Now add insult to injury. Mr. Chaney is a fundamentalist Latter Day
Saint. A Mormon who still believes in the polygamist doctrine (kind of
like Mr. Warren Jeffs) the old school Mormons. These guards guarding
us are new school Mormons. So Mr. Chaney is a sort of burr in their
dogma saddle.
Also as I just looked out my window and observed several “corrections”
officers goose-stepping while carrying rifles. Must be another run
through for the upcoming execution. Do you ever wonder what these five
men who shoot a defenseless, tied and blindfolded man will do directly
after they murder an inmate? Will they attend a Mormon service and
christen their granddaughter? Maybe go to their son’s T-ball game or
go to the local Chuck-O-Rama restaurant for hot wings.
I personally would be sick for years, for life actually. That’s one
cloud I do not want to be under, no matter the price, no matter the
command, commandment, direct order or law. No sir’ee.
Where was I?
Remember how I explained how the program works here? They take on man,
the ‘undesirable’ as our Nevada Comrades spoke, and place him in a
section. Each section has one of these usually, sometimes two but
usually one. Then they, the guards, pick and pick until it gets the
inmates to pick. Pretty soon the ‘undesirable’ tore up emotionally and
mentally.
Let me touch on this ‘undesirable’ word here. To use that tag is
dangerous, especially when you yourself are an ‘undesirable’ in many
folk’s eyes. It goes like this:
If you’re a free person, you hate prisoners. If you’re a prisoner, you
hate snitches. If you’re a snitch, you hate sex offenders. If you’re
sex offender, you hate murderers. If you are a murderer, you hate free
people (society) for not allowing you to murder. And on and on.
You should see the look on these guards faces when I stick up for
these damn near “picked-clean” individuals. Not to mention the fellow
convicts uneasiness and anger at ignoring the “code” or whatever.
Inmates get mad, too, when their favorite officer gets fired or loses
face.
I’m beyond all of that. I’m beyond giving a single care about what my
upcoming parole chances are after I’ve pretty much taken on the whole
Mormon state; thumbed my nose at them so to speak.
In comparison to our Nevada comrades, which most you are familiar
with, our situation and what’s happening is going to be their
situation if their demands don’t bear fruit. We have nothing, no phone
calls and no visitors. All we can order is stamps, pens and cards
(birthday, mother day, etc.) No books. Sporadic mail. There’s not even
electricity in our cells. The plugs are all cemented over. We do have
light, though it is on 24/7 and we cannot shut them off.
I hope this doesn’t sound weak but its past demands here and more like survival.
But back to Mr. Chaney, after I’ve sort of explained his horrid
condition, look at the abuses. Look at what they’re doing to him. Both
abuser and torture believe God is with them. It’s downright nasty and
horrible and it continues day after day, night after night. The man
withers on his mattress in dehydration fits.
This is just the one section, our section Two. There are seven more
sections at play here, eight in all. Who right now is sitting in
section three or four being abused? If you want to get right down to
it, we all are abused. Long term solitary confinement is considered
torture, at least by the world community and by the United Nations.
Then we look around our country and see Pelican Bay State Prison’s
torture chambers. We see one in Illinois and Colorado’s Florence
facility. Each American state has a solitary, where-as all other
countries have done away with the cruel practice.
This is a shot in the dark here, but I believe along with the US
ignoring torture they’ve ignored UN peace treaties and such in the
Middle East and the Geneva Convention. I remember the whole George W.
Bush controversy. I remember when it was discovered that Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction. I vividly remember watching the ‘shock
and awe’ bombardment of Iraq from a small house in Monterrey Bay,
California.
I was still a teenager and I was sitting with our puppy and my
girlfriend. I was free then and now I’m not because I made a mistake.
I got drunk and high and thought I was “superman-with-a-checkbook”.
Now I’m paying for that mistake, but why hasn’t America paid for its
mistake? Why is Afghanistan now paying it instead?
I beg somebody to tell me why. I plead for somebody to help me with
any misunderstanding.
According to a March 3rd, 2010 Save the Children report “The world is
ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from
treatable diseases like Diarrhea and Pneumonia, focusing on fighting
the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid”. The report
notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before
the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished
and suffer from physical or mental problems. The UN Human Development
Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in
the world, second only to Niger in sub-Sahara Africa.
Most of my fellow inmates don’t care what happens to Mr. John Chaney.
It seems most of America doesn’t care what happens in Afghanistan. I
keep telling myself, ‘but at least the world and the United Nations
notices and cares about both wrongs’.
Then I am left with the fear that something might have grown callous
in my country after years of seeing such torture and slaughters.
Frankly, it frightens the crap right out of me. I hate to say it but
somebody’s got to. Keep in mind these words from a white
“non-undesirable-classed” convict.
Why all the hate and anger toward a handful of fundamentalist Mormons,
but not a single uneasy glance at the men in charge of these third
world slaughters?
Why such a disparity between the number of non-whites and whites in
prison? Whites, in prison are outnumbered four to one in a country of
80% whites. Are we all racist? If that is a ‘negative’ the why do we
keep voting for more prison expansions?
Why do we spend all this money on Boob Jobs and Viagra when millions
of children starve to death in Africa, Asia, Afghanistan, etc. or die
of preventable diseases?
Why is the American prison system set up for profit? Wouldn’t a
not-for-profit system be more able to focus on “correcting”
individuals? Unless the whole point is to warehouse all non-white
undesirables. No? Maybe the entire nation’s poor?
Why am I the one sitting in a UN declared torture chamber and not the
person who called the Iraq “Shock and awe” disaster? General Petraeus
wasn’t it?
February 21st, 2010: A three car convoy of Afghans was traveling to
the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital
in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much needed
medical treatment. US Forces saw Afghans traveling together and
launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car. Women in the second
car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to
communicate that they were civilians. The US Helicopter gunships
continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed
and 13 were wounded. General Stanley McChrystal issued a videotaped
apology….
What about General McChrystal?
Who does this guy think he is? A druggie / alcoholic / check bouncer?
What gives him the right to say these sorts of things?
I’m a felon in a Supermax Dungeon. I have no rights, but I am also a
human being with a social conscience who has to live with myself. I’m
the one who has to close my eyes at night and seek an untroubled
sleep. You can call me any name in the book. You can pin on me any
jacket. You can “Undesirable” me to hell and back, but you’ll never
say I didn’t speak up when I saw a wrong committed. You’ll never count
me as one of the living dead.
…The creation of prisons as places designed to break peoples will to
resist, to think and to live is the most compelling testament to the
role of prisons as a means to extermination…
I have every right to just lay down and forget the world’s hypocricies and our country’s social wrongs. Being that I’m ath the very bottom of the gut pile.
…The United $nakes is the world’s leading prison-state per capita. The U.$. imprisons more Black people than did Apartheid South Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The majority of offenders are non-violent offenders and the U.$. government now holds about half a million more prisoners than China; even though China is four times our population. In this so-called “free country” freedom is imprisonment…
What it all boils down to is Uinta One is a control unit that uses long term isolation to break and kill us. And long term isolation is a form of torture condemned by the United Nations. Killing pregnant mothers in Afghanistan is a war crime of the most high.
I don’t think we should be talking about reforming torture or accepting apologies from war criminals. Uinta One should be shut down, along with all Amerikkkan control units, per U.N. Declaration. And General McCrystal should be tried for his crimes per Geneva Convention.
These are the true “undesirables.” The true “criminals.”
In strength (no apologies) and struggle,
B.
Also published on: Utah Prison Watch
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