In: SF Bay View, October 24, 2013
In my 29
years of incarceration, I had never seen what I would witness on Sept. 24,
2013, on our way back to Pelican Bay State Prison’s solitary confinement
torture chambers after our temporary transfer during the hunger strike.
We must
commend our 20 prisoner representatives for having the foresight to see that
the CDCr officials would be utilizing their authority – their power – to create
situations and circumstances that would attempt to encourage and manipulate
warfare between races inside the prison environment.
On the
way to CSP-Sac (New Folsom prison), on Aug. 23, 2013, for our emergency medical
transfer from PBSP Ad-Seg, we prisoners were placed on the bus and separated by
race. New Afrikans were placed in the up front cages. The whites were placed across
from the New Afrikans in the wider cage, but still up front.
The
larger group of Mexicans from the Los Angeles County area was placed in the
back of the bus, and they too were cut off from each other by a dividing cage
door. The bus had cameras in the back and the front of the bus, so the
transportation officer who’s not driving could keep us under surveillance. This
was their legitimate security protocol for transferring so-called highly
secured prisoners.
So why
were security protocols neglected on the way back? There was one white, one
Mexican from the northern district and two New Afrikan prisoners among a total
of 25 prisoners on the bus. The remainder were Mexican prisoners from the Los
Angeles County area. Yet there was no attempt to secure the bus.
We
prisoners were hopping from seat to seat. It was all good. The front row cages
were not locked, which afforded us the freedom to move about freely. There was
a “colorful” transportation officer named Wagner, who came on the bus to give a
speech, talking about nothing. I’d never seen him before in my life prior to
this bus ride, but he get on the bus talking all this nonsense and he kept
alluding to me by name, saying, “Ain’t that right, Crawford?” I would say
nothing in response.
I didn’t
read too much into this initially, but after we got five hours from Pelican Bay
State Prison, it was nightfall outside, and here is where, in all my 29 years
of incarceration, I have never seen anything so blatantly clear. Earlier we had
picked up a young 23-year-old New Afrikan from Old Folsom named Tay, who was 15
months to the house and had never been to prison in his life. Young and
innocent, he would make the third New Afrikan in the bus.
We would
be unable to see each other for the next five and a half hours, due to
transporting officers refusing to turn on the lights, and not one prisoner
requested that they do so. It was so dark you could not see the person next to
you. Never before has this ever happened for such a long period of time on a
CDCr transportation bus, especially with the caliber of prisoners that these
so-called officials call “the worst of the worst.”
Now we
prisoners have to realize that these types of situations will be prevalent
throughout our futures because CDCr will do whatever is within its power to
place us as prisoners back on a path of senseless, reckless violence in order
to serve their interests. They wanted the majority to attack the non-majority
when there existed a clear opportunity to do so provided by the CDCr
transportation.
But our
20 representatives had the ability to understand our historical contradictions
and how CDCr utilizes these same realities in order to allow one group to
attack another based on how they place them inside the prison theater. CDCr
officials allow each race, depending on who they are out of favor with, to have
total dominance over the other races, which can unfortunately lead to
opportunities for attacks by the majority race.
The End to All Hostilities declared last year by our representatives has basically
weakened CDCr’s ability to create race, gang and internal warfare inside the
prison theater to the extent that they once did. We prisoners have to be very
conscious of the many traps that will be set by prison officials toward
encouraging prisoners into warfare. We have to remain very vigilant inside
these prison environments to protect our End to All Hostilities.
After we
finally got to PBSP, one of the elders, Huerta, turned to me and said, “Mutope,
you see what they just tried to do?” I ‘sponded, “I sure did!” He said, “You
need to put that out there.” “You know I am,” I smiled.
The
youngster, Tay, from Richmond, Calif., was a fish out of water. I pulled him to
the back of the bus with me and an elderly New Afrikan prisoner, Dadisi, and
after he was done talking with the two of us, on occasion he would lean back
and go to sleep, unaware of any threat whatsoever for an innocent Level 2
prisoner who had no clue.
Hopefully,
when he learns more about the prison environment, he will come to appreciate
the 20 representatives for their foresight to institute an End to All Hostilities. He was the only prisoner to sleep on the bus.
Note:
Level 4 prisoners are maximum security prisoners and Level 2 are minimum
security prisoners – a world of difference between the two.
Mutope Duguma
