November 10th, 2008
Hi Folks!
I’ve read a lot of stories here lately, and a transcript of the special session of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee run by Mr. Whitmire. I’d liken it to Torquemada during the inquisistion, to say the least.
Lots of things come to light and we see the agit propaganda nature of this; the radical distortion by the news media is sickening. Some people just love to kick someone when they’re down, don’t they. Those on death row are about as “down” as they can get – “among the lowest of the dead” as David Von Drehle says.
Some of them are sadistic indeed and I’ve watched and witnessed their depravity firsthand. It’s particularly galling since I’m not guilty of the crime I’m here for. That aside, the guilty shouldn’t be treated like that either.
Charles Nealy was tortured relentlessly before he was executed, to the point he broke down and cried for days. He suffered that at the hands of our good captain here, assisted by one of his lieutenants. He’s only one of many subjected to that fate.
More recently, in the wake of the Tabler phone fiasco, this same captain sent escort officers to talk to another prisoner by the name of Weathers, to tell him OIG wanted to talk to him. Weathers said he was invoking his Miranda and fifth amendment rights, standing on the first and fourteenth amendments. So the good captain ordered Weathers to be gassed excessively (order the UOF video and watch it. “UOF” is use of force). The goon squad “run-in” on him and beat him up. For good measure they took all his property and to date have yet to give it back, over 15 days later. This is Torquemada at his worst. In the U.S. even a condemned man has the right to remain silent and may not be punished for it.
This situation with the phones was caused by unit administration to begin with. Billy Hirsch installed a non-mailroom employee in the mailroom named William Cook to pore over prisoners’ mail and glean from it. You’re not behaving like Warden Hirsch thinks you should? You live for your mama’s visits, you wrote her and said? Well, Warden Hirsch will just take your mama (or your brother, wife, sister, friend, etc.) off your visit list over some spurious, imaginary rule violation. That’ll teach you, won’t it.
He and Warden Simmons did this very thing to my wife in June of this year. She’d done nothing wrong but had previously challenged his misapplication and outright violation of policy concerning special visits, and won. It was also written about in the media, to Hirsch’s detriment. My wife is French. We’ve been together almost 13 years now, she’s visited regularly for 10 or 11 of those years and never had a problem in all that time, until now.
Texas holds DR prisoners in prolonged and profound isolation 23 hrs a day. If you were about to die and they were killing your contemporaries all around you, 2 or 3 a week, would you want to call or visit your loved ones and family before they killed you too? Think your mama would want to talk to you before you die? 2,800 calls in 30 days, not a single threat.
Carey Steve Staples was warden to death row in 1997. He instituted draconian policies and treatment just as Gestapoesque “shakendown team” to terrorize prisoners. They run off in these guys cells, a whole row at a time and just destroy virtually everything they have. They tear up the prisoners’ meager belongings, throw everything all over the cell, tear in half or walk all over prisoners’ photos of loved ones; when they’re done it looks like a tornado tore thru your cell. Everything is ripped up, apart, broken, poured out, etc. I was subjected to this on October 20th most recently, as were several others.
The confiscated stuff is virtually impossible to replace on a lockdown as there are no commissary purchases allowed, except stamps and hygiene but I can’t even buy that. In ’98 this caused an escape. Now phones or suicide are the only options. Back in July Hirsch had his goons “run in” on me and wrote me up for “assaulting” a riot shield. Ha/ha. The property officer, Smith, took all my property and destroyed much of it while “searching” it. She also destroyed my I.D. card which I must have to make commissary purchases. Although I’ve filled out a form a month ago (finally, previously they wouldn’t give me a form, even) to get a new card. I still don’t have one, as the warden has to sign off on the form and apparently he refuses to do so. So, you know, these are the kind of things that lead to extreme measures. I’m not going to be held incommunicado so I have to come up with stamps some way. Now claiming they must be contraband since I last made commissary in July and she didn’t find them last time she and her compadres ransacked my cell. She destroyed my I.D. card. That’s why I haven’t made commissary since July. Now she wishes to punish me for her own misconduct?
Stamps denial implicates violation of first amendment rights.
Well, let me get on to Tabler, the phone, this is the oddest thing. It’s so contrived and manufactured it’s beyond belief. I’m sitting here reading these stories and I’m agog at the blatant lies they’re telling. To give you some examples, I’ll go with the ABC News story by Emily Friedman and Tracey Gudwin, 10.30.08 “Death Row Wireless Crime Spree probed” and “Texas Prisons on lockdown over illicit cell phones paid for by European Women” – the title itself is both slanderous and libelous. (1) What “crime spree”? No one on DR has been accused of anything but talking on a phone while possessing one. While that is crime, it’s hardly a “spree”. Secondly nobody has been arrested for paying for anything except Tabler’s mother and she is a resident of Georgia not a “European” woman. Ditto his sister, a resident of Temple, Texas. They’re not “European women”, but U.S. residents!!
The story itself says investigators are “probing” whether women in Europe gave money to death row inmates to buy prohibited phones that were allegedly used to direct crimes from behind bars.
While the story says that it’s only being investigated, the title incorrectly states it as a fact. The cited reason for this belief is merely that the prisoners called overseas. Well, they made domestic calls, too. One of them called Senator Whitmire. I don’t see that as any “evidence” he paid for one of the phones, do you? So why attack “European women”? This smacks of a story “planted” in the media by Wardens Simmons, Hirsch, OIG Moriarty and P/O spokeswoman Michel Lyons. As I said before, ever since my wife challenged Hirsch on his mistreatment of prisoners and violations of the visitation policy, he’s had a real problem with “European women”. This is the second such derogatory story he’s contrived. The first appearing last year in the Dallas Morning News. This story and the one before it are the basest agit propaganda. (see the “death row news” section on my website for the previous story).
Onward with this ABC story… No phones have been used to “direct crimes from behind bars”. Moriarty cites an instance where drug smuggling and solicitation of a capital murder were thwarted by prison officials, but the context implies this happened in population somewhere. It certainly didn’t happen on D.R., because if someone here were arrested for it, we’d have heard about it by now. Instead of vagaries, Moriarty should be called upon to provide verifiable facts.
Moriarty says “cell phones are a direct threat to public safety” – well maybe, if some lonely prisoner talked you to death. TDCJ is installing a pay phone system for all general population prisoners to use, except D.R. and ad seg prisoners. Is this then not also a direct threat to public safety? Of course not, long as TDCJ makes $$$ off it. Ultimately the issue is not phone use, cellular or payphone landline, but TDCJ’s desire to control, suppress, subjugate, censor, restrict and deny the expression of free speech. Why? Because they don’t want these prisoners to be able to tell you what’s really going on in here, what these conditions are like, what barbaric and draconian physical and psychological tortures go on daily behind these walls and closed doors, that’s why.
I’m wondering who put Tabler up to calling Whitmire? I seriously doubt he’d have done it on his own. Where would he get the number? Someone had to give it to him. Someone told me the phone he had couldn’t dial information and didn’t have any Internet capability. If that’s true, then someone had to give him the number, didn’t they? Someone who had access to it. No guard would’ve done that. Anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would instantly recognize the disastrous effect of giving such information to someone like Tabler. No other prisoner would have done it either. You see why I believe this whole thing was set-up, contrived? Had to be.
The quoted passages show Tabler didn’t “speak flippantly” or “arrogantly brag about how easy it was to get a phone”; he merely succinctly and calmly answered Whitmire’s questions: “how’d you get a phone?” A: “$2100 Dude”. “How are you charging it?” A: “I have a charger”. He didn’t say anything about how easy or hard it was, but merely that it cost a lot.
No guard gave Tabler that phone. When his cell was searched the first time, he didn’t “hand it of to a guard” either. As I’ve told you before, for the most part we have honest, humane guards here. If you tried to hand one of them a phone, they’d be so shocked they’d have a hemorrhage on the spot. Tabler didn’t pay $2100 for a phone to any guard. Whoever put him up to calling Whitmire gave him the phone to use, to do it, I’d bet money on that.
Back to the “European women”. If they, or anyone else, gave prisoners funds for legal or other legitimate expenses and the prisoner or others misallocated the funds to pay for cell phones, how could that be the fault of “European women”?
My wife was interviewed for this story. ABC News wrongly implied she wasn’t aware and didn’t care where their donations go. That’s not what she said at all. What she said was “ I don’t judge people, they do what they need to with it” speaking of funds. What she was saying was “if you think funds have been misused, you need to be talking to those responsible for such misuse, not me.” Texas judiciary and legislators are always harping on “personal responsibility” for one’s own actions but I suppose this concept doesn’t apply when you want to blindly blame good-hearted “European women” for other’s actions, right? Obviously.
I cannot speak for Myriam Stubbe, but I really rather doubt she actually said all the things attributed to her in quotes. I’d bet money her words have been liberally adulterated and misused out of context to achieve the desired results.
Now we’ve been on lockdown for a month and fed nothing but 2 sandwiches 2 times a day, one of which is always peanut butter cut with something else. For breakfast we’re given usually 2 greasy, burnt-to-a-crisp pancakes with no syrup or, cereal with no milk and another peanut butter sandwich. One of my friends down the run says that he got a letter from his loved one saying the warden told her we’re being fed hot meals now. That is a blatant lie. As of Monday last week we’re being fed one hot meal (lunch) every 3 or 4 days. The kitchen captain defends this starvation diet by saying the warden ordered him to feed us only 1200 calories per day on this lockdown. 1200 calories per day, according to USDA guidelines. , is for active female children 4 to 8 years old. Grown, sedentary men 30-50 years old require 2200 calories per day and over 50 2000 calories per day. (2) I’d bet you that we’re not actually getting more than 800-1000 calories per day. For example, tonight for supper we got a biscuit with breaden fish patty (sewer trout, we call it. It’s tough as shoe leather and largely inedible. My stomach is still hurting from eating it) and one hamburger bun with a plop of peanut butter on it, about 1/8” thick. If that was more than 300 calories I’ll eat my hat (really I don’t have a hat or would have already eaten it. Ha/ha). I’ve lost over 15lbs at least on this month long peanut butter diet. It’s obvious the warden is using this as a form of punishment in addition to the prolonged lockdown and triple shakedown. I myself have been shook down more than anyone five times in less than seven days and the only things they took from me were items I’m allowed to possess on my level. Of course I’ve been filing grievances and inciting activism on the outside again, so they’re hating on me. I have ample documentation to back that up.
But don’t let anyone tell you I’m a “troublemaker”. Prior to this latest terror wave, I’d not done a run-in since December 16th, 2003. For almost 5 years I sat in my cell and minded mine. I discouraged others from making waves and I counseled my friends on the outside to do likewise. Little by little though, things continually got worse and worse. So now I guess we’re back to square one.
We were already on lockdown since October 13th when Governor Perry ordered this “massive lockdown prison sweep, the first in over a decade” ha/ha. We get put on lockdown once very 6 months for a major shakedown that lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to a month and that’s system wide I’m told, so how the hell is this “Governor ordered” lockdown the “first major prison sweep in over a decade”?!! The result of this is we’re still on lockdown, we were on lockdown and being shaken down a full week before the rest of the system and now, according to my sources, we’re one of the last 6 or 7 units still on lockdown and as of Monday or Tuesday when other units come off lockdown we’ll be one of the last 3 still on lockdown. Likely we’ll be the last unit still on lockdown.
For breakfast we were given 2 greasy pancakes (I’d challenge any person out there to actually eat one of these things and if they could do it without gagging, I’d give them $50!) and one dobie biscuit smeared with peanut butter, 1 oz of bran flakes, no sugar, syrup, butter or milk. Just dry cereal, dry pancakes and a damn biscuit. The condiments are the only things that allow you to choke this shit down, with some water. Without them, you simple cannot eat it. A month into the lockdown (28 days today 11/10/08), even the guys on level I, who had commissary, now no longer have any other food to eat and those of us on level II and III have had nothing anyway. I had a little salad dressing and sliced pickle but that wench Smith robbed me of that and a half bag of chips on 10/20/08. So… More starvation in store, I suppose.
More later,
Hank
http://www.hankskinner.org/
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580
