Targeted?

[Anna’s note: Tod wrote this post on the 25th of January 2017.] 

Hello again and welcome to the Roost.

I was planning on making my next post about the new program where they are putting two people out in “basketball courts” (just a concrete slab, fenced in, with a bare basketball hoop at one end) together. I still plan to tell you all about that soon.

But something just happened yesterday that I think may be of interest to at least some of you. It illustrates the chaos that is prevalent in this world. So I hope no one minds if I relate this occurrence today.

I have to begin by telling you that just about three weeks ago, a major unit-wide “quarterly search” was conducted. As the title indicates, these searches are done approximately four times a year, during which they look for weapons and “contraband” and in general do their level best to disrupt people’s routine as much as possible. So, that means that about three weeks ago all our property was gone through thoroughly and searched.

Now that you have that background…

I was recently asked by one of you whether I am worried about people who work for the AZ Department of Corrections finding out about this blog. (The answer was and still is “no.” If I needed something to worry about, I could find better.) And I am not sure, but I may have been asked what would happen if they did find out. (I know I have run down some possible things that could happen, anyway.)

Well, to perhaps remove the mystery… I may just have found out what would happen if these asswipe bastards found out about this blog.

To be fair, I must tell you at this point that I am not sure that is what has happened. But I have thought through the possibilities and the one that keeps rising to the top of the file, given what was done and “targeted” is that the blog must be the cause. But, this is all conjecture on my part at this juncture. And I want to make that abundantly clear.

Now, with this said, I will relate what happened for you.

Yesterday was a day I was supposed to get recreation time and a shower. (I was in fact supposed to go out to the basketball court with someone!) But everything was “shut down”. Those who asked for a shower were given some vague excuse about a “personnel shortage” and perhaps later. Others asked different guards about recreation, and each was given as different response…something was clearly up!

When a “normal” search is conducted, the search team starts in block or “pod” one, and they continue around the cluster (which holds six pods of ten cells each) until they complete the circle and are done. This is not what happened yesterday. At a bit after 9:00 (9 AM is when administration gets here and fills up their offices in a building adjacent to the prison unit proper.)

The door to this block (I am in pod two) bangs open and in rushes enough cops to “post up” on every cell. (Have not had this type of search since I got off the violence control unit pod years ago!) We were all strip searched (I have described this process before so I won’t go into detail again) and told to “dress warm” and were allowed to take bottles of water with us. We were taken out of the cluster where we encountered at least two, perhaps three, squads of SSU (special security unit… which I also have not been searched by since I was last in VCU). Generally there is only one squad here, so the extra were brought in from other units. Of course at this point, “the jig was up” and we knew we were not just getting hit, but hit hard.

We were taken to outside holding cages where we were put on constant watch by a guard who mostly just sat and looked at us. Asking anyone that showed up as we might about what was going on, we were told that they did not know and were only told that death row was to be “locked down” with no movement until further notice. This in and of itself was odd, as there have been no assaults or communique intercepted by anyone to warrant such a response. So this type of search, while not unknown (if you are in VCU and assaulting people) is unusual, and reserved for “special occasions” as it takes the type of preparation and personnel that it does, and is therefore expensive to pull off, both resource-wise and monetarily.

As I have said before, a “normal” search means we are pulled out and stuck in a shower or something for fifteen minutes or so while a team of two or three guards (not SSU) go through our stuff, and then we are put back in our cages right away.

After an hour and forty five minutes (!!!) we were removed from the outdoor holding cells and brought back inside.

Based on previous behavior of this type, I was expecting us to be moved to different locations all over the cluster (due to time involved and SSU being the perpetrators of the search). This is done when a group of people become too “one-minded” in that one person’s problem with staff becomes everyone’s problem, or there seems to be just too much organization in a block…

But, no, that was not the case. We were brought back to our cages to find the whole hour and forty-five minutes was spent going through our stuff!

I did not ask everyone, but the two I did ask were– like myself– targeted for information. (Paperwork gone through, pads of paper rifled through, that sort of thing.) In general, these types of searches on death row are pretty rare. They are usually reserved for members of prison gangs (which I am not) to try and find out about gang activity information. The last search I got of this type, with SSU being involved and everything, was literally years ago. (Again, when I was on VCU.) and then it was generally after a major and serious issue that had happened somewhere (like an assault that the cops believed had been ordered by another inmate) and nothing like that has even occurred here recently that I am aware of.

But let me tell you what was personally done in my cage on this search. Some (but not all…almost like it was a diversion of some sort) of caches of paperwork (legal work) in envelopes and files were apparently gone through. Letters that have been sent to me were also gone through. But a composition book I keep (and jot down mostly unimportant things in that I want to remember or keep track of) was barely touched! (Which would be the exact sort of thing they would be interested in on an information search…the asswipes do not know it’s nothing until they take it, copy it, and look for non-existent “codes” in it!)

I also have a small file on people of “personal interest” on the row, and although again, this is something that should interest them… well, I am not even sure it was looked at. But none of that… nope…

What they did take was a pad of paper that I had future blog ideas written down in– even a partial post written up on the basketball program was in there! And that was what they took.

They also took every pen I have! (I found this one that I am writing with now rolling around in the bottom of a box.) They took the rolled up paper holders I make for pens because I only get pen fillers to write with, not the plastic part that the filler goes inside of. As far as pencils, I am only allowed to have three-inch-long “golf pencils” so I made a holder for those to fit in and they took that, too! I have had that pencil holder for literally over ten years…gone through I have no idea how many searches! The leads on most of my pencils were broken.

I am pretty sure I am being sent a clear message!

I am very aware that, after extended periods of time in punitive lockdown, some degree of paranoia is bound to set in. (As well as any number of mental issues.) But I have tried to see what was done from other angles, and nothing else makes a lot of sense. I suppose there is some degree of chance that things just happened, out of the blue, to go the way they did. But can you imagine the odds of that? Because I can’t.

To me (a self-admitted asshole) the message that is being sent is simple: under no circumstances will I stop writing entries for this blog!

I must assume someone found Muninn’s Roost and clearly does not like it. Their problem, though, is that there is nothing they can do, legally or otherwise, to stop it! I am within my rights and no laws (or even prison rules!) are being broken, either by Anna or by me.

They can screw with me and make my life miserable. Some of my posts and letters may even “get lost” on the way to Anna. But they are otherwise powerless against their mortal enemy… the truth!!!

As I stated at the beginning of this post, this is all supposition on my part. I may never know one way or another whether my suspicions are correct. (Other than by my treatment here.) There may be clues that can be read (such as if the letters I send to Anna have large gaps between the date on the letter and the stamped postmark date, or if the envelopes are cut open on one end and taped back shut… that means the asswipes are opening them.) But as neither Anna nor I have or are doing anything wrong legally or otherwise, that may be all the evidence we will ever have.

I will have some trouble replacing what was taken. (Perhaps this was their plan? They know my financial situation– they have that on file in their computer system.) The pens I cannot afford to buy. The paper? There were only fifteen or twenty sheets left so I got to use over half anyway. (But it does sting a bit to have it stolen like that.) I can make my pencil holder up again and see if perhaps there is a market for cards….one or two, perhaps? Card drawing is pretty seasonal, except for birthdays, and there are a few people “gettin’ their hustle on” that way. Valentine’s Day is approaching… not a lot of time to get any business together for that, however. Just have to see.

I do know that I will keep posting about this place for as long as I can. I think it is important that I do that– especially now!

Yes, there were other things that were taken, non-blog-related things. Stuff not usually messed with (like my pencil holder) things that I use to make my existence a little bit less annoying. I may not make replacements, actually– my thoughts turn toward “pushing back” at this point.

Well, that is about all I have for this post. I will be back as soon as I can, and I will keep you updated if I ever do find out the reason for what happened. Oh, and I will tell you about the basketball program in the next post, barring any major upheavals here anyway.

Please do not forget to thank Anna….you would know nothing of me were it not for her.

 

The Experiment

Greetings yet again and welcome to the Roost. I don’t have a lot to tell you about at this time (the amount of boredom can quite literally be mind-numbing when you live in a cage.) But I will try to do the best that I can.

The holidays, while not distant yet, are slowly receding. The holidays themselves mean very little in a place like this, but they can be mentally trying. I think (I hope) I am finally getting over them.

We have heard (one can never trust information in here– you have to adapt an attitude of “I’ll believe it when I see it”) that after the first of the year, a new “experiment” will be tried. I suppose I should give you a bit of background…

Over nineteen years ago, death row was moved (arbitrarily) to this “supermax” unit from a lower custody unit. It was known at the time that so-called “supermax” or “special management” lockdown prison units were detrimental to the mental health of human beings, so they were used for punitive purposes, for individuals who were deemed uncontrollable by any other means. (Basically, people who could not be stopped from assaulting other inmates, guards, etc.) To accomplish this behavior modification, the environment was designed to be as uncomfortable and stressful as possible. People in the mental field did studies and deemed that a person should not be exposed to such an environment for more than six months at a time. And that is what happened…to those people who were/are moved here for punitive reasons.

And that is what happened…to those people who were/are moved here for punitive reasons. They are subjected to an environment that is mentally unhealthy and physically uncomfortable for a period of six months to perhaps a year at most to induce a modification in unacceptable behavior.

Now that you have that information, I will skip ahead about seventeen years… through which every study and recommendation about punitive supermax units has been conveniently forgotten, and death row continues to be housed in an out-of-the-way, back section of a punitive supermax unit. Furthermore, said studies and recommendations deal only with a short-term transient punitive population, which is what it these units are intended for– not death row! (The deputy warden has actually been overheard telling groups of lawyers and prisoners’ rights activists that no one is housed here for more than a year.)

Well, a couple of years back, we finally found a group of lawyers that were willing to take our case to court. The Arizona Department of Correction is acutely aware that it has been doing something that can only be called inhumane– and they have been doing it for almost two decades. ADoC is also aware that it cannot withstand the light being shed upon this matter and will at some point be forced to modify its behavior and correct its wrongdoing.

The Arizona Department of Corrections knows that if this case is allowed to be adjudicated to its logical conclusion, they will be forced to either outright move the entire population of death row to a lower custody (and more humane) unit, or at least allow for some path by which people on death row can move to a lower custody unit. But they are aware that there are people who have been subjected to the mentally horrendous and stressful conditions of this unit for that entire nineteen years and may not be suitable for face-to-face contact with the prison guards that have been in some cases torturing them for almost two decades.

So the prison has an idea to thwart the court case…

This now brings me to the aforementioned “experiment”. After the first of the year, the prison will institute a “close custody” section of Special Management II (IE, the Browning Unit, where I am currently housed.) Close custody is the next-lowest level of custody after lockdown. But they are not doing it like it would be done if a court ordered it– they are doing it their own “special” way… as far as we can tell, anyway.

They appear to be marking people for this experiment whom they know, without a doubt, have isues with… shall we say… certain elements of the prison population which even we prisoners consider to be low-life pieces of human refuse. (That element would be child molesters, rapists, and “baby killers”… the people that the rest of us hate.) And they are (again, as far as we can tell) going to mix us in liberally with individuals (human refuse, that is) who, if a court ordered the prison had to allow death row off out of lockdown and into close custody, would have to be put into protective custody or special sex offender units for their own safety.

(Yes, I am one of the people that may be slated for inclusion in this experiment, whom the prison knows, without a doubt, will look upon the aforementioned pieces of human refuse with evil intent. There is nothing I hate more than a rapist or anyone who would hurt a child.)

This seems to be an effort to derail the whole court case (which has yet to be fully adjudicated) by creating a situation which may result in an extremely horrific outcome, after which the prison can say, “See! We can’t let these death row animals out of their cages! Imagine what they would do to the guards if we did!” Using the outcome of their very calculated “experiment” as an example. They even brought around a piece of paper for us to sign which stated we cannot contest our “housing assignment,” meaning they will mix in sex offenders, etc. whenever and wherever they please!

You may be of the mindset that would say “people did not have to sign this piece of paper if they didn’t wish to,” …which would be true, in your world. Prison is a society of sorts, a culture outside of yours, with its own ethics and rules. (A large book could be written on this subject alone, so I won’t go into it deeply). I will simply say that when the prison brings around a piece of paper like that, a person like me does not see choice. It is more of a matter of “sure, give me that thing; I’ll sign it!” and then afterwards what comes from it is dealt with, abiding by one’s personal sense of honor and the above-mentioned code of ethics and rules.

To go deeply into that would violate a code of conduct that is observed by the individuals in this environment which has been created for us to survive in by the society that you have created through your votes for elected officials, and your seemingly-nonchalant attitude concerning how your moral and ethical codes of conduct are visited upon your fellow citizens who have been caught up in this world, and ground into a base survival form of barbaric proto-human by an extremely corrupt judicial system…so it’s best for me to leave off there.

At this point in time, I do not know whether I will end up being moved or not, or even what sort of an environment I might end up in if and when I do, but I will try to keep you all updated on this “experiment” as I am able, and that will very likely provide some rather interesting blog entries as the future unfolds… or perhaps not, depending on what the prison officials in their seemingly infinite amount of unadulterated stupidity end up doing. (And one of the absolutes I have learned from living in a lockdown punitive unit for nineteen years is that the Arizona Department of Corrections has ane endless supply of stupidity, and the higher you go in the chain of command, the stupidity increases exponentially.) But in any event, the future here should be interesting.

Well, for not having much to tell you, I did go on a bit, didn’t I? But for now, I will give Anna’s much-appreciated typing skills a break. So, until next time, keep the shiny side up. And please remember to thank Anna for allowing you to keep track of my exploits here within this theatre of the absurd. I thank her, too, but not nearly enough.

All I Want for Christmas is My Civil Liberties

Hello again! It seems as if the muses do not wish for me to mentally “move out” of this place today, but something else has given me cause to rant.

First I need to give you a bit of background. I am only allowed to keep so much in my cage. (This is, of course, to make it easier for them to throw things around, as stated in a previous post on being searched.) For this reason, I am allowed to put legal work (only legal work) into a supposedly secure storage area.

In order to be allowed to do this, the prison has to agree to some conditions. The first and foremost one– and the one I will be telling you about– is that, when requested, the prison has 72 hours in which they must get me the requested box. (The boxes are numbered so that they can be found and pulled.) This is because people on death row are under active appeal and must have timely access to all legal material, as most of us have inadequate legal assistance (they are called “dump truck lawyers”) and we do a fair amount of work on our own legal cases. So now that you have that information…

Four days ago I put in a request to get a legal box out of storage. As it was not delivered yesterday (the 72-hour-deadline) I was on the first asswipe that walked through the block about getting with someone from “property” (where legal boxes are stored) and asking that my legal boxes actually be dealt with as prescribed under law. (I was nice and polite about this. You know, the whole “honey vs. vinegar” adage) and I waited to see what would happen.

What happened is: hours passed, and no legal box. So, shortly before it was too late for boxes to ever show up, I inquired once more about the situation. This is where it becomes very ironic.

I was told that the unit deputy warden was leading a tour around the unit, and I would not get my legal box until the following week. Upon further questioning, I was told that this tour was members of the ACLU (which oversees that our civil liberties are not being violated.) I was also told that legal visits were as much as half an hour late for people to speak to their lawyers (we are allotted time in one-hour blocks to see our lawyers. If you miss some time, there is likely someone after you that needs to see their lawyer as well.) To be fair, I doubt the lawyers from the ACLU know anything about this. But I know that the deputy warden indeed did.

So I am being denied timely access to requested legal material guaranteed to me under the law because administration was showing the lawyers from the ACLU that my rights are not being violated. (Rights like reasonable access to my stored legal material.) People were being denied the right to discuss matters related to their death penalty cases because the administrators were showing the lawyers from the ACLU that people’s rights (like access to legal counsel) were not being violated.

I exist in a world that not merely functions but thrives on such absurdities as this. I used to get pretty upset over things like this. (By “upset” I mean I would hold the Arizona Department of Corrections personnel responsible for their actions.) But over time, and through much meditation, I have figured out that reacting to every little thing (even things that are very stupid on their part) is only allowing them to get into my head and exert more control over me…so now I more carefully and more strategically pick my battles.

We have no outside advocates here…not really anyway. Our legal counsel will deal only with issues that pertain directly to our cases. (They claim there is not enough money for anything else.) They call occurrences like the aforementioned incident “issues of confinement” and say they call into the category of civil law and are not their concern.

But only rarely…very rarely…can we find a lawyer willing to take a case pro bono (without pay– we have no money either) because when taken to court, the Department of Corrections claims “isolated incident and new procedural measures are now in place to assure it won’t happen again” (which is almost always a lie!) and the court rules in their favor and the case is dismissed. And we can no longer bring cases to court ourselves because the state legislature passed a law that took away our legal library because inmates who were willing to invest the time were winning too many cases.

I try not to live with a lot of anger, but that can be difficult to do in this environment. I have begun to ponder the question of what may happen to me if the prison finds out that I have a blog and am telling the outside world about this place and what goes on in it.

The system does not like the truth. It functions on lies and the public’s willingness to believe lies that serve a purpose that may protect “the greater good”. (Or what they call “the greater good” anyway.)

The Sacrament

I live in darkness — not a physical place,
Devoid of light — but a darkness in my
soul… a life without light– little meaning
and even less joy.

Nothing is my own — nothing is private,
nothing is secret — fingers, not mine
touch everything — take everything…
chaos — confusion — pain.

Decades this has been my world — no contact
except to be chained — led everywhere
Not even an illusion of freedom is allowed
in a world of shit I do my best to survive…
But sometimes — sometimes

The darkness — I can’t keep it in sometimes.
It screams to be let out– screams only
I can hear — they tear at the very fabric of
my psyche… bend my mind to embrace the
darkness– has it become what is best in me?

I bleed — my sanity runs like blood from a
wound. A face I hardly recognize looks back
at me from a piece of polished steel — a face
Distrusted and bent — is it truly mine? I
feel distorted and bent…

It can be difficult to tell physical from mental
pain… it all runs together somehow… I
wonder if it matters — truly — some hurt
themselves just to feel… what? I can only
imagine. I haven’t made to their level… yet.
Maybe someday.

Someone far more wise than I said: one
should learn to love fate– amore fati–
to have nothing other than the the way it is.
Not only to bear what is necessary to bear,
But to learn to love it.

My fate– darkness– it is illegal to keep
animals in a zoo as I am kept… it is deemed
inhumane — am I less than an animal? A
beast to be locked away and feared… is
humanity beasts?

To love fate I must love all it has done
to me– love the darkness — love the anger,
love the beast…

I must baptize these as
the best in me — will the sacrament be
blood? Or my sanity?