THE RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH ENABLES PRISON OFFICIALS TO LIE BIG TO THE PUBLIC (2025) By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

I’ve been writing articles on U.S. prison abuses for decades – since 2004. My first report was about racism and mistreatment at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison, titled “Red Onion State Prison, An Exposé: Racism and Abuse Equals Kind and Unusual Punishment in Virginia.” Which can be read on my website rashidmod.com. (1)

In response to my reports and resisting prison abuses, I have been targeted with all manner of retaliations, attempts at censorship, and was even bounced all over the country in interstate transfers meant to isolate me and in blatant attempts to instigate and set me up for violent conflict with prisoners in other states who didn’t know me. I continued resisting and reporting on abuses in those various states as well, which can also be read on my website. I was kicked out of each state in turn.

Officials never responded to my exposés on the merits. They have never denied the facts of my reports. They couldn’t. The best they managed was to try and discredit what I was saying by attempting to play to racist stereotypes and prejudices, that I shouldn’t be believed simply because I was a prisoner. Just as during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, Blacks were forbidden from giving testimony against whites and bearing witness to racist outrages. We had no credibility because of our skin color. The New slavery and Jim Crow targeted especially at people of color is mass imprisonment. Today, orange is indeed the new Black. It’s the same shit different toilet.

The one time that prison officials did try to discredit me was when I reported that Texas prison officials had murdered two prisoners in the Clements Unit where I was then confined. After their denials I was able to confirm that they indeed murdered both men exactly as I’d previously reported when federal lawsuits were filed by the dead prisoners’ next of kin and medical records confirmed exactly what I’d reported. See my article, “Who’s Lying Now? Official Records Show Texas Officials are Murdering Prisoners.” (2)

I’ve brought all this up because recently ranking Va prison officials attempted to deny and discredit reports I sent out that received broad media and public attention, about several men setting themselves on fire at Red Onion in desperate efforts to be transferred away from racist abuses there.

In fact the first journalist that I brought the matter to, Phil Wilayto of the Va Defenders newspaper, was initially sceptical of reporting on the self-burnings because when he contacted Red Onion about the matter the warden denied the reports. In fact Phil wrote to me on Oct 26, 2024 stating,

“I have spoken with several advocates who are in touch with guys at Red Onion, and no one has heard any information about people setting themselves on fire. One advocate has been in touch with at least one of the people you mentioned. At least two reporters are looking into this, one of whom is in direct touch with Red Onion prisoners, and they can’t find any information. Meantime, the warden is denying that any fires took place.”

Phil was reluctant to pursue the story if I couldn’t put him into contact with other prisoners who could verify or bear witness to the self-burnings. He was relying heavily on the lies of the warden. Coincidentally, I was moved into a cell in close proximity with Demetrius Wallace, one of the men I wrote about who’d set himself on fire. I had him call Phil. He confirmed to Phil that he in fact did set himself on fire and received a disciplinary infraction for having flames coming off his leg and was treated for two weeks at a hospital burn center, which proved Red Onion officials were lying.

Phil went ahead with the story, and quoted both me and Demetrius. (3) But he cautioned me that Luca Powell, a Richmond Times Dispatch reporter who he was trying to encourage to also take up the story, emailed him that the story of prisoners setting themselves on fire at Red Onion, “doesn’t hold water.”

Indeed the Virginia prison system’s director Chadwick Dotson went on record in a Nov 27, 2024 article written by Powell stating that my reports of prisoners setting themselves on fire and self-immolating was false and “ludicrous.” (4)

Subsequently several Va legislators confirmed the self-immolations. (5)

Then, in a Jan 8, 2025 article The Appeal revealed that it had obtained 2024 email exchanges between Red Onion’s assistant warden, major and investigator where they wrote, “in the past few weeks” three prisoners had “set Fire to themselves.” The emails also spoke of Red Onion officials considering criminal prosecutions of these prisoners for “setting fires in their cells.” And admitted they had been charged with institutional infractions for “setting a fire damaging or injury to persons or property,” and “self mutilation.” (6)

The emails totally contradicted Dotson’s quoted statement in the Nov 27 Richmond Times Dispatch article where he said, “To be clear, these inmates did not set themselves on fire or self immolate.” (7)

Not only did these officials play to racist stereotypes and incitement to public prejudice to lie about and have the media discredit reports I sent out about the prisoner burnings and the inhumane conditions they were in response to, but they totally evaded and glossed over those racist and abusive conditions in doing so. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler himself wrote about the effectiveness of feeding the public what he called “big lies” to control their perceptions and reactions and to indoctrinate them into following whatever officials desired. (8)

Reputable media usually correct false reports. The Times Dispatch has not printed a retraction of Dotson’s lies. Government controlled media is a fundamental feature of a fascist system in power.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

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Endnotes:

1. http://www.rashidmod.com/?p=176

2. http://www.rashidmod.com/?p=2128

3. Phil Wilayto, “Crisis & Cover-up at Red Onion Supermax,” The Virginia Dedfender, Nov 6, 2024 http://virginiadefender.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/vdef-autumn-2024-3.pdf

4. Luca Powell, “Red Onion Rumors of Self-Immolation ‘Ludicrous,’ Says Prison Chief,” Richmond Times Dispatch, Nov 27, 2024 http://richmond.com/news/state-regional/crime-courts/red-onion-prison-virginia-inmates-burned-chadwick-dotson/article_8153a1b4-acfa-11ef-b76f-93763c8c45c3.html

5. “Virginia Lawmakers Want to Know Why 6 Inmates Have Burned Themselves,” The New York Times, Dec 1, 2024, http://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/us/virginia-prisoners-burns-protest.html

6. See, note 4, above

7. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, “Prisoners Burned Themselves So Staff Recommend ‘Making Them Pay Money,” The Appeal, Jan 8, 2025

8. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Vol 1: Chapter X: Causes of Collapse. At http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch10.html