{"id":2541,"date":"2018-02-20T19:54:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T19:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?p=2541"},"modified":"2018-02-20T19:54:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T19:54:33","slug":"florida-warden-retaliates-for-article-publicizing-prison-abuses-slave-labor-and-prisoner-protest-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?p=2541","title":{"rendered":"Florida Warden Retaliates For Article Publicizing Prison Abuses, Slave Labor and Prisoner Protest (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rashid-2013-self-portrait1\"<\/a>During early January 2018 my article \u201cFlorida Prisoners Are Laying It Down\u201d was published online, which discussed the prevalence of enforced slave labor in the Florida Department of Corruption (FDOC), the brutally inhumane conditions under which its prisoners live, and a planned nonviolent protest they were staging in efforts to bring attention and redress to these conditions.<\/p>\n

Upon discovering my article online[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>, Barry Reddish, the warden of Florida State Prison (FSP) where I am confined, unleashed swift retaliation against me.<\/p>\n

One January 10, 2018 Reddish had his lieutenant Martin Sanders, fabricate a disciplinary report (DR) against me, claiming my article was, \u201cInciting a riot\u201d in the prisons. A facially bogus charge as anyone who reads my article can see, since it contains no language directing or encouraging prisoners to do anything, and furthermore FDOC prisoners have no access to the internet where it was published.<\/p>\n

What obviously incensed FDOC officials was my bearing witness to and publishing their abuses and giving a voice to their victims. Which amounts to nothing but constitutionally protected journalism.<\/p>\n

Free Press and Speech at a Cost<\/h3>\n

Which is why the FDOC has made no such accusations against the Miami Herald<\/em> for publishing similar articles. Take for example the Herald\u2019s<\/em> August 17, 2017 report on a statewide lockdown of Florida prisons, imposed for several days in anticipation of prisoners protesting inhumane conditions[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The newspaper even quoted a former warden Ron McAndrews denouncing the lockdown as likely to exacerbate tensions because of the intense Florida heat and its prisons having no air conditioning. He made clear that these conditions would be tantamount to torture, and invited readers to try it themselves, \u201cyou would not be able to sleep,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Was the Herald<\/em> inciting a riot? Of course not.<\/p>\n

What I and this paper were engaged in was conveying information about public officials and institutions that it is the public\u2019s fundamental right to know, and that we have a fundamental right to communicate. Which are what the U.S. Constitution<\/em> embodies in the rights of free press and speech. As to free press the Supreme Court has stated:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitutional guarantees of a free press assures the maintenance of our political system and an open society and secures<\/em> the<\/em> paramount<\/em> public<\/em> interest<\/em> in<\/em> a<\/em> free<\/em> flow<\/em> of<\/em> information<\/em> to<\/em> the<\/em> public<\/em> concerning<\/em> public<\/em> officials<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he First and Fourteenth Amendments also protect<\/em> the<\/em> right<\/em> of<\/em> the<\/em> public<\/em> to<\/em> receive<\/em> such<\/em> information<\/em> and<\/em> ideas<\/em> as<\/em> are<\/em> published.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And as to free speech:<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he right of free speech includes the right to communicate a person\u2019s view to any willing listener.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And furthermore:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment forbids prison officials from retaliating against prisoners for exercising the right of free speech.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Guards Incite Violence Against Herald<\/h3>\n

But as warden Reddish\u2019s actions demonstrate, the notoriously corrupt FDOC doesn\u2019t recognize nor respect any such rights. It\u2019s deeply ingrained culture of corruption, racism, and abuse compels secrecy, and engenders retaliatory impulses against those who seek to expose it.<\/p>\n

In fact FDOC officials were just caught inciting<\/em> retaliatory violence and expressing such urges against the Miami Herald<\/em> for its exposing prison abuses.<\/p>\n

This exposure came when posts from a closed facebook page shared by hundreds of FDOC guards was leaked to the Herald<\/em>. Incensed because the paper broke a story about an asthmatic prisoner who was sadistically gassed to death by FDOC guards, they posted such remarks as, \u201cI would like to slap everybody associated with the Miami Herald in the mouth.\u201d Followed by their posting a map with directions to the Herald<\/em>\u2019s office.[6]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Furthermore, like a lynch mob they mocked and made jokes about the prisoner, who died lying with his face pressed to a crack at the bottom of a solid steel cell door searching desperately for air, with a Bible in his hand.<\/p>\n

Lying DRs – Just Doing Their Jobs<\/h3>\n

But this isn\u2019t the first time Reddish and his staff have retaliated against me for publicizing abusive prison conditions. My last article, \u201cLynching Culture,\u201d brought a similar response, because I wrote about the frequent killings of prisoners by FDOC officials, and quoted a ranking FSP guard, Sergeant Alvin Cazee, who in a veiled threat boasted to me about many such killings targeted at prisoners who create problems, and their being covered up as suicides.[7]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Right after that article was published and Cazee read it online, he fabricated a DR claiming that a note was intercepted that I supposedly attempted to pass another prisoner, which contained threats to send my \u201cconnections\u201d after his family and the family of an FSP mental health worker. He even had a note forged stating this, in a handwriting and grammar nothing like my own.<\/p>\n

Filing false DRs is a common practice in the FDOC. Actually it is part of a \u201ccode\u201d that guards are trained into. As a former FDOC guard revealed to the Herald<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018First, they teach you how to write a false DR [disciplinary report] against an inmate. They tell you you have to write it to \u2018make it stick,\u2019 to use certain language.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisciplinary reports result in a loss of privileges and can also lead to delays in an inmate\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Sometimes they will even write it for you – all filled with lies so they can say they beat or gassed someone because they deserved it,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes those reports written by corrections officers have a familiar cadence and wording.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enforced Disappearance<\/h3>\n

But the retaliation goes deeper still. Although prior prison systems denied as much, Florida admitted that I\u2019ve been bounced from state to state and am now in Florida in retaliation for and with intentions to repress my publicizing prison abuses.[9]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> They further admitted in writing that I\u2019ve been thrown into solitary confinement for these reasons.[10]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Florida not only retaliates against prisoners who dare expose its abuses, however, but those who are persistent outright disappeared.<\/p>\n

It was done to Harold Hempstead, the prisoner who witnessed and exposed the death of Darren Rainey, a mentally ill man who was killed in 2012 by FDOC guards who scalded him to death in a rigged shower at Dade Correctional Institution.<\/p>\n

Rainey\u2019s killing was swept under the rug for two years, until the Herald<\/em> investigated and publicized it, based on Hempstead\u2019s persistent letters and complaints about Rainey\u2019s medieval torture.[11]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

A staged official investigation was then re-opened in 2014 following the Herald<\/em>\u2019s expos\u00e9, which concluded with a March 2017 report exonerating Rainey\u2019s killers and attempting to undermine Hempstead\u2019s credibility. To complete the clean up, on<\/em> the<\/em> same<\/em> day<\/em> the report was issued the FDOC transferred Hempstead out of state to an undisclosed location making him \u201cunavailable\u201d for any further comments to the media.[12]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

On June 22, 2017 the FDOC accepted me with similar designs to its treatment of Hempstead. Namely to silence and disappear a persistent witness to prison abuses.<\/p>\n

On that first day in Florida I was threatened by officials with physical harm and death if I persisted with my publicizing prison conditions.[13]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> It was in this vein that the FSP guard Cazee made his veiled threat to me that prison officials in Florida \u201cdisappear\u201d and kill prisoners who create problems.<\/p>\n

By using the term \u201cdisappear\u201d he was literally describing my illegal status in Florida, which is one of \u201cenforced disappearance\u201d – a criminal violation of international law.<\/p>\n

A Status Invented By Nazis<\/h3>\n

On December 7, 1941 Adolf Hitler issued his Night and Fog Decree ordering that those \u201c\u2018endangering German security\u2019 who were not to be immediately executed\u201d would be made to \u201cvanish without a trace into the unknown in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1946 Hitler\u2019s Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was convicted in Nuremberg War Crimes trials for his role in enforcing the Decree.[14]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Since that judgment, enforced disappearance, which includes secret incommunicado detention, has been maintained as a crime under international law, and is binding on all countries whether they are party or not to a similar treaty.<\/p>\n

Such confinement is also banned under the November 2010 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which states under Article 17 that, \u201cNo one shall be held in secret detention.\u201d<\/p>\n

My Secret Detention in Florida<\/h3>\n

As sinister as it sounds, and<\/em> is<\/em>, the FDOC has me formally confined under secret detention. It has only been through the persistent efforts and sacrifices of attorneys and media contacts that I have been able to communicate to the outside and make my whereabouts known. And it\u2019s been an uphill battle every step of the way.<\/p>\n

Under this secret detention status (or more notoriously known as \u201csecret rendition\u201d), I am being held in an officially undisclosed location and am being denied the means and ability to pursue my legal rights and unlawful custody in my home state of Virginia. I can be secretly moved around the state of Florida at any time.<\/p>\n

The FDOC has tried to keep my location hidden, even lying to those who\u2019ve inquired telling them I\u2019m not at FSP or am at other FDOC prisons that I\u2019ve never been to, like the Northwest Florida Reception Center.[15]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> In fact FDOC headquarters has FSP officials under strict orders to disclose no information about me to anyone, and to tell anyone who contacts the prison about me that I\u2019m not here, and they should contact headquarters who, as said, will divulge nothing. Any outside reader is free to test any of this.<\/p>\n

In fact in my referral to solitary confinement FDOC officials claimed that having my location publicized online presented a \u201csecurity threat.\u201d So I\u2019m the only person confined FDOC custody for whom there is no public accountability or scrutiny.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve grieved this treatment and bogus \u201cspecial status\u201d repeatedly, but have been told emphatically that \u201cIT WILL NOT CHANGE.\u201d (Some of these efforts and responses will be posted with this article).<\/p>\n

If any reader goes to the FDOC website and look me up on the inmate locator you will find that I\u2019m the only person confined in the FDOC whose name and location are not in the prisoner database.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been blocked from making phone calls unlike other FDOC prisoners. I\u2019ve had my mail blocked, and have been repeatedly obstructed, censored and harassed in my communications with attorneys, courts and the media.<\/p>\n

All of which is in violation of the most basic U.S. Constitutional and international laws.<\/p>\n

All of which is in response to my involvement in exposing to the public the inhumane abuses occurring behind the hidden walls of U.S. prisons.<\/p>\n

These are the lawless extremes to which a lawless power structure will go to conceal its true criminal nature from public scrutiny, in efforts to preserve its mask of legality, legitimacy and public accountability.<\/p>\n

What dictatorship that preys on the powerless has ever willingly shown its true face to the masses who have the power in numbers to overthrow it, or has not acted to repress those who dare to expose it and open the people\u2019s eyes?<\/p>\n

I will never waiver in speaking truth to the people, because there is no power like the awakened masses!<\/p>\n

Dare to struggle Dare to win!
\nAll Power to the People!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notes<\/h3>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The article was cited by the FSP warden as posted on itsgoingdown.org<\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Julie K. Brown, \u201cFlorida Prisons \u2013 All of Them On Lockdown,\u201d Miami Herald, August 17, 2017.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Pell v. Procunier<\/em>, 417 U.S. 817, 832 (1974)<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Ibid, @ 822<\/p>\n

[5]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Farrow v. West<\/em>, 320 F. 3d 1235, 1248 (11th Cir. 2003)<\/p>\n

[6]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Julie K. Brown and Caitlin Ostroff, \u201cPrison Guards Take to Facebook to Mock Florida Inmate Who Died While Being Gassed,\u201d Miami Herald<\/em>, December 5, 2017<\/p>\n

[7]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Kevin \u201cRashid\u201d Johnson, \u201cLynching Culture: Florida Officials are Experts at Killing Prisoners by Natural Causes (2017) http:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?p=2471<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

[8]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Julie K. Brown, \u201cFor Allegedly Brutal Prison Guard, Day of Reckoning Arrives,\u201d Miami Herald<\/em>, September 20, 2014.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Kevin \u201cRashid\u201d Johnson, \u201cI\u2019m Off to Florida and a New Phase of Reprisals for Publicizing Abuses U.S. Prisons\u201d (2017), http:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?p=2443<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

[10]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Kevin \u201cRashid\u201d Johnson, \u201cThrown in Solitary for Publicizing Abuses\u201d (2017) http:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?=2455<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

[11]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Julie K. Brown, \u201cA Brutal and Unexplained Death,\u201d Miami Herald<\/em>, March 17, 2017<\/p>\n

[12]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Julie K. Brown, \u201cProsecution Finds No Wrongdoing in Shower Death at Dade Correctional Mental Health Unit,\u201d Miami Herald<\/em>, March 17, 2017<\/p>\n

[13]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Op<\/em> cite<\/em>, note 9<\/p>\n

[14]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> See, Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals<\/em>, Nuremberg, September 30 and October 1, 1946 (Nuremberg Judgment), Cmd. 6964, Misc. No. 12 (London: H.M.S.O. 1946). p. 88<\/p>\n

[15]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> For awhile my outside support circle and legal team didn\u2019t know where I was due to FDOC officials lying about and concealing my location. See post, \u201cDenied Medicine, Location Unknown: Urgent Update on Kevin \u201cRashid\u201d Johnson. http:\/\/rashidmod.com\/?p=2453<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During early January 2018 my article \u201cFlorida Prisoners Are Laying It Down\u201d was published online, which discussed the prevalence of enforced slave labor in the Florida Department of Corruption (FDOC), the brutally inhumane conditions under which its prisoners live, and a planned nonviolent protest they were staging in efforts to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-2541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-florida-prison-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2542,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541\/revisions\/2542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rashidmod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}