Sunday, November 15, 2015 Time: 8:25am Location: Segregation Housing Unit, Toledo, Ohio
Three days ago, on November 12, 2015, Thursday afternoon, af the the Toledo Correctional Institution administration cleverly manipulated me out of my Segregation Housing Unit that I’ve refused to leave for the past six months, and into a so-called general population cellblock — that is, by way of merely changing the name of the Segregation Housing Unit to the “Limited Privilege Housing Unit.”
I staged a peaceful protest against being placed in the newly created unit by way of climbing approximately twenty-feet up to the ceiling of the entrance of the unit and then onto a ventilation duct that I sat on while I voiced my protestations against being forced into housing with “new-law” prisoners.
Prior to my protest, I’ve tried on numerous occasions to get the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, as well as the Ohio Parole Board, to address the swept-under-the-rug unjust hardships and sentencing inequalities that old-law prisoners are being forced to contend with. I might as well be speaking Chinese to them, because they absolutely refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the old-law injustice. So, with this being the case, after having spent many years being psychologically tortured by an unconcerned criminal justice system, I made up my mind last week to stage a protest to demonstrate my staunch resistance of having my life and liberty further placed in jeopardy by Ohio’s broken criminal justice system.
Enough is enough!
Although I staged a peaceful protest, during my demonstration, various prison officials still sought to cause me physical harm. In spite of the fact that I had climbed approximately twenty-feet up in the air, before I made my way onto the ventilation duct, one of the prison officials sprayed me twice in the face with pepper-spray. After about an hour had went by, during which time I was filmed by two video cameras, another prison official appeared with a “pepper-ball” rifle and took direct aim at my head. Being that I had already thoroughly made the point that I wanted to make, and being that i didn’t want to risk being accidentally (or purposely) shot onto the ground, which was haphazardly covered with about a dozen mattresses, I ended my demonstration. Afterwards, I was given a change of clothes, but denied a decontamination shower, and then moved from the Limited Privilege Housing Unit into a Segregation Housing Unit.
At this point, I don’t know how the prison administration is going to respond to my protest. But, if history is an indicator, I’m sure they’ll try to vengefully crush my morale, some-kind-of-way, by handing down a heavy-handed punishment. In any event, however, someone with authority and integrity in Ohio’s criminal justice system needs to urgently resolve the long-existing old-law sentencing injustice, before it leads to something tragic happening — similar to the tragic and preventable situation of California prisoner Lawrence Phillips, a former NFL player and NCAA champion who, after repeatedly complaining to unconcerned prison officials about not wanting to cell with trouble-causing gang members, allegedly murdered his cellmate earlier this year, and could now be facing the death penalty.
Well, this is it for now. But I hope whoever is reading this will, please, if you haven’t already, join the effort to get me out of my egregious situation of injustice. I desperately need your support.
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