Tag: state of Florida

The following message is from a group of prisoners who are spread throughout the Florida Department of Corrections. It was sent anonymously and compiled from a series of letters received on Nov. 26 and 27. According to their statement, these prisoners plan to initiate a work stoppage or “laydown” beginning Monday, Jan. 15, coinciding with Martin Luther King Day, in nonviolent protest of conditions in Florida prisons. They are calling it Operation PUSH.

Marissa Alexander is free from jail in time to spend Thanksgiving with family she has not seen for much of the last three years. The Florida woman – who had been serving a 20-year sentence for firing what she described as a warning shot at her abusive husband – was released from jail Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. Her bond was set at $200,009. Although no one was injured in the incident, a jury convicted Alexander of multiple counts of aggravated assault with a firearm in 2012, requiring a 20 year sentence thanks to Florida’s “10-20-Life” law.

I saw nothing in the Zimmerman case that surprised me. The system worked as it was intended. Zimmerman, a White man, was tried by a White justice system for killing a Black boy. The outcome was predictable. Many White people saw this as a non-racial event. As an angry old Black man I have seen the diminution of racism in my lifetime. We are not there yet. It is unlikely that we will get there in the lifetime of my grandchildren.