Tag: Estelle Unit

On Nov. 10, 2016, the state of Texas transferred me and 43 other men to the Administrative Segregation Unit at the Eastham Unit in Lovelady, Texas. Eastham is one of the oldest units in the state. The conditions there are much worse than at the Telford Unit. The most glaring issue for prisoners and guards alike is contaminated drinking water! High levels of copper and lead have been found in the water supply. The water has a horrible stench to it. And the taste? absolutely repulsive!

Another Texas prisoner is dead due to a combination of guard brutality and medical neglect. For three consecutive nights, medical staff were summoned to the cell of Christopher Woolverton because he was lying on the floor barely responsive. After a criminally long delay of three days, during which time he was in clear distress, he should have finally received medical attention. But that’s not what happened.

I was flown here to Texas on June 14. This is a bit more dire than the February ordeal, so it calls for at least as much sustained and broad help. (Rashid was abruptly transferred from Virginia, where he’d been held, mostly in solitary confinement, since 1990, to Oregon in February 2012, where he was placed in Oregon’s Orwellian Snake River Correctional Unit, an unvarnished behavior modification program.)