Tag: Texas prison officials

By now some of you may have heard that my comrades and I have been attempting to convince the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (sic!) to approve a contact visit between Miguel Flores, an imprisoned artist housed here in Ad-Seg with me at the McConnell Unit and his mom, Paulina Gracia, who has an aggressive form of leukemia. Miguel’s mom has cancer, and the prognosis is not good. Normally, prisoners in segregation are not allowed contact visits. This is going to take a massive collective response. I believe in all of you, and I think that y’all believe in me, so let’s join together and make this happen!

"I was unceremoniously packed off to the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) on June 22, 2017. Florida, notorious for its own extremely abusive prisons, readily signed on to take up Texas’s slack. And being an openly corrupt system unaccustomed to concealing its dirt, FDC officials shot straight from the hip in expressing and carrying on efforts to repress and act out reprisals for my exposing and challenging prison abuses." Readers are urged to share this story widely and write to Rashid right away; mail equals support, and the more he gets, the safer he’ll be.

When Texas correctional officials earlier this month saw an article by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson online that said they had gassed him and ransacked his cell in December, they punished him – again. In April, Texas became the latest to join a trend of states banning people in prisons, who do not have access to the internet, from having a social media account, saying it could be a threat to security. Civil rights leaders have blasted the decision and maintain that it is a violation of the First Amendment.

It is well known among staff and prisoners that if we file a grievance without any physical evidence, their failure to admit the allegations results in our claims being dismissed. Simply enough, they lie during any investigation. Outside pressure and exposure is one aspect that can counter this, which is what Rashid has been doing for years. Staff are now realizing this, too, and are retaliating to cause disruption and preserve their practices.