Date: 9/15/2019 5:35:42 PM
Subject: Nate's News, Sept 11, 2019

It's been tiring, coping with all the drama that comes from being in g.p., where I've been since July 29, 2019. For one small example, a young Black guy down the hall got angry because I was pounding on my door in the morning (to get COs to pop my door, so I could go on my passes --they're all sleepy from working double shifts, thus forget basic stuff), waking him up: he loudly told me to stop kicking the door, which I misunderstood him to mean HIS door, thus | got pissed at what I thought was his bogus accusation; I growled back a warning, irritated at what I thought to be a foolish, treacherous attempt to intimidate me, after I'd helped that guy & his associates to get prison pay that they were due. I was all ready to fight, on edge, hurt at what I THOUGHT was going on...but I was wrong. Realizing that I was the one jumping to racist conclusions ("The guy's testing me, thinks I'm weak because I'm White ") made me feel even worse -- today I'm going to talk to the dude, apologize & explain that I'm struggling to learn how to deal with people again.
On a light note, last Friday I was interviewed for a tutor position, for Special-needs GED students. This Sunday my cellie was shipped to WRC (a psych facility) for a week's training to be a mentor, to help mentally volatile inmates. Both of us have spent years in solitary confinement at WSPF & have very violent records. We have the potential to help or hurt, A LOT -- the question is how will those in power allow us to "be": will they allow & even help us do good things, or only allow us to do bad? For now, those running the system are allowing us to do good.

...............Sept 8th, 2019.................. On Sept 8th, in cell 24, across the hall from me on unit Nine, at 6PM I heard the elderly White guy in there squealing "Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me!" along with the sounds of
slapping or hitting on flesh. This went on for a couple minutes before a Sgt (a Black middle-aged immigrant from Africa, with a thick accent) heard the yelling (there's no intercoms in our cells, so prisoners in need of help must be loud & hope staff hear them), stood outside the cell door & ordered the young Black guy in there to stop hitting the old guy. I heard more blows land. The Sgt popped the trap for that cell's door, threatening to pepper spray the young guy if he kept hitting the old guy; with the trap popped I could see the old guy pulling on his pants....
Several minutes later Lt. & Cpt. arrived, talking with the African Sgt., who told them what happened: "I heard someone yelling for help. The young one would not stop hitting him. So I threatened him with pepper spray." Cpt. told the Sgt. "Okay, write that for now, in the rough draft. But --" he glimpsed me looking at them & listening "-- we'll talk about this later," he said, then walked off with the several CO's in the hall. I suspect they're going to write up the incident in a way that shifts all blame off of them (for not having emergency intercoms in cells) and blames the old guy.
The old guy is partly to blame, though not for getting hit. But, if the gossip/rumor is true (that he was stripping totally naked & taking a shit, without putting up a privacy curtain), he certainly gave his cellie cause to be offended! Yet staff are still to blame, because: 1) they double celled two people who were clearly totally incompatible; 2) they double cell us period, then make us spend 22+ hours a day in these small cells with each other, a recipe for conflict; 3) the young guy who beat the old guy just got out of seg/RH for beating up another guy on this unit; 4) rather than opening the door & promptly getting the old guy out, they left him in there, resulting in him being hit further.
There's still a smushed turd sitting in the doorway of cell 24, which is kept closed. Staff told us it's a crime scene. If the young guy's getting charged, he'll face an enhanced sentence, because his victim is over 64 yrs. in age.
On a lighter note, in a Mindfulness group I'm in, which I think met on Monday, we had a long, useful discussion about this event, how we can close how to deal with it: whether to beat up the old guy or handle it differently.

...........Sept. 11. 2019...... This morning, around 10 AM two bakery workers refused to go to work & refused to return to their cells. The reason for that peaceful protest is that they're denied rec all but one day a week simply because they had jobs. Because they work for the prison (paid around 26¢/hr.) they don't get rec, while I get rec 5 days a week.
A witness says that one of the protesters, a litigator I know & am friends with, had his face smashed into the floor by guards, despite the litigator being entirely peaceful/non-resisting. (I know the guy: he'll be suing over that!)

Interested persons may find out names of staff & more details about these & other incidents write about by requesting Shift Activity Logs (SALs), Incident Reports (IRs), & Conduct Reports (CRs) for the dates, times, persons & places I've identified. Make your requests under WI Stat. $19.35, et seq., WI Open Records Law, to C.C.1. Records Dep't Supervisor, Robert Beahm, 2925 Columbia Drive, Portage, WI 53901; (Robert.Beahm@Wisconsin.gov); 608-742-9100