Autobiography Notes 08/20/2020
By Jennifer Rose

Chapter 4 - Prison Rebel

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
- Angela Davis

"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine."
- Unknown

"We need to do more than just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong."
- Leonard Peltier
American Indian Movement
U.S. Political Prisoner

When I came into the California prison system in 1989, with a seven year sentence for armed robbery, I was just a young and vulnerable "white" kid from Orange County, California. The jail there was racially segregated. Black prisoners housed separately from white and Mexican prisoners.

Come to find out, when I arrived in the California Institute for Men (C.I.M) n Chinco, the entire prison slave system was racially segregated! This policy was strictly enforced by prison officials and gang "rules" of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) and Mexican Mofia ("eme"), among others. Any white prisoner who "crossed the color line" by smoking or drinking after black prisoners would immediately be targeted by oter racist white convicts to be shamed, labeled as a "lame" or "no good" and often violently assaulted.

Every prisoner, including me, went along with the "mandatory program" of the existing race-based prison gangs, which controlled this dangerous prison powder-keg of racial hatred and violence prone thugs. I associated with "skinheads" and other raciest whites out of fear and coercion for my own personal safety/survival. All inmates were required to defend their own race or gang affiliates in case of attack by any other race group or rival gang members.

In spite of these "mandatory program" enforcements' of Jim Crow racial segregation which then existed in California prisons, and my regrettable participation and collaboration in white racist prison politics to an undeniable level. I often rejected the unnecessary expression of racial disrespect, I discouraged my peers who were old-timers or young Nazi "skinheads" from using the N-word; and also kept an open line of communication with other ethic groups whenever possible, to prevent unnecessary hostilities.

My hatred was not for other prisoners or ethnic groups, but for the State and its illegitimate authority; for the pigs who had on different levels abused their authority by beating on me, subjected me to brutality and torture at different times and places; beginning in the Orange County Jail; continuing with an incident at Chino Prison and continuing at Folsom Prison, where I began more than a decade in solitary confinement torture in August 1992.

In 1990, while awaiting sentence in the Orange County Jail, I was escorted to a room and beaten silly by a Sergeant of the Orange County Sheriff's Department in retaliation for filing a grievance. My injuries were medically documented and I filed a federal civil rights lawsuit which was summarily dismissed by a U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge. This was so discouraging and seemingly unfair, but I was naive and idealistic.

I wrote letters to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), but never received any legal assistance or protection of my so-called legal rights.

However, I continued to study the law, educate myself and became a "Jailhouse Lawyer" in Folsom Prison. I filed hundreds of grievances over the years, and also provided legal advocacy or assistance to other prisoners.

I was involved in the 1991 Folsom Prison Food Strike with some 1,500 other prisoners, to protest against proposed new visiting restrictions, which would cut our visiting times from four days to two days a week (weekends and holidays). I was harassed by a pig named Sergeant "blacked out", who illegally opened my sealed "confidential" legal mail that was addressed to the local ACLU. My letter reporting on the prison strike and lock-down conditions was unlawfully confiscated and I was placed in the punitive solitary confinement, or "Administrative Segregation Unit" (ASU), or "Ad-Seg", at New Folsom Prison. I was given a falsified/fabricated rule violation report (RVR) for "inciting" as a result of my legal correspondence and activism.

The fabricated write-up was dismissed by a Lieutenant who found me "not guilty", and admitted that my right to confidentiality was violated; but Sgt. "blacked out" was not held accountable for his misconduct and I still suffered two months of solitary confinement in ASU and an adverse transfer to the more restrictive New Folsom, Facility B. For a second time, I filed a civil rights lawsuit for this violation of my First Amendment rights, which even admitted to be true, it was found justified by the state of emergency and prison disturbance as an isolated incident of "security concerns."

In August 1992, I was violently attacked and beaten by two pigs with batons (i.e. night sticks/clubs) and was sent to ASU (a.k.a. "the hole") with another falsified RVR charge of "assault on staff" because I resisted the attack acting in self-defense.

This was the beginning of more than a decide of extended, long-term solitary confinement in Folsom ASU and Pelican Bay - Security Housing Unit (SHU). In Folsom ASU, I was set up to be a combatant in staged "gladiator" fights in a dog kennel type, concrete-walled exercise yard; it was shot at by the gun tower pigs with H&K 94 rifles with 9MM rounds on three occasions - I was told by a couple sadistic pigs, "we are going to kill you!"

The website killedbypolice.net documented 172 killings of civilians by police in the first two months of 2015. Of those, 42% were identified as black or Latino, and in another 24% the race of the victim was unknown or "non-white".

(1) Back in the 1980s, and early 1990s, California had the highest rates of using lethal force resulting in dozens of unnecessary inmate deaths. I'm very lucky to have survived this type of torture for 30 years!

In the early 1990s, while enduring such inhumane and violet prison conditions, I became politicized through legal advocacy, filing grievances, and writing to abolitionist groups. I first came into contact with the "Love and Rage" anarchist collective through their newspaper, and also corresponded with autonomous Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) collectives at this time.

During the first few years in Folsom ASU solitary confinement, I often took part in individual or collective protests by barricading the prison cells, breaking and sabotaging the prison cell windows and electrical outlets (at least 13 times!), and engaging in direct action resistance by fighting back against fully armored and armed "cell extraction" teams prison guards. They would force their way into the cell, beat us severely, and drag us out to be medically evaluated; then placed us right back in the same cell without clothing, blankets, or toilet paper.

In January 1995, I attempted an escape from Sacramento County Courthouse by assaulting the State Prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Chris Carlson. I was captured.

In May 1995, I engaged in a prison protest by covering my prison cell windows and sabotaging the inside fixtures of the cell. During this protest, I threw a metal projectile through the cell window, which hit Associate Warden Terry Rosario in the head causing superficial minor injury. The CERT team was activated (a militarized SWAT Team!) to breach the section/cell and subdue or kill me!

For these two illegal actions, I was tried and convicted under the Three Strikes Law. I was given sentences of 25 years-to-life in state prison for assault and battery, and assault with a deadly weapon - both "non-violet" or "non-serious" felonies as defined by California law.

Like other revolutionary political prisoners, such as "blacked out" and "blacked out" of the United Freedom Front (UFF), I exercised my responsibility under international law in actively opposing human rights violations and prison torture by the State and its agents. Such responsibilities are clearly outlined in the NUREMBURG PRINCIPLES, which came into being following the defeat of Nazi Germany. These principles state that "crimes against humanity"; the subjugation, torture, and murder of innocent people or unarmed helpless prisoners; requires citizens to take whatever actions are necessary to stop these crimes. (2)

Considering the well-documented pig brutality and torture of prisoners in solitary confinement control units such as California's notorious Pelican Bay SHU, where I spent over a decade, I feel that I did whatever necessary to actively resist being subjected to such crimes and to survive such adverse circumstances. As a prison rebel, fighting back against prison slavery and torture, I became politicized by following the example of George Jackson and countless other revolutionary prisoners! Self-defense is not a crime, but slavery and torture are definitely crimes against humanity".(3)

"The prison system, inherently unjust and inhumane, is the ultimate expression of injustice and inhumanity in the society at large. Those of us on the outside do not like to think of wardens and guards as our surrogates. Yet, they are, and they are intimately locked in a deadly embrace with their human captives behind the prison walls. By extension, so are we. A terrible double-meaning is thus imparted to the original question of human ethics --Am I my brother's keeper?"
- Exodus
"The Last Act of Defiance"

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."
- C.S. Lewis

NOTES:

1. Ultraviolet. Vol. XXV, No. 4 (Spring 2015),
San Francisco: LAGAI Queer Insurrection. 2015)
2. United Freedom Front Political Prisoners
(NYC Anarchist Black Cross) brochure.
3. See Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp.
1146 (N.D. Cal. 1995)
- finding that horrid conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison violated Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment - (evidence showed abuse of mentally ill prisoners, beatings and other torture of prisoners, excessive and unnecessary use of lethal force against prisoners (where many were shot at with 9MM semi-automatic rifles and injured or killed), and forcing a mentally ill prisoner into a tub of boiling/scolding hot water resulting in severe burns and skin falling off his body!)