It seems to me that prison officials don’t want to accept responsibility for their own conduct. However, they will punish those of us who are behind these walls for the things that we do wrong.
For instance, I went to law library, um, a couple of days ago, um, after not receiving my call out, so I had to, you know, speak to a couple of officers and a sergeant to try to get me down there. And then the officer there, uh, in the law library, he got extremely upset. His name is CO McKinnon, and he basically is, you know, catching an attitude with me, saying that, you know, I’m being a pain in the ass. So when I attempted to try to explain to him that the call outs that, uh, are usually passed out in the galleries, the block, weren’t passed out, so I had to, you know, go through the chain of command and make sure that I was able to get down to the law library.
So he receives a few calls and he just went ballistic, but instead of addressing the issue of the fact that the call out slips are not being passed out or they’re not being printed, you know, he wants to blame the prisoner, me, for exerting my rights to be able to go down into the law library to fight all these different lawsuits that I have against the state to try to make conditions better. So, you know, then he threatens me and says, you know, you keep this up, then I’ll make sure you never get down to the law library, and it’s stuff like that that just doesn’t make sense.
Then, on May 20th, 2020, uh, a young kid named Maurice Pennsbury, he’s only 19 years old, and if you look at him, you know, you would think that he’s 14. He’s a baby face, slim kid, can’t weigh no more than 135-140 pounds. And you know, the officer on his company, which is E6, named Theo Weller decided that he was going to go into the young man cell and assault him, punches him five times in his face, causing him to suffer, uh, three cuts on his left eye that run to his nose, and then he takes them to Theo, takes the kids’ TV.
Then, because myself and his, you know, his mom and a few others, you know, had complained about it, uh, a couple of other officers named CO LaFlesh and CO Brown decided that they were going to take fire extinguishers on May 22nd, 2020 and spray the kid in his cell for one minute. Now, this is a young man that I initiated into my UFD organization, and I take it extremely personally that these correction officers would utilize such abusive practices in order to, uh, you know, exert, what they consider some type of, uh, punishment, for what? For him exerting—for him asserting his right to be free from, um, assault. CO Weller shouldn’t have assaulted him, so why shouldn’t he complain? What was he supposed to do, accept it?
But this is the type of stuff that goes on on a daily basis here, especially under the watch of the superintendent here, Christopher Miller, who also has a personal grudge against me. And this is one of the reasons why they don’t want to approve UFD as—a prison chapter of UFD here, this facility and other places, cause they don’t want me to teach some of these younger prisoners on how to defend themselves legally and administratively when their rights are being trampled on. And it’s sad, because we need help, we need to help with the public to be able to bring attention to what’s going on and, as a result of the public not being able to scrutinize what’s going on, these correction officers keep going on and keep doing it and keep doing it, so what I want to tell you is that I hope that the public is vigilant to what’s going on and will speak up about it and allow for there to be change.
So I’m asking people to join the Dontie Mitchell support committee Facebook group, and to join with me in being able to exert—to bring light to what’s going on. And all I need is just 1000 people who are just willing to join and participate with others in what we call phone zaps and email blasts to either the governor’s office, state legislators, even the media to show that there are people who are paying attention and that we care.
I’m just asking for 1000 of you please to join the Dontie Mitchell support committee; I’m not asking for much, but maybe one or two phone calls, one or two emails so that we can, you know, show a collective voice that there are people who are paying attention, who care about what’s going on. Cause there’s much more that’s going on here.
Like even the phone situation, how guys have to keep beefing just to get on the phones. There’s only 35 phones out here and it’s about 300 guys that come out here on a daily basis and it creates conflict. And the administration here has known about this situation, this particular problem as long as I’ve been here because I’ve been one of the most vocal voices about it, you know, and during this COVID-19 pandemic, they have us crowded on bleachers in order to get on a phone line.
So I’m just asking for people, you know, if you’re conscientious, you care, please join the Dontie Mitchell support committee, just 1000 people who are willing to join and participate in our phone zaps and email blasts to those people who can make change.
Thank you, this is Dontie S. Mitchell, better known as Mfalme Sikivu, reporting to you from Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, NY. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @freedontiemitchell, and again, join the Dontie Mitchell support committee if you’d like to help and support my work. Thank you for listening, God bless.
