Let me share with you what a “best case scenario” investigation and outcome into abuses at Red Onion would look like. I’ve seen it before, and it not only goes nowhere, but more deeply entrenches the culture of abuse, racism, neglect and corruption at these prisons. In fact, the Virginia Defenders can weigh in on the situation I’m going to offer as an example, because it is the very incident that led to the founding of this group, namely the beating of Thomas Plummer at Wallens Ridge State Prison in the early 2000s. I know all about it because I was there and witnessed it all unfold.
Thomas Plummer was a Black man confined at Wallens Ridge, Red Onion’s twin supermax that is located just up the road from Red Onion. Both prisons have always cycled the same people between them as employees and their friends and relatives. Plummer was targeted and brutally beaten because of filing grievances at the prison by a group of guards, including a captain Isaac Hockett, a sergeant Matthew Hamilton, whose brother, Israel Hamilton, is now the warden of Keen Mountain, another remote Virginia prison located just an hour away from Red Onion, and others. After the assault Plummer was thrown in solitary at Wallens Ridge.
Outside attention and protest of the attack was generated by a circle of people from which grew the Virginia Defenders for Freedom Justice and Equality, headed by Phil Wilayto, who presently edits their newspaper, The Defender. This protest led to damage control by the Virginia Department of Corrections, much like the present response to the prisoner burnings at Red Onion. An agent with the Inspector General’s office named Johnny Acosta headed up the investigation of the Plummer assault. Acosta found that Plummer was definitely beaten and pursued criminal charges against the involved guards. The prosecutions became major news in the local media of the tiny towns in the area. The guards were featured teary-eyed denying the abuses and playing up the same lying stereotype as Dotson [Director of the VADOC] is now using, that these prisoners are dangerous men, which should divert attention and concern away from the abuses inflicted on them at these prisons, which is just a rehash of the old racist stereotypes projected against Blacks in the old South to excuse savage abuses like lynchings.
Then came the coverup, which exemplifies the culture of corruption in these remote prisons and why nothing short of shutting them down will end it. The entire staff at Wallens Ridge closed ranks to ensure the acquittal of their colleagues. The judge allowed the jury to visit Wallens Ridge during the guards trial. The entire tour was staged to tamper with the jury, a crime by the way. On the day of the tour, a handpicked group of flunky inmates was moved into an emptied-out cellblock and told that a scared straight group was coming through. They were bribed with extra food at mealtimes, jobs and other perks to become as disruptive as they could inside their cells during the tour to scare the group. They were only too happy to accommodate. When the jury came through they were given a taste of pure pandemonium, a staged performance of the sort of animals the guards claimed they had to contend with at the prison. The shocked jury returned to court and quickly acquitted the guards, who turned around and sued Acosta. The entire staff went around the prison boasting for months about what they pulled off and how. There have been no serious investigations or prosecutions of guard abuses since.
During 2011 I was met with by the same Acosta, who was staging an investigation into an incident where the investigator at Red Onion, Tony Adams, had himself assaulted me, ripping out a large portion of my dreadlocks while I was in handcuffs. I confronted Acosta about what was done to him in the Plummer case, which he admitted to have occurred, and asked how he presumed I might take any investigation conducted by him or his office seriously when he did nothing about what they did to him. Again, the ombudsman works under Acosta’s office. The abuse and corruption at Red Onion will continue, business as usual. This is Kevin Rashid Johnson coming to you from within America’s gulag archipelago. Dare to struggle, dare to win. All power to the people.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.