In Oct 2024 the story broke that numerous prisoners at Red Onion State Prison had set themselves on fire in desperate response to racism and abuse at the Virginia prison that has an extensive history of corruption and racism. It was through audio recordings that I made by phone on various outlets, including Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio, that the story got out. Numerous media outlets picked up the story, as Chadwick Dotson, the director of the Va prison system, the warden of Red Onion and other officials, repeatedly lied and denied the prisoner self burnings and abusive conditions at Red Onion and other rural Va prisons. These lies were exposed and also generated public protests and staged responses by Va legislators.
Each one of the prisoners who set themselves on fire that spoke to the media and legislators were met with retaliation. They were assaulted by guards, had property destroyed, and had their phone, secure email, and postal mail access cut. The objective of officials was to suppress exposure.
As the source of exposure of the foul conditions at Red Onion and other remote Va prisons, and being the one person who persisted in refuting the series of lies and coverups by Va officials in respond to these exposures, it was only a matter of time before I was targeted.
On Feb 23, 2025 I wrote and sent out a followup report on prisoners at Red Onion continuing to set themselves on fire in desperate response to continuing abuses at the prison and proven empty promises by officials to address those conditions. (1) I promptly recorded the report on Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio by phone. Israel Hamilton, the warden at Keen Mountain, a remote Va prison where I am confined admitted that he and VaDOC investigative staff have been closely monitoring my communications to the outside.
In immediate response to my phone call to Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio, and coverage by the Va Mercury newspaper of my exposures of conditions in the state’s remote prisons, Keen Mountain investigators charged me with two disciplinary infractions on Feb 25, 2025 for “unauthorized use/abuse of mail/telephone….”
The basis of the infractions were calls I made on that day to my publisher and a call I made to Prison Riot Radio that was listened in on by Keen Mountain investigators Rasnake and C. Cole. In both cases I was accused of making 3-way calls, something for which prisoners are NEVER given infractions. The timing and basis of the infractions were clear retaliation, both in fact and law, and intended to create a basis to cut off my ability to use the prison phone system. (2)
On Feb 26, 2025 I spoke with warden Hamilton, who came into my cellblock, about the infractions. He admitted they were in retaliation and response to my media exposures of Va prisons, but claimed it was at the prompting of officials at VaDOC headquarters and Western regional office. He stated if I didn’t draw media, public or legal attention to Keen Mountain, he would make the charge “go away.” I made no such agreement.
The first infraction was heard on Mar 5, 2025, I was found guilty of the report and a penalty of 45 days telephone restriction was imposed. I immediately informed outside supporters of the penalty, and they went to work generating protest. Which incensed Hamilton and his colleagues.
Under the guise of imposing the phone restriction Hamilton and his staff deactivated my telephone pin number so I cannot use the phone system at all; thus eliminating my ability to call my attorneys, to contact the VaDOC grievance hotline to contest obstructions of my use of the grievance procedure and so on.
My second infraction was set for hearing on Mar 12, 2025. On that date Hamilton had a guard R. Smith fabricate and sign a statement that I refused to attend my hearing and that I refused to sign the statement myself at 9:53am. Unit surveillance camera footage will show this guard NEVER confronted me to attend any hearing nor to sign any form. His entire account was falsified. Falsifying state records is a crime in Va and carries a mandatory penalty of termination of state employment and the offender cannot work for the Va government again. As a result of the false claim that that I refused to appear at the hearing I was found guilty and had a $15 fine imposed.
In addition to these retaliatory actions against my phone use and to create pretexts to cut off my phone access, my secure emails and postal mail have also been targeted.
Numerous outgoing recent emails I have written on the prison’s secure email system containing articles and messages have been deleted, and not forwarded, without notice or explanation. This is being done by the warden and investigative staff.
My legal mail has also been targeted.
On Mar 7, 2025 I was delivered a piece of legal mail from a federal court in a pending case by investigator Coles and recorded by Rasnake on her body camera. The postdate showed the court mailed it to me on Feb 13, 2025. The mailing itself set me a Mar 6, 2025 filing deadline. Rasnake attempted to engage me in a dialogue about me supposedly making 3-way calls, but I questioned why my legal mail had been held for three weeks before being delivered to me. Where they staged the delivery to elicit something incriminating against me on body camera, they actually created video evidence of illegally withholding my legal mail.
In addition five incoming mailings from a supporter Kevin Jeanes were denied delivery on Mar 13th upon false claims that they all contained names and numbers of other prisoners. The mailings actually contained news articles about my reports on Va prison conditions and other matters related to the VaDOC. On Mar 7, 2025 a “letter” from the Revolutionary Prisoners’ Literature Fund was denied for no just reason. As were numerous other items of mail.
Also I have attempted to file written complaints on all of these issues, yet the grievance officer here at Keen Mountain refuses to process them, while I am unable, because of my telephone pin having been deactivated, to contact the grievance hotline on the prisoner phone system to make a complaint of these complaint and grievance obstructions.
Suddenly, after my report on Feb 23d about Red Onion prisoners continuing in desperate response to continuing abuses at the prison to set themselves on fire despite empty promises by officials to investigate and reform conditions there, all of my media and avenues of communication have been targeted. It was bound to happen, after their prior failed attempts to suppress my continuing exposure of them by their lying to the public, attempting to slander me in the media and block journalists’ efforts to contact me, and so on.
This is actually the second time I’ve been targeted in this manner for reporting on the self-immolations at Red Onion. It occurred the first time while I was still confined at Red Onion, after I exposed the first round of self-immolations in Oct 2024 on Prison Radio. As Noel Hanrahan, the director of Prison Radio reported in the Inquest on Feb 27, 2025, I was thrown in solitary confinement at Red Onion and had my phone access cut off for that first Prison Radio report. (3)
These are the methods of officials that I explained in my article, “Ignore, Isolate, Discredit, Kill: The Official Response to Critical Exposure.” (4) Methods that we must rally the masses to oppose.
Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
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Endnotes:
1. Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Red Onion Prisoners Continue to Set Themselves on Fire in Desperate Response to Ongoing Abuses” (2025) http://rashidmod.com/?p=3750
2. “The First Amendment forbids prison officials from retaliating against prisoners for exercising the right of free speech.” Farrow v. West, 320 F. 3d 1235, 1248 (2003). The courts have held that retaliation may not take forms that in other instances might have been otherwise legitimate.
3. Jennifer Black & Noel Hanrahan, “When Fire is the Only Way Out” INQUEST (Feb 27, (2025) http://inquest.org/when-fire-is-the-only-way-out/
4. http://rashidmod.com/?p=3687