This is a statement written by Demetrius Wallace, read by Kevin Rashid Johnson, who is coming to you from within America’s Gulag Archipelago U.S.A. Dare to struggle, dare to win. All power to the people. He wrote this on November 7th 2024, right before he was attacked by guards again. A group of riot armored guards invaded his cell and moved to him to another part of the institution. The statement begins with a quote from Frederick Douglass which states:
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and any one class has made you feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person or property will be safe.” This quote was written in 1868 but in 2024 I feel as though this is what us prisoners at Red Onion State Prison are experiencing.
This is a statement to the public and everyone who has family or friends or significant others in prison. My name is Demetrius Wallace. I’m currently incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison, which is located in a rural town in Virginia, Pound, Virginia, where the population is majority white and only 0.5% Black. The staff at Red Onion is almost fully white, but I am Black and the vast majority of prisons at Red Onion are also Black. I’m writing to expose to the public the abuse, racism, neglect, and retaliation of prisoners here have been enduring for years, and the fact that it keeps going unnoticed. Also, I want to explain how I myself am directly impacted by all of the above.
It first started on November 25th 2023. I was placed in solitary confinement while I was shackled at the ankles and handcuffed to the back with two guards holding me. I had a female sergeant named Terry Smith spray me in the eyes and face with tear gas, who said, and I quote, “Don’t look at me like that.” I was in no way a threat to her, but somehow I was sprayed and assaulted by several prison guards, and high ranking ones at that. I was called racist names by a lieutenant named [unclear.] This assault happened twice within ninety seconds, consisted of being repeatedly kicked, stomped and beaten while fully restrained and defenseless.
The problem with this is it was all recorded on their body cameras and unit surveillance cameras, and not one of them was punished for this. So, this should show to the public how impetuous they are when it comes to their being diabolical, impulsive and racist, all while feeling as though there will never be any consequences. So, this all will continue to be incessant. I was then placed in a medical strip cell in restraints for four hours and denied proper medical attention. When our family and support system finally found out what happened, they were lied to by the prison Chief of Security/ Major, Johnny Hall. He tried to justify my assault by a female sergeant and other prison officials think that the female Sergeant Terry Smith didn’t know if I was going to spit on her, so I was sprayed and assaulted twice.
After this, I was constantly harassed and retaliated against by several prison officials. This included having my TV broken and several personal property items destroyed, only to have them replaced after my family and support system called and had other people from Senator Jackie Glass’s office call the prison. The retaliation did stop for a few weeks, up until I went on a hunger strike on or about December 31. 2023 with several other prisoners, where I didn’t eat for twelve days just to try to get someone from the DOC to do some type of internal investigation into what we all were going through.
You even had one prisoner, Kevin Rashid Johnson with seventy-one days of [not] eating and still nothing happened. I was lied to and left alone up until April 2024, when the same lieutenant Massengill and Sergeant Smith denied a white female friend of mine access to the prison visitation for no reason but that of hatred. Then [unclear] and Massengill went as far as to find the same female friend on Facebook the very same night he denied her entry to visit me, off of his family member’s account, and tried to fraternize with her. This continued to the point now, where I have several screenshots of him and several other guards including Jordan Pilgrim, J.C. Mays, Hamilton, and Sergeant Carr trying to reach out to her, then coming to work telling me that they see how good she looks when she comes to see me, and outright saying they’re going to find her. My family and she have sent screenshots, their messages to the warden of the prisoners and other higher ups in the DOC, and nothing has been done.
Last year on August 23, 2024 while being housed in solitary confinement being harassed and threatened by several prison officials; being denied showers and given trays with no food on them, to the point that I felt as though my back was against wall, I set the top of my foot on fire, in desperation, to finally get someone to find out what happened and to try to get off this compound and have something done about what I was going through. This caused me to receive third degree burns and undergo two surgeries and receive a skin graft. I spent fourteen days at Virginia Commonwealth University Hospital, where I was then sent back to Red Onion State Prison, where the same things are still happening. But now I’m being denied my phone and email access while still housed in solitary confinement.
Also, since I set myself on fire, and these nine other prisons have done the same or worse, all in desperation to get help. I wasn’t sent to the hospital for my burns until two days after I set myself on fire, because Major Johnny Hall told his staff not to send me immediately. At the hospital, the doctor questioned why I wasn’t brought in when the burns first happened. He was upset that I had developed a serious infection as a result of the delay that had to be treated before the needed surgery could be done for the burn.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
