All right, this is Kevin Rashid Johnson. It’s September 24, 2022, Saturday.
I’m giving an account or an update of my medical condition as well as my status condition in response to requests of various comrades and supporters and friends. I was transferred on yesterday, September 23, from Nottoway Correctional Center to the Sussex I State Prison and placed in solitary confinement without any property.
My medical condition over the past several weeks has actually worsened on account of me being systematically denied treatment as well as the deliberate delays and prolonged actions of prison officials in following up on diagnostic care and consultations with radiologists that is not, at this point, even oriented toward giving me treatment. We have not reached the treatment stage of my medical- in response to my medical condition because they have kept me stuck in the space of just consulting with a specialist and still going through diagnostic issues.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve experienced extreme pain, passing blood, etc, which are symptomatic of the cancer having spread or metastasized beyond my prostate. They acknowledged initially when they first did my MRIs back in June that the cancer was believed to be still confined to my prostate where it was treatable and potentially curable. Once the cancer spreads beyond the prostate, it will be fatal. There is no curing it. And it’s very clear that I’ve been subjected to continued delays in reaching the treatment stage so that the cancer will metastasize.
Over the period of the past several months, since people had begun making calls, emails complaining about my lack of medical care, officials at the Nottoway Correctional Center began to target me with petty disciplinary reports, threats that I was going to be transferred to harsher conditions, and other responses that were apparently calculated to stop the complaints so that they could just continue to deny me care without any sort of outside concern. And also they were trying to get me to withdraw various grievances and complaints I had been filing within the institution trying to get care and that they recognize were the necessary preliminary steps to bring legal action for the lack of treatment.
One of the charges that they repeatedly were targeting me by prison guard, a Lieutenant B. Sap, Brian Sap, was failure to tuck my shirt in, something as pretty as that which was actually not a rule or requirement at that institution. They initially were finding me guilty repeatedly of disciplinary infractions and then ultimately, they began to dismiss the disciplinary infraction when I demonstrated to them within their own rulebook that tucking in a shirt was not a requirement of the rules and that staff could not order a prisoner to follow sort of instructions that are either illegal nor required by the rules. So on September 23, I went to a disciplinary hearing on one of the charges written by Sap. It was dismissed on the grounds that it was an invalid instruction and it was not a rule.
Immediately afterward, I was set up, thrown in the hole, solitary confinement at Nottoway, and early the next morning, I was transferred here to Sussex and thrown in solitary confinement where I’m now being held in long-term solitary based on a blatently contrived situation that was created by the very grievance coordinator who has been trying to get me to withdraw grievances, who’s been trying to cover up the denials of medical care and various abuses that I was being subjected to at Nottoway.
So now I find myself back in solitary in a similar condition of denied care, and who knows what’s to come tomorrow. I had spoken briefly a few days before that Kyle Rosch, who is Interstate Compact Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Corrections, and he had told me that I would likely soon be transferred on account of all of the issues that had been raised about my medical condition complaints, etc. and the disciplinary infractions that I had been receiving, but he told me I was likely going to be transferred to Buckingham Correctional Center which is pretty much designed much like Nottoway but only one security level higher than Nottoway. I was not transferred to Buckingham, and it was very clear that they concocted this recent series of events to have me transferred to a maximum security institution and solitary, such as Sussex I where I’m presently confined.
And interestingly, the warden at this institution is the warden who was at Sussex II when I was returned to Virginia Department of Corrections in 2018 and held there for approximately a week and a half. This same warden kept me padlock and chained inside of a cell for the entire time that I was in Sussex II in 2018, had me confronted repeatedly with attack dogs and guards in riot gear, denied me out of cell exercise, they were denying meals, etc. And this was immediately before I was sent back out of state to Indiana in 2018. And she also held me in a cell with no property, etc. That would be the warden here at Sussex I now, whose name is [inaudible].
So basically, that’s an update on my situation, as well as my medical condition. I’m not any further along in receiving any medical treatment. I should also add on the appointment that I had that was scheduled for August 16 to see a radiologist, which guards at Nottoway deliberately missed, causing the appointment to supposedly be rescheduled. I met with the head nurse, Ruth Smith, on September 14, and she assured me that I was going to be seen at the radiology department, which had been rescheduled for mid September, that they were not going to delay or miss any more of my appointments, and that they were conscious of the need to get my treatment on schedule and done as soon as possible for fear that my cancer could spread and become fatal. Immediately after I talked to her on September the 14th, about an hour later, I was confronted by the assistant health hervices administrator at Nottoway named Reynolds. Reynolds informed at that point, he said, “Oh, I should tell you, your radiologist appointment has just been rescheduled for October.” Now the head of medical administrator had just told me not an hour before that will be seen within the next at least few days in mid September. So they deliberately put off that appointment until mid October, sometime in October, he didn’t say when, but this has been the systematic response to my condition. They put off my treatment, well not my treatment, but a consultation with the radiologist, by another month after they assured me that I will be seen in the immediate future in mid September and they were conscious of the need to get me along to treatment as soon as possible. So that’s pretty much my situation medically as well as my [inaudible] condition.
What can we do in this time to support you?
I mean, continuing to level press against them. That seems to be the problem that they have. They don’t like outside and their attempts to retaliate against me, put me in solitary, transfer, the disciplinary infraction. All is in response to that and my complaints inside. I’m not going cave into their little attempts to pressure me or intimidate me into just dropping the issue and people on the outside should not either. They should actually up the ante, continue to challenge them, continue to expose them, continue to complain, and now particularly at the Sussex I State Prison where I am, I’m being held in custody of a warden who subjected me to some serious abuse back when I was here before, and they briefly sent me to- initially they had me on death row here at Sussex I. And then for about a week and a half they sent me to Sussex II when people got to complaining about the conditions they had confined under, and Warden [inaudible], who’s the warden of Sussex II at the time, she had me in a cell with a chain and padlock on the door, refused to allow me out to take shower, to go to rec, and when he did let me out, she had me confronted with attack dogs and guards in riot armor. I had done absolutely nothing. All of this was just- Once again, their attempts to harass and retaliate because people were complaining about the way I was being treated. And that was right before they sent me out of state to Indiana.
I just want to be really clear for people who are listening to this message that you’ve had this diagnosis since July 1 when you got the results back from the biopsy, and you are still in the consultative stage.
Well, no, they actually had definitive October of last year when they did the prostate specific antigen analysis, blood test. They had evidence that I had prostate cancer then, and they acknowledged since the diagnosis was made in July that, “Yeah, you have had prostate cancer since at least October last year” when I came back to Virginia, and they took those blood tests and no, they have not gotten me to any treatment. I’ve not received any treatment at all in response to this, and not only do I have prostate cancer, but I also have prostatitis which is abnormal swelling of my prostate gland which impairs urinary function and other normal functions in that region.
