WHY DON'T MORE PEOPLE 

OPENLY SUPPORT OUR MOVEMENT?

(Update to the sit-in by Omari and Amun on August 21, 2007)

I often ask myself, “Why don’t more people openly support our movement?” Surely we’re doing what’s right. We’re fighting for our human rights, prisoner rights, and against the legally flawed criminal justice system. We’ve adopted a movement strategy (civil rights movement), a historical leader’s philosophy (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violence), and went against everything people would expect from a convicted murderer, a death row prisoner, “the worst of the worst” – to put together a movement that will progress the community, and raise the awareness of all people to the unjust, inhumane, and poverty-biased system.

This system uses many excuses to try to justify the death penalty: it’s a deterrent to crime, live by the sword, die by the sword, they (the prisoners) are a continuing threat to society, etc. But all of these excuses have been broken apart time and time again. It’s been proven that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent to crime. Crime has not dropped in the communities. Society’s awareness is just beginning to be peaked on the death penalty’s cruel and unusual injection, which is outlawed to be administered against animals, and even that awareness is dying down. If the system lives by the sword – the death penalty – should the system die by the sword – the death penalty killing itself off? Hmm? And we don’t want to get into the men, the assets to the community, who have fallen victim to this atrocious procedure.

Now that you have brave men that aren’t scared to stand up and let the system know that they’re violating the constitution, mentally breaking down humans with a type of housing that has been created by the system, and killing innocent men, we’re wrong because we’re on death row? That’s something interesting to ponder!

Why don’t more people openly support our movement?

Once again, my comrades and I have become fed up with the murders, the conditions, and the sensory deprivation that we’re subjected to on a daily basis. That’s why Comrade Omari and Comrade Amun executed their sit-in on the outside rec-yard August 21, 2007.

When the Comrades entered the outside rec-yard, no one had a clue what was going to happen except Omari and Amun. My cage door happens to be 15-20 feet directly in front of the door leading to the outside yard, and as the Comrades passed my cage up, I was met with the usual greeting, a shout-out of love, a baritone yell of my name, “JASIRI!!” But something was different in this show of solidarity. It still had the love and the bass that will echo a gym to show the brotherhood that we have, but the look in Omari’s eyes was a look of peace and fire all in one.

I went and laid back on my bunk and thought nothing of the look until an hour later when the floor officer tapped on my cage door, waking me out of my sleep to tell me, “Your boys have jacked my yard.” In my mind I smiled ear-to-ear, because I had an epiphany of what that look was in Omari’s eyes. I looked at the guard and said, “Why are you telling me? Do I look like rank?”

He said, “You need to talk to them. I don’t feel like doing any paperwork!”

I smirked at him because all he was worried about was paperwork. He hadn’t thought of why the comrades refused to relinquish the yard. He probably didn’t ask. He most likely came straight to my cage, thinking I would bail him out.

I told him very sarcastically, “Oh just cuff me up and take me to the door, and I’ll talk to them.” He thought about this for a few seconds and realized what I was saying to him. He said, “You think I’m crazy? I’m not letting you jack too!”

I smiled at him as he walked off to call his supervisor. I began to pace my cage, meditating on the events that were about to take place, hoping the comrades would stay safe. The stance we take is very dangerous, how we execute these non-violent protests, knowing we will be met with a violent response. But that was understood when we adopted the non-violent doctrine.

After about 15 minutes, Sgt. Horton entered the rec-yard attempting to talk my Comrades into coming out. He stayed out there exactly 47 minutes, yes I timed him. What was said, I don’t know. Sgt. Horton left and Sgt. Brown went and tried his psychological tactics. I like to call Brown “Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor.” the Albany police chief in the 60’s that violent unleashed guard dogs, fire hoses, and tear gas on the civil rights demonstrators during a march in Albany, Georgia. Brown has the same demeanor as Bull Connor when he deals with our protest. He will say things such as, “ I’m going to gas the shit out of his ass,” or “If I were on the team, I’d hurt y’all to where y’all couldn’t protest anymore!” He likes to violate procedure by administering 5 to 10 second bursts of chemical agents, when they’re only supposed to be three 3-second bursts with a 3-minute duration in between each burst. He does things like gas you in the cage, take all your property, and make you sit in the gas with no shower for days.

When he went out there I didn’t hear the short conversation, but I did hear him happily singing as he came off the yard. I yelled to him, “Brown, if you hurt my brothers, you will have to gas me too!” He laughed as if it were a joke.

Lt. Hines entered the pod, but didn’t go on the rec-yard. He came directly to my cage. He said, “What’s up?”

I asked him, “Are y’all going to attempt tp hurt my Comrades?”

He said, “I’m not trying to, but if it happens, it’s not my fault.”

I replied,” Someone will take 2 grenades huh?” I saw the opportunity to extract some information. He smiled real big at the question and said, “ Yup, and we’ve chosen who that will be!”

I said, “Who made that decision? You?

He said, “ Nope, Captain Bailey!”

Right then and there I knew who would be subjected to 2 of the highly potent smoke grenades.

The way the outside rec-yard is formed, there are 2 caged sides that each inmate has recreation time on. It has a door to each side with bars down the middle that separate each inmate from any form of physical contact, besides sliding your fingers through one of the holes in the bars. When the administration has to extract inmates from both sides, they do it one at a time, shooting a smoke grenade on one side that fills up the yard with a cloud of smoke to obscure your vision to a foot in front of you. This grenade is also designed to burn the skin and suck all of the oxygen out of the air. Staight military mechanism! When one grenade is used on one inmate, both inmates suffer. the one that’s extracted last suffers through 2 grenades! The administration’s choice for this tactic: Comrade Omari.

All the ranking officers went on the rec-yard fully equipped with the 37mm rifle, the highly potent “speed heat ,” and some grenades. I heard the first grenade explode with a loud bang, shooting out a cloud of smoke. It was so much that smoke started to seep through the door into the pod. The rank signaled for 2 officers from the extraction team to enter the rec-yard. As the door opened, I couldn’t see anything but smoke covering the yard, while it rushed into the pod, covering the section. Comrade Amun emerged from the cloud escorted by 2 guards, fully stripped of all clothing. He was placed in his cell after being decontaminated in the shower.

It was time for them to extract Omari! They waited a few minutes so he could feel the full effects of the first comb, then entered the rec-yard again. I heard the second bomb burst outside and the yard was, once again, filled up with the military chemicals. Omari didn’t budge! The ranking officer signaled for the 5-man extraction team to enter the yard. After they subdued the comrade and stripped him to his birthday suit, he was carried to the cell next to mine. As he was being carried, he was speaking his very powerful piece “The Vicious Cycle.” If you haven’t checked this piece out, you don’t know what you’re missing!

The whole time this was going on, I was also speaking to the camera on how innocent men are being murdered, men are being convicted and sentenced to death with no evidence and lies, and how we’re being subjected to sensory depravation housing, which led me to speaking my powerful piece “Psychological Fire.”

Is this what we have to go through to show the world the sensory depravation housing we’re subjected to? How much gas do we inhale until these conditions are noticed? We know America loves the chemicals, or at least administering them. Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Vietnam, lethal injections, the gas chamber that’s still used in some states, and the chemical repression that’s abused when anyone stands up for themselves or someone else against this unjust system. So we know they won’t stop gassing us!

This movement is here to stay until this atrocious death penalty is abolished. We’re not wrong for taking the stance we take, are we? If not, that brings me back to the question I tend to ponder on a daily basis:

Why don’t more people openly support our movement?

“I have a job to do… I feel that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life in some way it would aid the cause.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-

Comrade Jasiri

DRIVE ON!