ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! THE PEOPLE
ARE THE POWER!
1969
Romaine “Chip”
Fitzgerald
#B-27527
Centinela State
Prison,
FC-2-110,
PO Box 921,
Imperial, CA
92251
Birthday:
4-11-1949
Romaine 'Chip' Fitzgerald is a
former member of the Los Angeles
chapter of the Black Panther Party.
He is currently serving 2 life
sentences for the murder of a
security guard and attempted murder
of a CHP officer after originally
being given a death sentence.
On September 7th, 1969, California
Highway Patrol pulled over a
Volkswagen with Romaine 'Chip'
Fitzgerald and two other members of
the Black Panther Party (Robert
Williams and Luxey Irvin). The men
were stopped for a faulty taillight.
During the traffic stop a shooting
broke out, leaving one officer and
Chip Fitzgerald injured. The three
Black Panthers managed to escape
from the seen, leaving the injured
officer in possession of
Fitzgerald’s driver’s license. Chip
managed to escape arrest three times
before his capture.
On October 9th. After being taken
custody, he was informed that he was
not only charged with the attempted
murder of the CHP officer, but
was also being charged with the
murder of a private security guard,
Barge Miller. Chip denies
involvement in this shooting.
Furthermore the CHP officer has
since admitted that he had orders to
shoot to kill Black Panther Party
members.
Words from Chip, March 2007:
On behalf of the 170,000 imprisoned
sisters, brothers, and comrades for
whom I do not speak for but I do
speak with the, we embrace you in
spirit of love and solidarity!
In the current atmosphere of neoconservative Christian fascism and
extraordinary rendition- where
people are afraid to be labeled
unpatriotic…or a terrorist for their
progressive and radical beliefs and
political dissent- to paraphrase my
comrade Fred Hampton of the Black
Panther Party and who was
assassinated nearly 40 years ago…I
REMAIN A REVOLUTIONARY!
The prison system has mutated into a
complex dysfunctional resourcewasting parasite of social control,
political repression and revenge!
Human beings are warehoused in these
concrete and steel bunkers that
destroy human sensibilities and the
human spirit. Then following years
of continuous antagonism and
frustration at the hands of sadistic
prison guards tortured souls are
released on to an unsuspecting
public to offend. There in is the
cause and effect of an 80%
recidivism rate.
The human warehouses destroy human
beings like the Iraq war is
mutilating young Americans.
Prisoners are being desensitized…they are frustrated,
angry and bitter and unprepared to
become productive members of
society. These tortured souls who
are our families and loved ones, are
paroled with little hope…this is why
California’s recidivism rate is
above 75%. The system is now
designed to perpetuate itself.
We are again confronted with a
parole setting body of individuals
known as commissioners. Who are that
racist and revenge oriented and
operate as if they are exempt from
the rule of law with the CCPOA
(Prison Guards Union) and crime
victims driving the policy of the
CDC. The intent is to keep these
prisons filled to capacity!
From a practical perspective of
economic dollars and cents, there is
no return on the dollars invested in
the Prison Industrial Complex. It’s
an enormous drain on the state
budget, denying social services the
people-health care insurance and
increasing funding for education and
social programs for our youth and
young adults to prevent them from
joining gangs and engaging in
criminal activity.
Marshall Eddie
Conway #116469
MD. Correctional
Training Center
18800 Roxbury
Rd., Hagerstown,
MD 21746
Birthday:
4-23-1946
The enormity of the problem may seem
overwhelming…and we as individuals
by comparison may seem insignificant
and powerless but appearances can be
very deceptive. In the words of
Public Enemy…”Don’t Believe the
Hype.”
What is to be done to solve the
problem? Let us follow the example
of the anti war movement. Let the
politically conscious people of
Cali, the progressive and
revolutionary people rise up and
seize the day! Organize to halt the
perversion of justice and
squandering of valuable resources by
the Prison Guard Union (CCPOA) and
the Prison Industrial Complex.
Demand to be active participants in
the sentencing/ prison reform
process. Demand public transparency
as guaranteed by the law. Register
and vote out the legislators who
have rewarded the campaign
contributions of the California
Correctional Peace Officers
Association with CARTE BLANCHE to do
as they please in the California
Department of Corrections- which has
resulted in corruption, criminal
mismanagement, thievery, brutality
and even death!
The federal District courts have
held the prison bureaucrats guilty
and responsible for all of the
above. So the people have an
obligation to rise up and say to the
public servants...ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
BASTA! ALL POWER BELONGS TO THE
PEOPLE…WE ARE THE POWER!
SEIZE IT!
Freechip.org
Marshall Edward ("Eddie") Conway is
a former member of the Black
Panther Party who was imprisoned for
a crime he says he did not commit.
Eddie was implicated in the murder
of one Baltimore City police officer
and the assault and attempted murder
of two other officers. Eddie claims
that not only is he innocent but
that he was a target of COINTELPRO.
On April 24, 1970, two officers
investigated a domestic abuse call
at 1201 Myrtle Ave in Baltimore.
During the investigation, three men
opened fired on the patrol car,
killing one officer and injuring the
other. Shortly after the shooting, a
police officer by the name of Nolan,
engaged in a shoot out with a
suspect who managed to escape.
Police then apprehended two suspects
a few blocks away from the incident.
The day after the shooting a warrant
was issued for Marshall Eddie Conway
and he was arrested shortly after he
reported to work at Baltimore’s Main
Post Office. According to the
testimony of the arresting officer,
the warrant was obtained based on
information provided by an informer.
Besides a tip from an informer,
there is nothing to indicate
Conway’s involvement in the
shooting. In attempt to make their
case against Conway, prosecutors
reportedly made a deal with one of
the other defendants. Eddie’s been
in prison for over 30 years.
www.freeeddieconway.org
1969
1970
Jonathan Jackson burst into the
courtroom, heavily armed.
Ruchell Cinque
Magee
# A92051
3A2-131 Box
3471, C.S.P.
Corcoran, CA
93212
The following bio was written by
Mumia Abu Jamal:
Ruchell C. Magee arrived in Los
Angeles, California in 1963, and
wasn't in town for six months before
he and a cousin, Leroy, were
arrested on the improbable charges
of kidnap and robbery, after a fight
with a man over a woman and a $10
bag of marijuana. Magee, in a slamdunk "trial," was swiftly convicted
and swifter still sentenced to life.
Magee, politicized in those years,
took the name of the African freedom
fighter, Cinque, who, with his
fellow captives seized control of
the slave ship, the Amistad, and
tried to sail back to Africa. Like
his ancient namesake, Cinque would
also fight for his freedom from
legalized slavery, and for 7 long
years he filed writ after writ,
learning what he calls "guerrilla
law", honing it as a tool for
liberation of himself and his fellow
captives. But California courts,
which could care less about the
alleged "rights" of a young Black
man like Magee, dismissed his
petitions.
In August, 1970, Magee appeared as a
witness in the assault trial of
James McClain, a man charged with
assaulting a guard after San Quentin
guards murdered a Black prisoner,
Fred Billingsley. McClain, defending
himself, presented imprisoned
witnesses to expose the racist and
repressive nature of prisons. In the
midst of MaGee's testimony, 17 year,
Jonathan Jackson shouted "Freeze!"
Tossing weapons to McClain, William
Christmas, and a startled Magee, who
joined the rebellion on the spot.
The four rebels took the judge, the
DA and three jurors hostage, and
headed for a radio station where
they were going to air the wretched
prison conditions to the world, as
well as demand the immediate release
of a group of political prisoners,
known as The Soledad Brothers (John
Cluchette, Fleeta Drumgo, and
Jonathan's oldest brother, George).
While the men did not hurt any of
their hostages, they did not reckon
on the state's ruthlessness.
Before the men could get their van
out of the courthouse parking lot,
prison guards and sheriffs opened
furious fire on the vehicle, killing
Christmas, Jackson, McClain as well
as the judge. The DA was permanently
paralyzed by gunfire. Miraculously,
the jurors emerged relatively
unscratched, although Magee,
seriously wounded by gunfire, was
found unconscious.
Magee, who was the only Black
survivor of what has come to be
called "The August 7th Rebellion,"
would awaken to learn he was charged
with murder, kidnapping and
conspiracy, and that his codefendant was Angela Davis, who
faced identical charges. By trial
time the cases were severed, with
Angela garnering massive support
leading to her 1972 acquittal on all
charges.
Magee's trial did not garner such
broad support, yet he boldly
advanced the position that as his
imprisonment was itself illegal, and
a form of unjustifiable slavery, he
had the inherent right to escape
such slavery. Unfortunately,
Magee's jury didn't agree, although
it did acquit on at least one
kidnapping charge. The court
dismissed on the murder charge, and
Magee has been battling for his
freedom every since.
http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Polit
ical_Prisoners/RUCHELL_CINQUE_MAGEEPOLITICAL_PRISONER.html
Fred "Muhammad"
Burton
AF 3896
SCI Somerset
1590 Walters Mill
Rd
Somerset, PA
15510
Frederick Burton is an innocent man
who has diligently attempted to
prove his innocence to the courts
for the past 37 years. Prior to his
incarceration, Fred worked for a
phone company, was a well-respected
member of his community and his wife
was preparing to have twins, his
third and fourth child when he was
arrested. In 1970,Fred was accused
and then convicted of participating
in the planning of the murder of
Philadelphia police officers. While
the plan was allegedly to blow up a
police station, what occurred was
that a police officer was shot and
killed allegedly by members of a
radical group called "the
Revolutionaries."
Only one witness, Marie Williams,
corroborates the relationship
between Fred and "the
Revolutionaries." Fred was not
accused of being at the scene of the
crime. At Fred's trial, Marie
Williams was compelled by order of
the court to testify. She said she
had heard someone in her basement, a
floor below her, say, "Let's off
some pigs." She did not accuse Fred
of making those statements. The
Commonwealth intentionally struck
every African-American from the
active jury. The all white jury
unanimously convicted Fred after
being purposefully misled by the
Commonwealth and Marie Williams.
The testimony of the Commonwealth's
star witness, Marie Williams, was
marred by contradiction. Marie
Williams initially claimed Fifth
Amendment at the first two of three
preliminary hearings and refused to
testify. At Fred's third
preliminary hearing, Marie Williams
completely exonerated Fred. she
testified that she had no knowledge
of "the Revolutionaries" or of
Fred's involvement with that group.
After the third preliminary, the
case was held for trial. Marie
Williams was then subjected to a
closed immunity hearing and
compelled to testify at trial.
http://the-aspace.org/fredburton.pdf
The Omaha 2
Mondo We Langa
(David Rice)
#27768,
Nebraska State
Penitentiary, P.O.
Box 2500,
Lincoln, NE
68542
Birthday:
5-21-1947
Ed Poindexter #
27767
Nebraska State
Penitentiary, P.O.
Box 2500,
Lincoln, NE
68542
Birthday:
11-1-1944
David Rice (who later changed his
name to Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen We
Langa) and Edward Poindexter were
charged and convicted of the murder
of Omaha Police Officer Larry
Minard, father of five. Minard died
when a suitcase containing dynamite
exploded in a North Omaha home on
August 17, 1970. Officer John Tess
was also injured in the explosion.
Poindexter and Rice were members of
the Black Panther Party, and the
case was very controversial. The
Omaha Police withheld exculpatory
evidence at trial. The two men had
been targeted by the FBI's
COINTELPRO.
Poindexter was a community activist
in North Omaha. He has published
plays, and has also published
various materials educating and
motivating prison inmates who are
near release. While in prison, he
earned his Master's degree.
In the wake of the assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr., racial
tensions in inner-cities across
America were high. In March of 1968,
riots in Omaha led to the shooting
of a local high school student
during an event in support of
segregationist George Wallace's
presidential campaign. In the summer
of 1970, there was a rash of
bombings in the Midwest. Five
bombings had occurred in neighboring
Iowa, explosions occurred in
Wisconsin and Minnesota, and both a
police precinct and the Component
Concept Corporation suffered bomb
damage in Omaha. Members of the
Black Panther Party were the prime
suspects in these bombings.
In July, a warrant was issued to
search Omaha BPP headquarters for
bomb making materials. Luther Payne,
a former BPP member, was arrested in
Omaha for possessing dynamite. On
August 17 a call was made to the
police reporting a woman screaming
at a vacant house near 28th and Ohio
Street. Patrolman Michael Lamson and
five other members of the Omaha
Police Department (OPD) responded to
the call. They noticed a suitcase
sitting in the front room. Shortly
afterward, Patrolmen Larry Minard
and John Tess arrived. With Tess
looking on, Minard picked up the
suitcase. The resultant explosion
killed him and seriously injured
Tess. After hiding out for over a
week, Duane Peak was arrested for
the crime on August 28. He confessed
to placing the bag and implicated
six others, but mentioned neither
Rice nor Poindexter.
In a later statement, Peak told
police that Rice and Poindexter had
made the bomb, told him to plant it,
and to lure the police to the vacant
house with an anonymous phone call.
This led to the charging of
Poindexter and Rice with murder on
August 31, 1970.
In an interview with the Washington
Post on January 8, 1978, County
Prosecutor Art O'Leary admitted that
he had made a deal with Duane Peak
to prosecute him as a juvenile in
return for his testimony. O'Leary
acknowledged that without Peak's
testimony, the pair would not have
been convicted.
http://www.myspace.com/theomahatwo
William 'Lefty'
Gilday
#W33537
Box 1218
Shirley, MA
01464
William ‘Lefty’ Gilday is a 60s
radical sentenced to death for his
involvement in a bank expropriation
while attempting to finance the
anti-war movement during the Vietnam
War. Gilday is a former minor league
baseball player from Amesbury,
Massachusetts, who in
his early to mid-thirties was
arrested on robbery charges and
became radicalized in prison. Gilday
enrolled in Boston’s Northeastern
University with a fellow inmate,
Robert Valeri. William Gilday and
friends became involved in the
radical group known as the Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS) and
later moved into a militant
offshoot of SDS, known as the
Weather Underground.
The members engaged in an
expropriation of funds from the Bell
Federal Savings and Loan Association
in Philadelphia on September 1,
1970. They have also been connected
with an assault on the National
Guard armory at Newburyport,
Massachusetts, on September 20,
1970, which left the armory heavily
damaged by fire and explosions.
Ammunition and a truck were seized
during this action but were later
recovered by authorities.
On September 23, 1970, members of
the group entered the State Street
Bank and Trust Company in Boston
with the intent to expropriate
funds to help finance the movement
against the Vietnam War. The group
retrieved $26,585. As they left, a
Boston police officer who had been
alerted by a silent alarm was shot
and killed by a Thompson .45 caliber
sub-machine gun. Shortly after the
incident, Boston police obtained
warrants for two college students,
Susan Saxe and Katherine Power, and
former convicts Stanley Bond, Robert
Valeri and William Gilday. The five
were charged with murdering the
policeman during the robbery.
The hunt for Gilday was the largest
manhunt in New England history, with
close to 3,000 police, game wardens,
military troops and other personnel
involved. For eight days, Gilday was
successful in evading the
authorities before being captured
after a pursuit with police cruisers
and a helicopter.
Michael Fleischer, who was
responsible for the actual shooting
death of the officer became a
witness for the state. Fleischer had
nine indictments totally dismissed
after he testified against Gilday
and Saxe six years later. With the
help of the testimonies of Fleischer
and Valeri, the government was
successful in framing the murder
charge on William Gilday rather than
Michael Fleischer. Gilday was tried,
found guilty and was sentenced to
death. His sentence was later
reduced to life imprisonment.
http://www.abcf.net/la/pdfs/gilday.p
df
1971
Richard Mafundi
Lake #079972
Donaldson CF,
100 Warrior
Lane, Bessemer,
AL 35023-7299
Birthday:
3-1-1940
Mafundi is a New Afrikan prisoner
and prolific writer inside prison.
Due to his strong political views he
was isolated from other prisoners at
various intervals during his
incarceration. He is a powerful
writer inside. The following was
written by Mafundi on February 20,
1995:
As a person who has been involved in
political struggle all of my life,
primarily the African liberation
struggle (I am now 55 years old), I
can sincerely respect and appreciate
all, and any, effort in behalf of
the universal struggle for human
rights and human dignity, and
especially efforts in behalf of
those who are in prison. I have been
incarcerated 24 years out of my
life’s 55 years.
It is impossible for anyone who has
never been in prison to comprehend
the horrors and realities of life
within prison. Prison is a very
negative environment. There is
nothing good that can be said about
prisons. Prisons can not be reformed
(made better). Prison takes a toll
on everyone regardless of how
physically strong or mentally tough
a prisoner might be. Prison effects
different people in different ways,
but the dehumanizing and destructive
nature of prisons will have a
profound and everlasting effect on
all who enter prison. Nobody remains
the same in prison or after prison.
Prison is truly the test of a
person’s strength, character and
resourcefulness. The strong is not
always strong in prison.
Paradoxically, the strong upon
entering prison will often become
weak and the weak often becomes
strong. So many prisoners who are
supposed to be strong and good
people are broken in prison and
become agents for the state inside
and outside of prison. Political
people should be careful about exprisoners being accepted among their
ranks based solely upon their
character and reputation before they
went to prison. The state does
excellent recruitment from within
the prisons/jails and the military.
Especially among prisoners with past
good reputations. Personally, I
distrust anyone who prison
custodians trust and speak well of and regardless of what that prisoner
might be. Political prisoners of any
degree of integrity and intelligence
will not allow themselves to be
played like that. Political
activists/organizers/
revolutionaries should guard their
integrity/ credibility with a
passion because it is the most
important thing they have.
One of the fundamental weaknesses of
the prison struggle is that it is so
fragmented by elitism , regionalism,
egoism, etc. There is no real
attempt among enough people to
solidify the prison struggle. There
is a serious lack of political
maturity and political principles
within the prison struggle. How can
we save Mumia, free Gary Tyler,
Pratt, Sundiata and all the other
political prisoners and prisoners of
war without the pressure and
mobilization of the masses? This
will take a massive undertaking. No
individual or small group of
individuals will be able to make it
happen. The primary function of
revolutionaries is to mobilize the
masses. Unfortunately, some of the
so-called revolutionary elements
within the prison struggle do the
most to retard the prison smuggle
and undermine any real attempts to
solidify the prison struggle. In
fact, a lot of so- called
revolutionary groups are no more
than “elite social clubs” or
“regional cults.” It is a shame that
there are so many political
individuals and groups out there who
have allegedly been doing political
studying for decades and still don’t
understand a damn thing about
political principles and political
organizing. It is our ineptness that
gives the system its aura of
invincibility. The system ain’t
shit.
There are hundreds of prisoner
support groups throughout the
country but very few have working
relationships with each other - or
even know about each other.
Political prisoners and prisoners of
war have a vested interest in
encouraging their families, their
defense committees and their
supporters to bond together with
other political prisoners’ and
prisoners’ of war families, defense
committees and supporters in order
to more effectively work for the
common good. They should also
encourage them to work with other
reputable political groups
regardless of what the primary focus
of the group/individual might be.
We all have a common enemy and it’s
about time we all start acting like
it. The struggle is not about who we
like personally. We are not engaged
in a personal struggle or a
popularity struggle! We are engaged
in a political struggle… A
revolutionary struggle!
Joseph "Joe-Joe"
Bowen
#AM-4272
1 Kelley Drive
Coal Township,
PA 17866-1021
Birthday:
1-15-1946
Joseph "Joe-Joe" Bowen is one of the
many all-but-forgotten frontline
soldiers in the liberation struggle.
A native of Philadelphia, Joe-Joe
was a young member of the "30th and
Norris Street" gang, before his
incarceration politicized him.
Released in 1971, his outside
activism was cut short a week
following his release when Joe-Joe
was confronted by an officer of the
notoriously brutal Philadelphia
police department. The police
officer was killed in the
confrontation, and Bowen fled.
After his capture and incarceration,
Bowen became a Black Liberation Army
combatant, defiant to authorities at
every turn. In 1973, Bowen and
Philadelphia Five prisoner Fred
"Muhammad Kafi" Burton assassinated
Holmesberg prison's warden and
deputy warden as well as wounded the
guard commander in retaliation for
intense repression against Muslim
prisoners in the facility. In 1981,
Bowen led a six-day standoff with
authorities when he and six other
captives took 39 hostages at
Graterford Prison as a freedom
attempt and protest of the prison
conditions at Graterford.
Much of his time in prison has been
spent in and out of control units,
solitary confinement and other means
of isolating Joe-Joe from the
general prison population. However,
he is legendary to many prisoners as
a revolutionary. "I used to teach
the brothers how to turn their rage
into energy and understand their
situations," Bowen told the
Philadelphia Inquirer in 1981. "I
don't threaten anybody. I don't talk
to the pigs. I don't drink anything
I can't see through and I don't eat
anything that comes off a tray. When
the time comes, I'll be ready."
Russell Maroon
Shoats
#AF-3855
SCI Greene, 175
Progress Drive,
Waynesburg, PA
15370
Birthday:
8-23-1943
Russell Maroon Shoats is a political
prisoner being held in the control
unit of SCI Greene, a super-max
prison in western Pennsylvania.
Russell was a founding member of
Philadelphia’s Black Unity Council
which eventually merged with the
Black Panther Party. In 1972 while a
member of the Philadelphia chapter
Russell was arrested and tried for
the murder of a police officer. He
received an unfair trial, and
without adequate legal
representation he received two life
sentences. Russell has spent twentythree of his twenty-seven years in
prison in a lock-down sensory
deprivation unit in retaliation for
his political activities and escape
attempts in the early 70's. He is
confined twenty-three hours a day.
His family only gets one-hour visits
with him, and they must drive twelve
hours just to see him. Visitors must
talk with Russell through a glass
wall while his hands are shackled to
his belt. Before and after visits he
gets a full body cavity strip
search, although the visits are noncontact. Russell has not received a
disciplinary write-up in twenty-one
years.
http://www.myspace.com/freerussellsh
oatz
www.abcf.net/la/pdfs/russellshoats.p
df
Hugo "Dahariki"
Pinell # A88401
SHU D3-221,
P.O. Box 7500,
Crescent City,
CA 95531-7500
Birthday:
3-10-1945
Hugo Pinell is a Nicaraguan prisoner
convicted in 1965, at the age of 19,
of assault in connection with the
kidnapping and rape of a young woman
in San Francisco. He turned himself
in, and received a sentence of 18
months in state prison.
While Pinell was imprisoned in San
Quentin State Prison he made contact
with revolutionary prisoners such as
George Jackson, one of the Soledad
Brothers and W.L. Nolen.
On August 21st, 1971, there was a
prisoner uprising in Pinell's
housing unit at San Quentin, led by
George Jackson. At the end of the
roughly 30 minute rebellion, guards
had killed George Jackson, and two
other prisoners and three guards
were dead. Of the remaining
prisoners in the unit, six of them,
including Pinell, were put on trial
for murder and conspiracy. Pinell
was convicted of assault on a guard.
Although Pinell was convicted
of assault, and another of the San
Quentin Six had a murder conviction,
only Pinell remains. By 1998, all of
the men except Pinell had been set
free. In 2009 the California Parole
Board held a parole hearing for Hugo
Pinell (Yogi) on January 14 at which
they denied him parole and scheduled
him to return to the board in 15
years!
www.hugopinell.org
1972
The Angola 3
Wallace, King, Woodfox
Herman Wallace #76759
Elayn Hunt Correctional Center
Unit 5, D-Tier
PO Box 174
St Gabriel, LA 70776
Albert Woodfox #72148
CCR Upper B Cell #14, Louisiana
State Pen, Angola LA 70712
Birthday:
2-19-1947
Robert King
c/o Kings Freelines
2008 New York Av. #B
Austin, Texas 78702
email: kingsfreelines AT gmail
DOT com
Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace
arrived to Angola on unrelated
armed-robbery convictions, they were
both sentenced on questionable
evidence by all-white juries, and
they both came to the prison having
already earned reputations as
political activists.
Woodfox and Wallace were escorted
into an institution that Collier’s
magazine had just dubbed “The
Bloodiest Prison in America.” Inside
its walls, violence was so
commonplace that inmates slept with
lunch trays or bibles strapped to
their chests in case they were
stabbed as they slept. Because of a
serious shortage of guards, “trusty”
inmates were permitted to carry guns
and guard other prisoners. Murders
were a near daily occurrence.
Woodfox and Wallace immediately
began peacefully organizing their
fellow inmates against racial
segregation, sexual slavery, rampant
violence and systematic brutality
inside a prison that would soon be
under federal investigation for its
abhorrent conditions. Their methods
included hunger strikes and
escorting weaker inmates through the
prison yard to offer them
protection.
Shortly after their arrival, a white
prison guard named Brent Miller was
found stabbed to death in one of the
black inmate buildings. Woodfox and
Wallace were immediately identified
as suspects, despite no witnesses or
any physical evidence to link them
to the crime. They were transferred
into solitary confinement cells that
same day. Thirty-five years later,
that is where they remain.
Just after the US Supreme Court
struck down the death penalty in
1972, citing racial disparity in its
implementation, the men were
convicted of the guard’s murder by
all-white juries and sentenced to
life in prison. The administration
at Angola has determined that they
will spend that sentence confined to
the hell of solitude. Over three
decades later, they are longest
known survivors of solitary in the
history of the United States.
Over the past 35 years, attorneys
and investigators have turned up a
mountain of evidence to indicate
that not only were Woodfox and
Wallace not guilty, but they were
set up by an Administration that
openly admitted it benefited from
the sexual slavery rings. Woodfox
and Wallace were working to stop
prison rape, and they had also
founded the first and only Black
Panther chapter inside a
penitentiary. The all-white staff,
most of who actually lived on the
prison grounds, did not appreciate
this. Angola is the only prison in
the country that has a residential
neighborhood within the gates of the
penitentiary.
Among the evidence that seems to
exonerate Woodfox and Wallace are
the bloody fingerprints which were
found at the crime scene. They
failed to match the state’s chosen
suspects – so authorities never
bothered to run them against anyone
else, despite the fact that they had
the prints of every inmate and every
employee of Angola on file and
readily available. After Woodfox and
Wallace were already in solitary
confinement, “eye-witnesses” started
popping up. Each testified with a
wildly different story – and it has
recently been verified through
prison documentation that each was
handsomely rewarded for their
statements, with cigarettes, cushy
jobs and pardons. Every living eyewitness has now recanted their
testimony and provided an affidavit
that they felt pressured to lie.
Two days after Brent Miller’s
murder, a friend of Woodfox’s and
Wallace’s, Robert King Wilkerson,
arrived at Angola, also bringing
with him a reputation for activism.
He was immediately placed under
suspicion for the killing, even
though he could not possibly have
participated in it, and sent to his
own solitary cell. A year later, he
would be charged with the murder of
a fellow inmate, despite no physical
evidence and the repeated
confessions of another prisoner who
insisted he had acted alone. A
Louisiana state court judge ordered
that Wilkerson be shackled and his
mouth covered with duct tape during
his trial. He also was convicted of
murder by an all-white jury and
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Robert King Wilkerson’s conviction
was overturned in 2001, after
spending almost 30 years in solitary
confinement, and he walked out of
Angola to a throng of supporters who
had gathered around the gates of the
remote prison. He addressed them and
said simply, “I may be free from
Angola, but Angola will never be
free from me.” It was his vow to
work on behalf of the release of his
friends. It is a vow that he has
kept.
Woodfox and Wallace have a support
network that includes the ACLU, a
Dame of the British Empire,
exonerated political prisoners, a
few rock stars, Amnesty
International, and support
organizations in five U.S. cities
and half a dozen foreign countries.
On November 7, 2006, after almost 35
years of solitary confinement, a
Louisiana State Court Commissioner
recommended to overturn Wallace’s
1972 conviction. He still has many
legal hurdles before he can join his
friend Robert King Wilkerson in
freedom, but this is a remarkable
victory and Wallace believes he has
his “foot on the stairway to
freedom.”
Albert Woodfox’s last state appeal
was denied by the Louisiana Supreme
Court ten days after Wallace’s
hearing concluded. He now has the
opportunity to present his case in
federal court and Woodfox is
optimistic that this is his best
chance for a fair and impartial
court ruling.
UPDATE: Late March 2008 the two were
moved from solitary confinement into
a special dormitory created for
maximum security inmates. The men's
lawyers, who have recently captured
national attention with the Angola
Three's story, said they were taken
by surprise with the move.
www.Angola3.org
1973
Virgin Island 5
Hanif Shabazz
Bey (Beaumont
Gereau) #295933
Keen Mountain
CC, P.O. Box
860, Oakwood,
VA 24631
Birthday:
8-16-1950
Malik Smith
#295935
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap,
VA 24219
Wallensridge
Supermax
"Virgin Island Five" are a group of
activists accused of murdering eight
people in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The murders took place during a
turbulent period of rebellion on the
islands. During the 1970's, as with
much of the world, a movement to
resist colonial rule began to grow
in the U.S. occupied Virgin Islands.
From 1971 to 1973, there was a small
scale Mau Mau rebellion taking place
on the islands. The media downplayed
this activity, for fear that it
would damage the tourist industry,
which the island's survival depends
on.
Then on September 6th, 1972, eight
American tourists were gunned down
at the Rockefeller-owned golf course
on the island of St.Croix. Quickly
the colonial authorities picked up
over one hundred blacks for
interrogations, and the U.S.
colonial troops carried out a
series of repressive acts of
violence against the black
community. The F.B.I. and the United
States Army troops led a 300-man
invasion force into the islands and
did house to house searches of the
low income areas. The island was put
under virtual martial law, and
eventually five men, Ismail Ali,
Warren (Aziz) Ballantine, Meral
(Malik) Smith, Raphael (Kwesi)
Joseph, and Hanif Shabazz Bey were
apprehended and then charged with
the attack. All the men were known
supporters of the Virgin Island
independence movement.
The five were charged after being
subjected to vicious torture, in
order to extract confessions. They
were beaten, hung from their feet
and necks from trees, subject to
electric shocks with "cattle prods",
had plastic bags tied over their
heads and had water forced up their
noses by the police. The judge
(Warren Young) overlooking the case
prior to being placed on the federal
bench worked as Rockefeller's
private attorney and even handled
legal matters for the Fountain
Valley Golf Course. Eventually, the
five went to trial in what became
known as the "Fountain Valley"
murder trial. This was an obvious
Kangaroo Court and a mockery of any
sense of a fair trial.
• The court refused to excuse juror
member Laura Torres, former wife of
detective Jorge Torres, one of the
arresting officers.
• Nine jurors testified that during
the deliberations they were
threatened with F.B.I.
investigations on themselves and
members of their families, and also
threats of prosecution.
• The jury deliberated for nine
days, and told the judge that they
were "hopelessly deadlocked", yet he
still refused to dismiss them and
call a mistrial which worked to
compel a guilty verdict.
On August 13, 1973, each of the five
men convicted and sentenced to
eight(8) consecutive life terms.
Today, Meral (Malik) Smith, and
Hanif Shabazz Bey are currently
confined in federal prisons. Warren
(Aziz) Ballantine has been
transferred to a prison facility
in the Virgin Islands. His address
is unknown. Ismail Ali was liberated
to Cuba via an airplane hijacking in
1984. Raphael (Kwesi) Joseph was
granted a pardon by the Virgin
Island governor in 1992. Six years
later Kwesi was mysteriously found
dead of a poison-laced drug
overdose, after it was said that he
was about to reveal evidence that
would have
exonerated at least one or more
defendant.
In 2006, the three remaining Virgin
Island political prisoners were
notified by a team of attorneys from
the islands that they were putting
together a campaign for clemency. In
January 2007, the Virgin Island
prisoners received news that their
clemency request was rejected. In
recent writings, Hanif Bey has
indicated that there are other
Virgin Island political prisoners
being held in Wallenridge. Little
information has come out regarding
these prisoners.
www.abcf.net/la/pdfs/vi5.pdf
Sundiata Acoli
(C.Squire)
#39794-066
USP Allenwood
P.O. Box 3000
White Deer, PA
17887
Birthday:
1-14-1937
Formerly a member of the Black
Liberation Army. Acoli was convicted
in May 2, 1973, along with the nowescaped Assata Shakur, of inciting a
gun battle with New Jersey State
Police during a routine traffic
stop. In the battle, State Trooper
Werner Foerster and a third man,
Zayd Malik Shakur, who was traveling
with Acoli and Assata, were killed.
The trooper who made the stop, James
Harper, and Assata were injured.
Acoli was sentenced to life in
prison plus thirty years for the
assisted murder of State Trooper
Foerster and Zayd Malik Shakur.
http://www.myspace.com/freesundiata
Veronza Bowers
#35316-136
U.S. Penitentiary
- Atlanta
P.O. Box 150160
Atlanta, GA
30315
Former member of the Black Panther
Party, Veronza Bowers Jr., was
convicted of the murder of a U.S.
Park Ranger on the word of two
government informers, both of whom
received reduced sentences for other
crimes by the Federal prosecutor's
office. There were no eye-witnesses
and no evidence independent of these
informants to link him to the crime.
At his trial, Veronza offered alibi
testimony, which was not credited by
the jury. Nor was testimony of two
relatives of the informants who
insisted that they were lying.
Despite letters of support from
prominent attorneys, former highranking representatives of regional
commissions, prison officials and a
member of the U.S. Congress, Veronza
has continually been denied release
due to intervention by the U.S.
Parole Commission. It is a sad fact
that Vernonza may never see the
sight of day despite having served
his full sentence. Veronza's case
deserves careful review.
In the 30-plus years of his
confinement, Veronza has become a
"model "prisoner. He is an author,
musician, a student of Asian healing
arts, has a strong interest in
Buddhist meditation and "hands-on"
healing techniques which he
practiced at the various facilities
in which he was incarcerated, and he
is an honorary elder of the Lompoc
Tribe of Five Feathers, a Native
American spiritual and cultural
group.
Veronza.org
Robert Seth Hayes
#74-A-2280
Wende CF, Wende
Rd.,
PO Box 1187,
Alden, NY 140041187
Birthday:
10-15-1948
Seth is in prison due to his
activity in the Black Panther Party
and the Black Liberation Army. He
worked in the BPP’s free medical
clinics and free breakfast programs.
In 1973, following a shootout with
police, Seth was arrested and
convicted of the murder of a New
York City police officer, and
sentenced to 25 years to life in
prison. Seth has always maintained
his innocence. Jailed for over 30
years, Seth has long since served
the time he was sentenced to and
while in prison he has worked as a
librarian, pre release advisor, and
AIDS councilor. Seth is repeatedly
denied parole. His supporters
suspect this is for having been a
member of the Black Panther Party,
and of having remained true to his
ideals after 30 years behind bars.
Seth has been diagnosed with
Hepatitis C and adult onset Diabetes
since the year 2000. Unfortunately,
despite his repeated requests Seth
has not been receiving adequate
health care from prison.
sentence for a total of thirty-seven
years. This is unacceptable. For
this reason, we are making an urgent
request for financial support in an
effort to prepare for his next
parole board hearing. We hope to
raise somewhere near $2,500. If you
decide to donate, you can write off
your contribution next tax season.
To donate, please write
IFCO/NYCJERICHO. They will collect
the funds and send them to Cheryl
Kates, his new parole attorney. If
you need more information call
Paulette at 718-853-0893 or cell
646-271-4677. All money should be
mailed to Paulette at:
NYC JERICHO, P.O.Box 1272, NY, NY
10013
Make your check payable to IFCO/NYC
Jericho and in the memo of your
check be sure to include “Robert
Seth Hayes.”
We really appreciate your help!
www.sethhayes.org
1975
Gary Tyler
# 84156
Louisiana State
Penitentiary,
ASH-4, Angola
LA 70712
Dear Friends of Robert Seth Hayes:
In 1975, Gary Tyler, an AfricanAmerican teenager, was wrongly
convicted by an all-white jury for
the murder of Timothy Weber, a
thirteen-year-old white youth. Weber
had been killed the previous year
during an attack by a racist white
mob on a school bus filled with
African-American high school
students in Destrehan, Louisiana.
As you may know, this past winter,
my father lost another parole
hearing. He has now served twelve
years above his twenty-five year
Tyler's trial was characterized by
coerced testimony, planted evidence,
judicial misconduct, and an
incompetent defense. He was
sentenced to death by electrocution
From Seth’s daughter:
at the age of seventeen. He has
since had his sentence changed to
life in prison.
http://www.freegarytyler.com/
Tuscaloosa and a multi-millionaire
oilman from Birmingham.
http://www.myspace.com/freesekou
Sekou Kambui
(William Turk)
#113058
Box 56, SCC (B121), Elmore, AL
36025-0056
Birthday:
9-6-1948
Sekou Cinque T.M. Kambui (s/n William J.
Turk is a New Afrikan political prisoner
currently serving two consecutive life
sentences. Sekou has already spent more
than 29 years of his life behind bars on
trumped up charges of murdering two
white men in Alabama in 1975. He
maintains his innocence.
Throughout the 1960s, Sekou
participated in the Civil Rights
movement, organizing youth for
participating in demonstrations and
marches across Alabama and providing
security for meetings of the
Southern Christian Leadership
Council (SCLC), Congress for Racial
Equality (CORE) and the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC).
On January 2, 1975, Sekou was
captured in North Birmingham for
allegedly running a yield sign
and/or speeding. During this stop, a
9mm pistol was found in the car
lying between the front seats.
Subsequent investigation by police
on the scene discovered that the
pistol was listed as stolen during a
Tuscaloosa, AL murder. A wide-range
investigation followed, At one point
during the investigation, Sekou was
told by one of the investigators,
"We don't really give a damn whether
you committed these crimes or not,
but you should have because we are
gonna hang your ass with them
anyway…" Sekou was arrested and
charged with the murders of two
white men: a KKK official from
Kojo Bomani
Sababu (Grailing
Brown) #39384066
USP Coleman 1,
P.O. Box 1033,
Coleman, FL
33521
New Afrikan Prisoner Kojo Bomani
Sababu has been imprisoned since
1975 after the state attacked and
destroyed his Black Liberation
Army unit. He received a sentence of
multiple life terms because he
fought for self-determination. His
unit engaged in bank expropriation
and liquidated dealers bringing
drugs into the Black community. He
was convicted of conspiracy to
escape along with Jaime Delgado, (a
veteran independence leader), Dora
Garcia, (a prominent community
activist) and Oscar Rivera (leader
of Armed Forces of National
Liberation.)
Statement from Kojo:
Although it seems as if all is lost
and we are in a period of
stagnation, we should place our
energy in the areas which produce
tangible results as opposed to
frustration.
What efforts are they is the
question! Those efforts are still an
attempt at building recognition for
those who have long endured
incarceration, constructing a sound
organizational program for them, and
not allow their contributions to
humanity to be forgotten.
Currently, many political prisoners
of war and political prisoners, are
growing old, infirm, and have become
mantelpieces for the fireplace. Our
organizations have grown old in
thought also and need reinvigoration
from different ideas and approaches.
In order to grow fresh and anew we
need to accept first that we are
stale and tasteless, otherwise we
would have developed into a unique
program counter to what is presently
offered by the oppressor nation. To
emerge from the ashes is to find new
solutions to our problems because
what we utilized in the past has
either been useless, or met the test
of time.
In the past, we were quick-witted
and refused to listen to
alternatives in our techniques at
handling affairs. This attitude and
character must change because we are
at a standstill in our development.
To listen and be attentive is to be
informed and thinking. We have to
build a thinking person to disarm a
enemy which uses many devices to
control our movements. Adaptability
is probably the order of the day for
our survival as internationalists
and nationalists. We should
definitely forsake becoming the
oppressor, but in this technological
world we must learn to fight with
his tools. His major weapon nowadays
is consistent propaganda. Techniques
used are fax machines, radio,
television, town meetings, etc., to
disseminate their ideas that our
approaches are complete failures at
life. We must use these same weapons
at our disposal to reverse this
trend, in building support for our
programs and those who are
incarcerated. They have stolen the
appreciation for struggle from us.
We must fight to regain the love and
honor of revolution in the hearts
and minds of the oppressed.
I've been rather long-winded, so I
shall cut this commentary short. But
I sincerely believe if we step up
our propaganda efforts and accept
new ideas we will be better off and
stronger going into the next
century.
Revolutionary Love To All.
1977
Ojore Nuru
Lutalo
# 59860
PO Box 861,
#901548, Trenton
NJ 08625
Birthday:8-6
Recently released from a Management
Control Unit (MCU) after spending
years in solitary confinement, New
Afrikan anarchist prisoner of
War, Ojore, is still incarcerated in
Trenton, New Jersey, for actions
carried out in the fight for
liberation.
In 1977, Ojore received a 14-year
sentence for “expropriating monies
from a capitalist state bank (in
order to finance political
activities) and engaging the
political police in a gun battle in
December 1975 in order to effect our
departure from the bank, and to
ensure success of the military
operation…” He is currently serving
a 40-year sentence for a 1982
gunfight with a drug dealer. “The
overall strategy of assaulting a
drug dealer is to secure monies to
finance one's activities, and to rid
oppressed communities of drug
dealers.”
Ojore was a comrade of the late
Kuwasi Balagoon, a New Afrikan
anarchist POW. “I’ve been involved
in the struggle, the war against
the fascist state since 1970. I’ve
been an anarchist since 1975 without
any regrets… I was…influenced and
highly motivated by the Black
Liberation Army (BLA) here in
Amerika…From the inception of all
revolutions, I feel that the people
need armed combat units to check
state sponsored acts of terrorism by
the government’s security forces.”
Ojore has long been a powerful voice
urging progressive groups and
individuals to materially support
PP/POWs. "Any political movement
that does not support its political
internees is a sham movement!"
http://www.myspace.com/191923182
Leonard Peltier
#89637-132
USP Lewisburg,
P.O. Box 1000,
Lewisburg, PA
17837
Birthday:
9-12-1944
Leonard Peltier is a citizen of the
Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota
Nations, an indigenous rights
activist and member of the American
Indian Movement.
In 1977 he was convicted and
sentenced to two consecutive terms
of life imprisonment for the murder
of two FBI Agents who died during a
1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation. Peltier had fled
to Canada after the incident
believing he would never receive a
fair trial in the United States. On
February 6, 1976, Peltier was
apprehended. The FBI knowingly
presented the Canadian court with
fraudulent affidavits, and Peltier
was returned to the U.S. for trial.
Numerous appeals have been filed on
his behalf but none have been ruled
in his favor. Peltier is currently
incarcerated at the United State
Penitentiary in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania.
Peltier has been a key-figure in the
movement for support of political
prisoners. He is an accomplished
writer and artist with the noteable
work: Prison Writings: My Life Is My
Sun Dance.
UDATE: Leonard had a parole hearing
on July,28 2009 and eagerly awaits
the outcome of said hearing.
www.leonardpeltier.net
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/
1978
Luis V. Rodríguez
# C - 33000
P.O. Box 409000
IONE, CA 95640
USA
Luis V. Rodriguez is a ChicanoNative freedom fighter. As a
youngster, he lived in Los Angeles
for a period of time with a group
known as the Brown Berets, a
Chicano-Native American militant
organization, which formed
against racism and other social
injustices.
Luis interacted with the League of
United Latin Americans (LULAC), the
G.I. Forum, and other
Socio-political organizations. At
age seventeen, he started Atzlan, a
Chicano-Native American news
magazine, which focused on politics,
history, culture, and ethnic
awareness. He was editor-in-chief,
artist, and headed a small staff of
other youths. He was a counselor at
an Offender Ex-Offender program in
Sacramento, a counselor in Los
Angeles at the AYUDATE program, and
a counselors’ aide at the
California Youth Authority Perkins
Reception Center.
Luis V. Rodriguez and his on-againoff-again girlfriend, Margaret
Klaess, were arrested on December
24, 1978 in Richmond California, for
the alleged homicides of two
California Highway Patrolmen. The
deaths occurred on December 22, 1978
at about 3:30 a.m., alongside the
Interstate Freeway I-80 in Yolo
County, just outside of Sacramento,
California.
Luis V. Rodriguez was arrested at a
time when California´s Death Penalty
law had become reactivated and the
political terms ´War on Crime´, ´
and ‘Tough on Crime´, were on a
political roll. It was during a time
when racial tensions and
confrontations were at a peak
between the Yolo County law
enforcement and Native Americans,
Mexican Americans, and African
Americans. Apprehended on the basis
of composite drawings related to a
robbery, known travel plans, and
allegations from police informants;
the Richmond police took them into
custody. At the time of their
arrest, they placed Rodriguez on the
ground spread-eagle, and placed two
shotguns against his head, telling
him that they ought to blow him away
right there and save the taxpayers
some money. While being processed
through the Richmond County Jail,
Rodriguez was choked and beaten by
officers. The police and prosecutors
had set up numerous news media
people outside that door to
intentionally have Rodriguez and
Klaess photographed and to have
their identities aired broadly to
expose the faces of Rodriguez and
Klaess to any and all possible
persons who might want to become a
witness against them and for them to
be able to identify the alleged
suspects in these crimes, thereby
tainting all possible witness
identifications against them.
For periods of time while in county
jails, Rodriguez was held
incommunicado, unable to receive
visits from attorneys, family or
friends and unable to correspond or
receive any correspondence. He was
denied telephone access, personal
hygiene necessities, such as
toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, comb,
or even shoes. Immediately after
being processed into the Yolo County
Jail, Luis was deprived of sleep for
almost three days while being
questioned, photographed, and forced
physically to submit to the takings
of physical specimens, such as hair,
saliva, blood, and fingernail
clippings. Rodriguez´ food was
brought inedible, cold, and dusty.
He was taken to his arraignment
within 72 hours after his arrest
looking like a madman with
his hair disheveled, no shoes or
socks, as well as showing the
effects of having been deprived of
sleep and nourishment.
Yet, Margaret Klaess, who had been
charged with the same crimes and in
the same jail, was receiving not
only various cosmetics, but
cigarettes and outdoor exercise,
along with the privilege of taking
her meals in the regular dining hall
with other inmates. (Rodriguez had
immediately been placed in a
secluded isolation section of the
jail where they had moved out all
other inmates in order to completely
isolate him). Additionally, Luis
would later learn that Margaret had
a television and radio in her cell,
as well as access to newspapers.
What Rodriguez didn´t know at the
time was that Margaret´s attorney
was already attempting to get
Margaret to make statements against
Rodriguez in order to implicate him
in the homicides or to cast guilt
upon him.
On January 1, 1979, Rodriguez
received a surprise visit from a
women he had previously had a
relationship with. At the visit, the
women attempted to give Rodriguez
her address so that he could write
to her.
The letter was intercepted and shown
to Margaret. She began screaming
and crying, yelling hysterically
that, ´ Louis is a traitor,´ ´a
lying son of a bitch!´ and stating,
“He´s guilty, he killed those
officers!”
Officers and prosecutors were
quickly there to provide Margaret
with a complete immunity deal and
immediate release if she would
continue to say Luis had committed
the murders. With access to all of
documents of the investigation she
fabricated quite a convincing story
implicating Rodriguez as the sole
perpetrator in the killing of the
two officers. To cinch the immunity
deal with Margaret, the prosecutors
requested she take a polygraph test.
The polygraph test was given to
Klaess using completely erroneous
dates, making the entire test
invalid and worthless. Yet,
prosecutors knowing this, continued
on with the immunity deal and simply
hid the test results from Rodriguez
and his attorneys for several years,
until after he was convicted and on
Death Row.
Margaret Klaess was released from
jail on January 22, 1979, after
testifying in Rodriguez´ preliminary
hearing. Klaess´ immunity deal
included absolution from numerous
crimes ranging from the homicides to
robberies and a variety of drug
charges, and later to include
ongoing immunity for Klaess for any
crimes she would continue to commit
while waiting to testify against
Rodriguez in his trial.
In July, 1979, County Jail officers
allowed an incarcerated police
informant (an ex-death row prisoner
who had previously been convicted
for various counts of child
molestation against his twelve year
old step-daughter and assault with a
deadly weapon against his wife), to
smuggle a tape-recorder into the
jail in an attempt to record
Rodriguez while attempting to engage
him in incriminating conversations.
The tape recording was fruitless and
unsuccessful, the police and
prosecutor still attempted to put
him on the federal payroll as a
federally protected witness for
testifying against Rodriguez. This
was not the only witness of this
type that would come forward,
offering false statements against
Rodriguez in exchange for some type
of reward, immunity, favors, or
police protection.
Charles Simms Africa #AM4975
SCI Graterford, Box 244, Graterford
PA 19426
Birthday: April 7, 1956
At about the same time of these
fabrications in July, 1979, the
County Jail officers conducted an
illegal search and seizure upon
Rodriguez’ confidential attorneyclient legal files which he
maintained within his jail cell.
Debbie Sims Africa #006307
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge
Springs, PA 16403-1238
Birthday: August 4, 1956
When Rodriguez attempted to complain
about these actions, the jailers
placed him in complete
incommunicado, turned off the water
into his cell, threw food and
liquids at him through the bars, and
placed him on disciplinary status.
Delbert Orr Africa #AM4985
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA
18612
Birthday: June 21, 1951
Other witnesses described seeing a
man at the crime scene whose
description was completely
inconsistent with that of Rodriguez.
http://luisvrodriguez.com/
http://www.humanrights.de/doc_en/arc
hiv/u/usa/luis/lr9.html
Edward Goodman Africa #AM4974
301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA
17932
Birthday: October 21, 1949
Merle Africa-died in prison
Janet Holloway Africa #006308
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge
Springs, PA 16403-1238
Birthday: April 13, 1951
Move 9
Janine Phillips Africa #006309451
Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs,
PA 16403-1238
Birthday: April 25, 1956
Michael Davis Africa #AM4973
SCI Graterford Box 244, Graterford,
PA 19426-0244
Birthday: October 6, 1955
William Phillips Africa #AM4984
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA
18612
Birthday: January 1, 1956
From the Move Website written by a
member of MOVE- The MOVE 9 are
innocent men and women who have been
in prison since August 8, 1978,
following a massive police attack on
us at our home in Powelton Village
(Philadelphia). This was seven years
before the government dropped a bomb
on MOVE, killing 11 people,
including 5 babies. The August 8,
1978 police attack on MOVE followed
years of police brutality against
MOVE and was a major military
operation carried out by the
Philadelphia police department under
orders of then-mayor, Frank Rizzo,
whose reputation for racism and
brutality is well known; it followed
him up thru the ranks of the police
department to the police
commissioner's office to the mayor's
office.
During this attack, heavy equipment
was used to tear down the fence
surrounding our home, and cops
filled our home with enough tear gas
to kill us and our babies, while
SWAT teams covered every possible
exit. We were all in the basement of
our home, where we had 10 thousand
pounds of water pressure per minute
directed at us from 4 fire
department water cannons (for a
total of 40 thousand pounds of water
pressure per minute). As the
basement filled with nearly six feet
of water we had to hold our babies
and animals above the rising water
so they wouldn't drown. Suddenly
shots rang out (news reporters and
others know the shots came from a
house at 33rd and Baring St., not
our home, because they actually saw
the man shooting) and bullets
immediately filled the air as police
through-out the area opened fire on
us. Officer James Ramp, who was
standing above us on street-level
and facing our home, was killed by a
single bullet that struck him on a
downward angle. This alone makes it
impossible for MOVE to have killed
Ramp, since we were below street
level, in the basement. MOVE adults
came out of the house carrying our
children through clouds of tear gas,
we were beat and arrested.
Television cameras actually filmed
the vicious beating of our brother
Delbert Africa (3 of the 4 cops that
beat Delbert went to trial on minor
charges). Despite the photographic
evidence, the trial judge (Stanley
Kubacki) refused to let the jury
render a verdict and himself
acquitted the cops by directed
order.
Nine of us were charged with murder
and related charges for the death of
James Ramp. Within a few hours of
our arrest, our home (which is
supposed to be the "scene of the
crime" and therefore evidence) was
deliberately destroyed, demolished,
by city officials when they were
legally obligated to preserve all
evidence, but we were held for trial
anyway. We went to trial before
Judge Edward Malmed who convicted
all nine of us of third degree
murder (while admitting that he
didn't have "the faintest idea" who
killed Ramp) and sentenced each of
us to 30 - 100 years in prison.
Judge Malmed also stated that MOVE
people said we are a family so he
sentenced us as a family; we were
supposed to be on trial for murder,
not for being a family. It is clear
that the MOVE 9 are in prison for
being committed MOVE members, not
for any accusation of crime. Three
other adults that were in the house
on August 8th did not get the same
treatment as those that this
government knows are committed MOVE
members. One had all charges
dismissed against her in September
of 1978 with the judge saying that
there was no evidence that she was a
committed MOVE member when the issue
was supposed to be murder. The
second one was held for trial but
released on bail; she was acquitted.
The third one was held for trial
with no bail, convicted of
conspiracy and given 10-23 years;
she was paroled in 1994. It is
obvious that everything depended on
whether or not the courts thought it
was dealing with a committed MOVE
member, court decisions had nothing
to do with the accusation of murder.
It has been 25 years since the
August 8, 1978 police attack on
MOVE, 25 years of unjust of
imprisonment, but despite the
hardship of being separated from
family-members, despite the grief
over the murder of family-members
(including babies), the MOVE 9
remain strong and loyal to our
Belief, our Belief in Life, the
Teaching of our Founder, JOHN
AFRICA. We have an uncompromising
commitment to our Belief, which is
what makes us a strong unified
family, despite all this government
have done to break us up and
ultimately exterminate us.
http://move9parole.blogspot.com/
1979
Bill Dunne
#10916-086
USP Big Sandy,
P.O. Box 2068,
Inez, KY 41224
Birthday:
8-3
The following was written by Bill
Dunne:
My name is Bill Dunne. I fell in
1979 as a result of an effort to
effect the armed liberation of a
comrade from jail. My politics fall
in the anarcho-communist realm:
radical socialism somewhere between
rigid and hierarchical vanguard
parties and disorganized and
scattered non-parties. They aim at
an egalitarian and democratic social
organization in which all people
will have the greatest possible
freedom to develop their full human
potential.
I was made a prisoner of the state
on October 14, 1979 in Seattle,
Washington. Late that evening, I was
picked up by paramedics while under
the influence of police bullets near
a shot-up and wrecked car containing
some weapons and a dead jail
escapee. According to the ensuing
state and federal charges, I and a
codefendant and unknown other
associates of a San Francisco
anarchist collective had conspired
to effect a comrade’s armed
liberation from a Seattle jail and
attempted to execute the plot on
October 14, 1979. The charges
further alleged the operation was
financed by bank expropriation and
materially facilitated by illegal
acquisition of weapons, explosives,
vehicles, ID and other equipment.
After long subjection to atrocious
jail conditions and three
sensationalized trials, I got a 90
year sentence in 1980. I
subsequently got a consecutive 15
years as a result of an attempted
self-emancipation in 1983…
…I have contested my imprisonment
legally, and recently filed another
challenge. Contrary to applicable
law, my federal conspiracy
prosecution constituted double
jeopardy, secret government
information was used in imposing the
sentence, and the written sentence
is 50 years longer than the
controlling oral sentence. That
challenge languishes in federal
court in Seattle.
My political motivation is without
reservation radical left up to and
including the left of people’s
revolution by any means necessary. I
know of no single ideology whose
name adequately defines my politics.
http://www.prisonactivist.org/archiv
e/pps+pows/bill-dunne/index.html
1981
Oscar López
Rivera
#87651-024
U.S. Penitentiary,
P.O. Box 12015,
Terre Haute, IN
47801
Birthday:
1-6-1943
Oscar López-Rivera was a leader in
the Armed Forces of National
Liberation for Puerto Rican
Independence, and was sentenced to
55 years for seditious conspiracy,
which included the bombing of 28
targets in the Chicago area.
He was born in San Sebastian, Puerto
Rico on January 6, 1943. At the age
of 12, he moved to Chicago with his
family. He was a well-respected
community activist and a prominent
independence leader for many years
prior to his arrest. Oscar was one
of the founders of the Rafael Cancel
Miranda High School, now known as
the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High
School and the Juan Antonio
Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural
Center. He was a community organizer
for the Northwest Community
Organization (NCO), ASSPA, ASPIRA
and the 1st Congregational Church of
Chicago. He helped to found FREE, (a
half-way house for convicted drug
addicts) and ALAS (an educational
program for Latino prisoners at
Stateville Prison in Illinois).
He was active in various community
struggles, mainly in the area of
health care, employment and police
brutality. He also participated in
the development of the Committee to
Free the Five Puerto Rican
Nationalists. In 1975, he was forced
underground, along with other
comrades. He was captured on May 29,
1981, after 5 years of being pursued
by the FBI as one of the most feared
fugitives from US justice.
He was convicted of conspiracy to
escape along with Jaime Delgado, (a
veteran independence leader), Dora
Garcia, (a prominent community
activist) and Kojo Bomani-Sababu, a
New Afrikan political prisoner.
Oscar was one of 12 FALN Puerto
Rican prisoners offered clemency by
the Clinton Administration in the
fall of 1999. He denied clemency.
Now he faces at least 20 more years
in prison.
http://www.myspace.com/freeourpoliti
calprisoners
Mutulu Shakur
#83205-012
USP Florence
ADMAX, PO Box
8500, Florence,
CO 81226
Birthday:
8-8-1950
Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a New Afrikan
prisoner. Mutulu Shakur was born on
August 8, 1950, in Baltimore,
Maryland as Jeral Wayne Williams.
Shakur's political and social
consciousness began to develop early
in his life. His mother suffered not
only from being black and female,
but was also blind. These elements
constituted Shakur's first
confrontation with the state, while
assisting his mother to negotiate
through the maze that made up the
social service system. Through this
experience Shakur learned that the
system did not operate in the
interests of Black people and that
Black people must control the
institutions that affect their
lives.
Since the age 16, Dr. Shakur has
been a part of the New Afrikan
Independence Movement. During the
late sixties Dr. Shakur was also
politically active and worked with
the Revolutionary Action Movement
(RAM), a Black Nationalist group
which struggled for Black selfdetermination and socialist change
in America. Dr Shakur also worked
very closely with the Black Panther
Party supporting his brother Lumumba
Shakur and Zayd.
In the 70’s Shakur became a
certified and celebrated
acupuncturist. From 1978 to 1982,
Dr. Shakur was the Co-Founder and
Co-Director of the Black Acupuncture
Advisory Association of North
America (BAAANA) and the Harlem
Institute of Acupuncture. By the
late 1970's Dr. Shakur's work in
acupuncture and drug detoxification
was both nationally and
internationally known and he was
invited to address members of the
medical community around the world.
Dr. Shakur has furthermore been a
dedicated worker and champion in the
struggle against political
imprisonment and political
convictions of Black Activists in
America. He was the founding member
of the National Committee to Free
Political Prisoners.
In March 1982, Dr. Shakur and 10
others were indicted by a federal
grand jury under a set of U.S.
conspiracy laws called "Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organization"
(RICO) laws. These conspiracy laws
were ostensibly developed to aid the
government in its prosecution of
organized crime figures; however,
they have been used with varying
degrees of success against
revolutionary organizations. Dr.
Shakur was charged with conspiracy
and participation in a clandestine
paramilitary unit that carried out
actual and attempted expropriations
from several banks. Eight incidents
were alleged to have occurred
between December 1976 to October
1981. In addition he was charged
with participation in the 1979
prison escape of Assata Shakur, who
is now in exile in Cuba. After five
years underground, Dr. Shakur was
arrested on February 12, 1986 and
sentenced to 60 years in prison. Dr.
Shakur is the father of six children
including Tupac who was assassinated
in 1996. Dr. Shakur is eligible for
parole in 2017.
http://www.mutulushakur.com/
Mumia Abu-Jamal
#AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Dr.,
Waynesburg, PA
15370
Birthday:
4-24-1954
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a renowned
journalist from Philadelphia who has
been in prison since 1981 and on
death row since 1983 for allegedly
shooting Philadelphia police officer
Daniel Faulkner. He is known as the
“Voice of the Voiceless” for his
award- winning reporting on police
brutality and other social and
racial injustices. Mumia has
received international support over
the years in his efforts to overturn
his unjust conviction.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the
President of the Association of
Black Journalists at the time of his
arrest. He was a founding member of
the Philadelphia Chapter of the
Black Panther Party as a teenager.
Years later he began reporting
professionally on radio stations
such as NPR, and was the news
director of Philadelphia station
WHAT.
Mumia’s case has been a unifying
point for many social struggles
because it concentrates issues
vitally important to our future,
such as the rise in prison
populations, police brutality, the
death penalty, persecution of
political dissent, and the
continuation of white supremacy and
racism in the U.S. From death row,
Mumia has continued to speak out for
all who are oppressed through his
journalism. He has published four
books, and his weekly columns are
published throughout the world.
On March 27, 2008 the Federal Court
has ruled to uphold Mumia's
conviction while granting a resentencing hearing. Mumia’s current
legal status now leaves him with
either an execution or life in
prison without parole. Though
Mumia's attorneys are appealing,
Mumia is currently bound to either
an execution or permanent life in
prison.
Freemumia.com
Freemumia.org.
Abdul Majid
(Anthony
Laborde) #83-A0483
Drawer B, Green
Haven CF,
Stormville, NY
12582-0010
Birthday:
6-25-1949
challenge brought under New York
State's Son of Sam Law, which
prevents a convicted murder from
profiting off of his crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_M
ajid_(black_nationalist)
Zolo Agona
Azania
#4969
Indiana State
Prison,
P.O. Box 41,
Michigan City, IN
46361
Birthday:
12-12-1954
New Afrikan Prisoner, Zolo Agona
Azania is on death row for the
alleged murder of a police officer
during a 1981 bank robbery. The
Gary, Indiana police officer was
fatally wounded in an exchange of
gunfire with three men who fled from
the bank. Zolo was not arrested at
the bank, but while walking miles
away from the scene.
Abdul Majid, also known as Anthony
LaBorde, was a member of the Black
Panther Party and the Black
Liberation Army. Majid was convicted
of the murder of New York City
police officer John Scarangella, and
the attempted murder of
Scarangella's partner, Officer
Richard Rainey. Officer Scarangella
was murdered on April 16 1981, after
he and his partner pulled over a van
carrying Majid and Hameed. Majid and
his co-defendant were both
convicted, and Majid was sentenced
to 25 years to life in prison.
For more than 26 years Zolo has been
imprisoned on Indiana's death row
and has been fighting for his life.
Twice he has been sentenced to die
and twice the death sentence has
been reversed on appeal due to
suppression of favorable evidence by
the prosecution, ineffective
assistance of counsel, and
systematic exclusion of Blacks from
the jury pool. On May 10, 2007 the
Indiana Supreme Court reversed Boone
County Superior Court ruling that
barred the state of Indiana from
pursuing the death penalty in the
case of Zolo Azania. Zolo did not
receive a fair trial and has always
maintained his total innocence of
any involvement in the crime.
During Majid's imprisonment, he was
beaten by prison guards, and was
awarded $15,000 in compensation. In
2006, Vivian Scarangella, widow of
Officer John Scarangella, initiated
a lawsuit against Majid to block him
from receiving the $15,000 award, a
Zolo uses the written and visual art
as instruments of political struggle
— not merely to call attention to
himself, but to raise the political
awareness of his people, and to draw
the attention of the world to their
fight for self-determination and
independence from U.S. control and
domination.
http://www.prairiefire.org/freezoloa
zania.html
Sekou Odinga
#05228-054
USP Florence
ADMAX, P.O.
Box 8500,
Florence, CO
81226
Birthday:
6-17-1944
Sekou Odinga, in Can't Jail the
Spirit, 4th edition, March 1998:
"My name is Sekou Mgobogi Abdullah
Odinga. I am a Muslim and a POW. I
was born in Queens, N.Y., on June
17, 1944. I was raised in a family
of nine — Father, Mother, three
brothers, and three sisters. I was
kicked out of school in the tenth
grade for defending myself against
an attack by a teacher.
At age 16 I was busted for robbery
and sentenced to three years as a
'Youthful Offender.' I spent 32
months at Great Meadows Correctional
Institution (Comstock) in upstate
New York, where I finished my high
school education. In 1961-63
Comstock was very racist. No Blacks
worked in any capacity at the
prison. One of the sergeants working
at Comstock was the head of the kkk.
My first political education came at
Comstock. In 1963, I was caught in a
serious race riot at Comstock.
The teachings of Malcolm X, who was
then with the Nation of Islam,
became a big influence on me at that
time. After my release, I became
involved in Black political activity
in New York, especially
revolutionary, nationalist politics.
In 1964, I also became involved in
the Cultural Nationalist movement.
By 1965, I had joined the
organization of African American
Unity, founded by El-Hajj Malik ElShabazz (Malcolm X). I began
to move with and among many young
African Nationalists. My political
consciousness was growing daily. I
was reading and listening to many
Afrikan Nationalists from Africa and
the U.S. and became convinced that
only after a successful armed
struggle would New Afrikans gain
freedom and self-determination. I
also became convinced that
integration would never solve the
problems faced by New Afrikans.
After Malcolm's death, the OAAU
never seemed to me to be going in
the direction I desired. By late '65
or early '66 I hooked up with other
young Revolutionary Nationalists to
organize ourselves for the purpose
of implementing what we felt was
Malcolm's program. We organized the
Grassroot Advisory Council, in South
Jamaica, New York. We were all very
young and inexperienced and got
caught up in a local anti-poverty
program.
By 1967 I was thoroughly
disillusioned with that, when I
heard about the Black Panther Party
(BPP) in Oakland, California.
Myself, along with some of my
closest comrades, decided this was
the type of organization we wanted
to be a part of. We decided that
some of us would go to California,
investigate, and join the BPP if it
was what it claimed to be. By the
spring of 1968, we heard that
representatives from the BPP were
coming to New York and there was a
possibility of organizing a chapter.
I attended the meeting and decided
to join and help build the BPP in
New York. I became the section
leader of the Bronx section, sharing
an office with the Harlem section.
On January 17, 1969, the day Bunchy
Carter and John Huggins were
murdered in Los Angeles, I went
underground. I was told that Joan
Bird, a sister in the party, had
been busted and severely brutalized
by the police and that the police
were looking for me in connection
with a police shooting. On April 22,
1969, I awoke at 5:30 AM to the
sound of wood splitting around
my door. When I investigated, I
found that my house was completely
surrounded with pigs on my roof,
fire escape, in the halls, on the
street, etc. I was fortunate enough
to evade them and go deeper into
hiding.
In 1970, I was asked to go to
Algeria to help set up the
International section of the BPP.
After the split in the Party, caused
by the COINTELPRO program, I decided
to come back to the U.S. to continue
the struggle. I continued to work
until my capture in October of 1981.
I was charged with six counts of
attempted murder of police, for
shooting over my shoulder while
being chased and shot at by police.
I was also charged with nine
predicate acts of a RICO indictment.
I was convicted of the attempted
murders and given twenty-five yearsto-life for it. I was convicted of
two counts of the RICO indictment
(the liberation of Assata Shakur and
expropriation of an armored truck)
and given twenty years and $25,000
fine for each RICO charge. All
sentences run consecutively.
Prison life has been very difficult
for Sekou. Upon Sekou’s arrival at
USP Lompoc, he was immediately
placed in a cell as dirty as the one
he had just left at the county jail.
His repeated requests for something
to clean up the filth with were
completely ignored. Mr. Odinga was
placed in a section of the prison
where there are no other prisoners.
He was kept in his cell 24 hours a
day; except Monday, Wednesday &
Friday when he can take a shower.
Despite the fact that the shower
stall was right next to his cell, he
was taken there by 3 guards and a
lieutenant and was completely
shackled while they move him. Mr.
Odinga got no exercise or
recreation; no pen or paper; no
reading material, except for a copy
of the Koran; no visits nor phone
calls. The order securing Mr. Odinga
stated no human contact!! Odinga was
supposedly brought to California by
subpoena to testify at a grand jury
investigation. The Government had
been told by Mr. Odinga's lawyers
that he would not testify before any
grand juries. It is a political
principle which he will not
compromise on.
Sekou is now in super maximum
security prison at Florence where
according to Sekou, conditions are
no better.
www.thetalkingdrum.com/bla1.html
David Gilbert
#83A6158
Clinton
Correctional
Facility, P.O. Box
2001, Dannemora,
NY 12929
Birthday:
10-6-1944
David Gilbert is a revolutionary
organizer, author and militant
currently imprisoned at Clinton
Correctional Facility. Gilbert was a
founding member of Columbia
University Students for a Democratic
Society and member of The Weather
Underground Organization. After
about 5 years of organizing in the
above ground movement, David joined
the revolutionary underground,
spending a total of 10 years living
clandestinely, actively resisting
imperialism with arms. He was
arrested in 1981, along with members
of the Black Liberation Army and
other radicals, after they killed
three people in an armored car
robbery. He was unarmed and did not
personally hurt anyone. Two police
officers and a security guard were
murdered in the course of the
robbery. Gilbert was tried and
convicted for his part in their
deaths and given a life sentence.
In the late 1970s or early 1980s
Gilbert and other white activists
took the name RATF (Revolutionary
Armed Task Force), declaring their
solidarity with the Black Liberation
Army (BLA). In 1981, this group
participated along with several
members of the BLA in an attempt to
rob a Brinks armored car at the
Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York.
While Gilbert and Boudin waited in a
U-Haul truck in a nearby parking
lot, armed BLA members took another
vehicle to the mall, where a Brinks
truck was making a delivery. They
confronted the guards and a shoot
out ensued, almost severing the arm
of guard Joe Trombino and killing
his co-worker, Peter Paige. The
robbers then took $1.6 million in
cash and sped off to transfer into
the waiting U-Haul. The truck was
soon stopped by police. Gilbert and
Boudin surrendered but when the
officers tried to search the back of
the vehicle BLA members emerged
shooting. Two police officers
Waverly L. Brown and Edward J.
O'Grady died in the shootout.
Gilbert fled the scene with other
RATF and BLA members but was later
caught by police, tried, and
sentenced in 1983 to 75 years for
three counts of felony manslaughter.
His extremely long sentence for
participating in this action may be
due to his decision not to
participate in his trial, not
recognizing the authority of the
state to try him. Gilbert co-founded
an inmate peer education program on
HIV and AIDS in the Auburn
Correctional Facility in 1987, and a
similar more successful project in
Great Meadows Prison in Comstock
following his transfer there. He has
published book reviews and essays in
a number of small/independent
newspapers and journals which were
collected into the anthology No
Surrender: Writings from an AntiImperialist Political Prisoner
(Abraham Guillen Press) in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G
ilbert
Maliki Shakur
Latine
# 81-A-4469
Great Meadow
CF,
P.O. Box 51,
Comstock, NY
12821
Maliki Shakur Latine early on became
involved with the Nation of Islam.
It was during this time that he
began on the path of confronting
society’s oppressive forces. In
1969, Maliki and his brother,
Shaqwan, joined up with the Black
Panther Party for Self-defense.
Maliki took political education
classes offered by the Black Panther
Party. He studied Chairman Mao,
Franz Fannon, Lenin, Fidel Castro,
Che, and many others. He was also
involved in transforming the
theoretical ideals of the BPP into
daily practice.
Like many of the Panthers targeted
by the US government, Maliki found
himself behind prison bars,
specifically in Riker’s Island.
There he met one of the Panther
leaders, Lumumba Shakur. Lumumba and
20 other Panthers (known as the
Panther 21) were facing trumped up
charges, which included a plot to
blow up various locations in New
York City. All of the Panther 21
would eventually be freed from
the charges. Maliki Latine was soon
released from Rikers and returned to
the Panthers, only to find that the
government’s tactics against the
organization forced many of them to
go underground. Following their
lead, Maliki and his brother decided
to follow suit. Maliki then spent
two years training and studying and
engaging in various actions.
At 4:45 on July 3rd, 1979 NYPD
officers pulled over a Chevrolet
Malibu on 148th Street, near 7th, in
Harlem. Police believed the car to
be stolen. With guns drawn, the two
officers approached the car. A gun
battle broke out, leaving one of the
officers and one of the occupants
of the car injured. The four
occupants escaped, but in the car
the police found weapons and prints
linking Maliki and others to the
scene. Several hours after the
shooting, after the police followed
a trail of blood, Arkill Shakur was
captured outside a building at 285
West 150th Street, with leg and
ankle injuries he incurred in the
gunfight. He was taken to the
hospital and was later charged for
his involvement in the altercation.
Just over 2-weeks after the
shooting, on July 18, police and FBI
raided the home of Dwight (Jamal)
Thomas, arrested him, and charged
him with the shooting.
A month later, on August 7, 1979,
Maliki Latine was arrested in St.
Albans, Queens, by a joint force
investigating a series of bank
expropriations. They charged him
with the July 3rd incident. It
wouldn’t be until six months later
before the police would arrest their
final suspect, Jose Saldana. Sixteen
days after the capture of Saldana,
Latine and three other prisoners,
who were also accused of killing
cops, attempted to escape from the
special security area of Rikers
Island. The men managed to get
outside of the prison walls, but
three of them, including Latine,
were immediately captured. The
fourth escapee’s body was discovered
days later, dead because of apparent
drowning.
Maliki Latine and Jose(Hamza)Saldana
were indicted on charges of
attempted first-degree murder, four
counts of criminal possession of a
weapon, and criminal possession of
stolen property. On October 1, 1981,
the two were sentenced to 25 to
life.
The U.S. Supreme court refused to
hear any further appeals and denied
him a writ of certiorari, even
though his appeal is founded upon
the mandate of the U.S. Supreme
Court’s own rulings.
The following was written by Maliki
Shakur Latine on December 20, 2007:
I am still maintaining my health and
I am optimistic about being released
on parole during the summer of ’08.
At which time I look forward to
being a valuable asset to the
endeavors of liberation and
progress. I’ve been following the
political and socio-economic
developments (or under-developments)
occurring around the country. And,
I’ve been closely monitoring the
“Presidential Campaign” (with all
its window-dressings and the usual
clichés) offered for public
consumption. The younger generation
have a serious, huge and profound
role to play in defining what the
future (if there is one) of this
country is to be. Each generation is
solely responsible for the course
and direction to be pursued in their
lives. They can readily choose, by
virtue of their own “humanity,” the
course, direction and reality
already “defined” for them by the
Plutocracy (as led and headed by the
“Skull and Bones”) or they can
determine, for themselves, what the
reality of the future is to be,
by virtue of what they know and
truly believe to be right, just and
humane as dictated by their own
heart-felt conscience—as opposed to
that of any u.s. government “Party,”
who are more determined to serve
that of “class interest”—than any
kind of just rights of the entire
citizenry! Let the people of the
“Resistance” know my message to
them as expressed above. They can
make a difference, no matter how
difficult the challenges may appear,
its all but a passing but dark
cloud—soon the light shall appear
with its radiance of achievement
and splendor! Truth shall prevail!
In Solidarity, Strength, and Unity!
Maliki Shakur
www.abcf.net/la/pdfs/latine.pdf
1984
Jaan Karl Laaman
#W 87237
MCI Cedar
Junction, Box
100, South
Walpole, MA
02071-0100
Birthday:
3-21- 1948
Jann Karl Laaman is an Antiimperialist political prisoner and
one of the Ohio-7. Jaan is
imprisoned for being a member of the
United Freedom Front (which carried
out armed actions against apartheid,
imperialism and war in the 80's),
involvement in fire fights with
police forces and weapons charges.
In the 1960's Jaan worked in
Students for a Democratic Society,
fought against the war and racism
and did labor and community
organizing. This included organizing
youth along with the Black Panther
Party and Young Lords (a
revolutionary Puerto Rican
Organization). Jaan also worked with
the underground revolutionary
forces. In 1972 he was charged with
bombing Nixon's reelection
headquarters and a New Hampshire
police station. He was sentenced to
20 years. After winning an appeal
and getting some of his sentence
cut, he was released in 1978. In
1979, he and his comrade Kazi Toure
helped to organize the Amandla
Festival of Unity to support freedom
in Southern Africa, which featured
Bob Marley.
This activity along with the antiracist and community security work
he was doing led to increased police
and Klan harassment, so Jaan went
underground and joined the armed
clandestine movement. He was
captured in 1984 with other members
of the Ohio-7(Tom Manning is the
only other member still in custody.
Richard Williams died in 2004 while
in prison.) He was charged with
seditious conspiracy. His sentence
totals 98 years.
http://www.myspace.com/freejaanlaama
n
1985
Marilyn Buck
#00482-285
Unit B, Camp
Parks, 5701
Eighth Street,
Dublin, CA
94568
Birthday:
12-13
Marilyn Buck is a self-proclaimed
life-long anti-racist and antiimperialist activist, imprisoned for
her involvement in the 1983 U.S.
Senate bombing and other militant
political activities.
After organizing in support of
Native American, Palestinian,
Iranian and Vietnamese sovereignty,
Buck joined Students for a
Democratic Society in 1967. In 1973
she was convicted of purchasing two
boxes of handgun ammunition for the
Black Liberation Army. Three years
into her unusually long, ten-year
sentence for that crime, Buck was
given a furlough from prison and
went underground instead of
returning.
Authorities believe Buck played a
key role in the Brinks robbery of
1981, providing the robbers with a
safe house and weapons. In 1983 Buck
was recaptured and charged in the
successful removal of Assata Shakur
from a US federal prison. In 1985,
she and 6 others were convicted in
the Resistance Conspiracy Case of
the bombing of the United States
Capitol Building to protest the US
invasion of Grenada and US
intervention in Latin America in
general. Two of those charged in the
case have since been released from
prison, one was never captured, and
the remaining three are still in
prison. Buck received an 80-year
sentence which she is serving at FCI
Dublin in California, United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn
_Buck
http://www.prisonactivist.org/archiv
e/pps+pows/marilynbuck/index.html
1987
Thomas W.
Manning
10373-016
U.S. Penitentiary
for Federal
Prisoners Hazelton
P.O. Box 2000
Bruceton Mills,
West Virginia
26525
Birthday:
6-28-1946
Tom Manning is known for killing a
police officer during a routine
traffic stop, and for his
involvement with leftist militants
who bombed a series of US military
and commercial institutes in the
1980s.
As a youth, he shined shoes and
raised pigeons, before finding work
as a stock boy. He joined the US
Military in 1963, and the following
year was stationed at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba before being transferred
off to spend the following year in
the Vietnam War. Some time shortly
after 1965, he was sentenced to five
years in prison for armed robbery
and assault, serving the last ten
months in Massachusetts Correctional
Institution- Cedar Junction. He
claims it was during these years
that he became heavily politicized,
through his interactions with other
prisoners.
After his release in 1971, he
married Carol and together they
produced three children, Jeremy,
Tamara, and Jonathan. Along with
arrest for the bombings, Manning was
also convicted for his role in
killing New Jersey police officer
Philip Lamonaco during a traffic
stop on December 21, 1981. The
killings launched the largest
manhunt in NJ police history, and
ended with the arrests of Raymond
Levasseur, Patricia Gross, Richard
Williams, Jaan Laaman, and Barbara
Curzi on November 4th 1984, and
Manning and his wife Carol on April
24, 1985. All of them were
associated with the United Freedom
Front.
He plead self-defense at trial,
while defense counsel showed that
Lamonaco had emptied his entire .357
Magnum clip at Manning and his
associates. He was sentenced on
February 19, 1987. In September
2006, the University of Southern
Maine removed his art from an art
presentation, and apologized for
allowing him to be heralded as a
"political prisoner" by event
organizers.
His art:
http://www.geocities.com/tommanning/
1996
1989
Haydée Beltrán
Torres
#88462-024
SCI Tallahassee,
501 Capitol Circle
NE, Tallahassee,
FL 32031
Birthday:
6-7-1955
Haydee Beltran Torres was born in
Arecibo, Puerto Rico. When Haydee
was 12 years old, her family moved
to Chicago. Haydee attended the
University of Illinois where she was
an outspoken defender of Latino
students’ rights.
Due to her political activities, was
forced underground in 1976 and was
captured April 4, 1989. She has been
sentenced to life in prison on
charges including seditious
conspiracy. Haydee was the first POW
to receive a life sentence. She was
kept in total isolation from the
other prisoners of war and was
transferred to a special control
unit, which limited visits. It was a
years before she was allowed to see
her family.
At the MCC in Chicago, she was
classified as “no visitors allowed.”
Haydee was subject to physical abuse
in interrogations for refusing to
implicate her comrades in unfounded
crimes.
http://www.myspace.com/freeourpoliti
calprisoners
Tsutomu
Shirosaki
20924-016
FCI Terre Haute
P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute, IN
47808
Birthday:
12-5-1947
Tsutomu Shirosaki is a Japanese
national imprisoned as a political
prisoner in the United States. He
has been accused of being a member
of Japanese Red Army and
participating in several attacks,
including a mortar attack against a
U.S. embassy. He is currently
serving 30-years in a U.S Federal
prison.
Tsutomu Shirosaki was born on
December 5, 1947 in Toyama, Japan.
In the 1960s, he went to Tokyo
University, where he received a
degree in engineering. During his
college years Tsutomu began
participating in the student
movement, and embracing a more leftwing philosophy. By the 1970s,
Shirosaki participated in various
underground activities, including a
string of bank and post office
robberies. These actions were fundraising activities for Japanese
radical groups. In 1971, Shirosaki
was arrested in Tokyo and sentenced
to ten years in prison for an attack
on a Bank of Yokohama branch office.
On September 28, 1977,five members
of the Japanese Red Army hijacked
Japan Airlines Flight 472 in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. They demanded $6 million
from the Japanese government and the
release of nine prisoners held in
Japan. The prisoners listed included
radical activist and members of the
Japanese Red Army. On October 2, six
of the nine prisoners were released
and taken to Dhaka. One of those
prisoners released was Tsutomu
Shirosaki. The released prisoners,
the JRA hijackers and the remaining
hostages then flew to Algeria, where
the hostages were released.
According to Shirosaki the released
prisoners and JRA members eventually
ended up in Lebanon. The Japanese
Red Army assisted the freed
prisoners in adjusting to the new
region.
Despite the generosity of the JRA,
Shirosaki has stated that he never
joined the organization. Instead, he
became a volunteer fighter in the
Palestinian revolution with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine( PFLP.) With the
Palestinian movement being so strong
in Lebanon, Shirosaki did not need a
passport to stay in the country.
On May 14, 1986, two mortar-styled
rockets were fired into the U.S.
Embassy compound in Jakarta,
Indonesia. Then, two rockets were
fired from a hotel room toward the
Japanese Embassy. Also that morning,
a car bomb exploded in the Canadian
Embassy parking lot causing injuries
to three people. A group calling
itself the Anti-Imperialist
International Brigade(AIIB)claimed
responsibility for the action. The
attacks were in response to the G7
summit in Tokyo. Seven weeks after
the incident, the Japanese
government announced that they had
found a fingerprint of Tsutomu
Shirosaki in the hotel room where
the rockets were launched at the
Japanese embassy. They also claimed
the Anti-Imperialist International
Brigade was another named for the
Japanese Red Army. During the time
of the attack, Tsutomu Shirosaki was
still in Lebanon. He was not in
Jakarta and was not a member of
either the JRA or the AIIB.
Shirosaki did not respond to the
claims of his involvement because he
felt they were so ridiculous. He was
in Lebanon and thought that he was
in a safe haven. After the Oslo
Accords, it became difficult for the
Palestinian armed resistance to
exist in Lebanon, so Shirosaki
decided to leave.
Using a false ID, he traveled to
South Asia. On September 21, 1996,
local police in Kathmandu, Nepal
arrested Tsutomu Shirosaki after he
tried to contact some friends, whose
phone was tapped by the US National
Security Agency. He was handed over
to the FBI and extradited to the
United States to stand trial. After
arriving in the United States,
Shirosaki stood before a 15-day
trial and was sentenced to two
concurrent 20-year terms and also
given 10-year terms on other
charges.
The 20-year terms were ordered to
run consecutively to the 10-year
terms for a total prison time of 30
years. Tsutomu Shirosaki never took
the stand at his own trial. He has
stated he had no part in the attacks
in Jakarta or membership with the
JRA or AIIB. He has argued that his
fingerprint had been placed
at the scene.
On February 11, 2007, Tsutomu
Shirosaki was informed that he was
to be transferred out of USP
Beaumont in Texas. For over two
weeks Shirosaki was in mid-transfer
before ending up at FCI Terre Haute
in Indiana. Prior to the transfer,
Shirosaki’s mail repeatedly was
lost, delayed or returned to the
sender. Such actions are an attempt
to undermine support for Shirosaki.
www.abcf.net/la/pdfs/shirosaki.pdf
1997
Alvaro Luna
Hernández
#255735
Hughes Unit,Rt
2,
Box 4400,
Gatesville, TX
76597
Birthday:
5-12-1952
Chicano prisoner, Alvaro Hernandez
Luna was sentenced in Odessa, TX on
June 29, 1997 to 50 years in prison
for defending himself by disarming a
police officer drawing a weapon on
him (unarmed). Police informants
were used to monitor Alvaro's
organizing activities in the barrio.
They knew among other things that he
was working on police brutality
cases in Alpine.
Alvaro was recognized nationally and
internationally as the national
coordinator of the Ricardo Aldape
Guerra Defense Committee, which led
the struggle to free Mexican
national Aldape Guerra from Texas'
death row after being framed by
Houston police for allegedly killing
a cop. Alvaro's human rights work
was recognized in Italy, France,
Spain, Switzerland, Mexico and other
countries. His case is currently on
appeal.
www.freealvaro.org/
1999
Byron Shane
Chubbuck
# 07909-051
USP Coleman I
U.S.Penitentiary
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL
33521
Birthday:
2-26-1967
Byron is a wolf clan
Cherokee/Choctaw raised in New
Mexico, his Indian name is Oso
Blanco and he became known by the
authorities as “Robin the Hood”
after the FBI and local gang unit
APD officers learned from a CI that
Oso Blanco was robbing banks to send
thousands of dollars with of
supplies to the Zapatista Rebels of
Chiapas on a regular basis during
1998 and 1999.
Chubbuck is now serving 80 years at
the US Penitentiary in Leavenworth,
Kansas, for bank robbery, aggravated
assault on the FBI, escape and
firearms charges. Byron engaged
federal agents in a gun battle on
August 13th 1999 at his home in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Although
Chubbuck escaped, he was arrested
later that day and sentenced to time
in New Mexico’s state Penitentiary.
After serving just over a year in
New Mexico, he escaped from a prison
transport van and almost immediately
began robbing banks. He was
recaptured a short time later. Byron
never used a gun in any bank
robbery, but he has a long history
of living by the gun and will not
hesitate to use it on the agents of
repression or the occupiers of
Atzlan whom force false laws on the
true people of this land. Byron is
not asking for monetary support,
he’s only asking that people
become aware of indigenous people’s
issues. On March 24, 2008 he was
transferred to Coleman, Florida
where Oso is at risk of violence
from a gang who have problems with
him. His outside support are trying
to get him transferred somewhere
else.
www.osoblanco.org
2000
Jamil Abdullah
Al-Amin (H. Rap
Brown)
# 99974-555
USP Florence
ADMAX,
P.O. Box 8500,
Florence, CO
81226
Birthday:
10-4-1943
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin came to
prominence in the 1960s as chairman
of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and the
Justice Minister of the Black
Panther Party.
In July 1967 Brown was arrested for
inciting a riot at a civil rights
rally in Cambridge, Maryland. At the
event, Brown declared, “Black folks
built America, and if America don’t
come around, we’re going to burn
America down.” He left SNCC and
joined the Black Panthers in 1968,
and became the minister of justice.
He spent five years (1971-1976) in
the Attica Prison after a robbery
conviction. While in prison, Brown
converted to Islam and changed his
name to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. In
2000, Jamil was arrested in Lowndes
County, Alabama, following a fourday U.S.-wide manhunt. A grand jury
in Atlanta indicted him for murder
in connection with the shooting
death of deputy Kinchen the previous
month. He was indicted on one count
of murder, four counts of felony
murder, two counts of aggravated
assault and six other lesser
charges.
From 1992 to 1997, the FBI and
Atlanta police investigated him in
connection with everything from
domestic terrorism to gun-running to
14 homicides in Atlanta’s West End,
according to police investigators’
reports, FBI documents and
interviews. The FBI investigation
ended in August 1997 without
charging him of any crime. In his
only public comment on his arrest,
Al-Amin called it a ‘government
conspiracy.’ In June of 2000,
another man confessed to killing the
police officer, but he later
recanted. Jamil’s defense team was
not informed of the confession.
Jamil currently serves life without
parole, but is attempting to appeal.
UPDATE: Jamil Al-Amin has been moved
to what is known in prison as "the
hole". He was strip searched and
placed in a cell with no bed, no
control over the lights and no
shower. They have taken his Qur'an
and all of his other personal
property. No information has been
given as to why this transfer was
made, but nothing could justify this
inhumane treatment.
www.myspace.com/freetheimam
2001
Jeffrey Luers
(Free)
# 13797671
CRCI
9111 NE
Sunderland Ave
Portland, OR
97211-1708
Birthday:12-5
In June 2001, 23 year-old forest
defense activist Jeffrey "Free"
Luers was sentenced to 22 years and
8 months in prison for the burning
of three Sport Utility Vehicles
(SUV's) in Eugene, Oregon. To make a
statement about global warming, Jeff
and his codefendent, Craig 'Critter'
Marshall, set fire to 3 Sport
Utility Vehicles at a Eugene car
dealership. Their stated purpose was
to raise awareness about global
warming and the role that SUVs play
in that process. No one was hurt in
this action nor was that the intent.
An arson specialist at trial
confirmed that the action did not
pose any threat to people based on
its size and distance from any fuel
source.
Despite the fact that this action
hurt no one, caused only $40,000 in
damages and the cars were later
resold, Jeff was sent to prison for
a sentence considerably longer than
those convicted of murder,
kidnapping or rape in the state of
Oregon. Jeff is a political prisoner
and continues to write and agitate
for his release while imprisoned at
Oregon State Penitentiary. His
appeal was filed in January 2002 and
oral arguments before the Oregon
Court of Appeals were heard on
November 30, 2005. Over a year
later,on February 14, 2007 the Court
of Appeals unanimously ruled that
Jeff's case would be reversed and
remanded back to the Circuit Court
for resentencing. On Feb. 28, 2008
Jeff’s sentence was cut to 10 years
making his release date Dec. 2009.
Jeff “Free” Luers Statement for the
International Day of Solidarity with
Political Prisoners (December 2006):
Around the world millions of people
are suffering from the abuses of
power that have become all too
common in our human societies. In
dozens of countries, generations of
people have chosen to fight
injustice rather than submit to it.
We honor those people today. We
raise our voices and our fists to
salute those who have fought to free
their homelands, who have struggled
for self-determination; those who
have demanded human rights; those
who have raided laboratories and
liberated animals; and those who
have fought to defend our earth.
Today we shout our praises and offer
our respect to those captured in the
line of duty, serving their cause.
We thank them for refusing to submit
even behind bars.
On this day we bow our heads in
reverence to those people who made
the ultimate sacrifice and gave
their lives for freedom. We remember
the price they paid and the loss
that their family and friends still
feel.
We offer more than our gratitude. We
offer our solidarity. We make a
promise to remember and honor those
who have come before. We make a vow
that the struggle will continue
until all are free.
Too many people have had to fight
for the freedom they should have
been guaranteed at birth; too many
have suffered the cruelty of
capitalist exploitation.
The most important thing we can do
today is to make a solemn oath: that
ours is the last generation that
will have to struggle; that we will
apply pressure from all angles until
these systems of oppression crack;
that we will settle for nothing less
than victory.
With the memory of those who have
come before us; in solidarity with
those still standing behind bars;
while honoring those who gave their
lives: We march forward to bring a
new day with our heads high and our
fists raised.
And I say to you that if we stand
united with one voice and we act on
our desire for liberation we will
carry the day! We will win!
Some words on prisoner support (May
2004):
Prisoner support can be a very
challenging issue. Any movement is
only as strong as it's support for
its fallen comrades. Any movement
that fails to aid and support its
political prisoners or prisoners of
war will ultimately fail. Each
prisoner's needs will vary depending
on their case, length of sentence
and where they are imprisoned. All
prisoners, however, need emotional
and monetary support.
Monetary support is an easy one. If
you can afford to send a few bucks,
it is always appreciated. Many
prisoners have to pay for their own
hygiene products, as well as food to
supplement the prisoner's diet.
These items are often 200%-300% more
expensive than on the streets. So,
every little bit helps.
Fundraisers (bake sales, shows,
etc.) are an excellent way to raise
money and spread information about
prisoners and their cases. They are
also a great forum for building
support. Perhaps the hardest part of
prisoner support is emotional
support. It is never easy to write a
prisoner for the first time. People
are unsure of what to write and how
their words will affect the
prisoner.
As prisoners we experience the
outside world through letters. There
is nothing I love more than to get a
letter describing a beautiful sunset
or amazing wilderness someone saw.
It is always great, whether you are
a prisoner or not, to make a new
friend. Getting to know someone
through letters can be really fun.
Sharing news from the outside,
political ideas/views, personal
experiences, really just about
anything is good. Just getting mail
raises the morale of prisoners.
Remember not to over commit yourself
though. It is easy to want to write
a lot of prisoners. But it is better
to pick one or two that you can
write to regularly (every 1-4
months) than to not be able to keep
up with your letters.
When it comes to supporting
individual prisoners (e.g. long term
prisoners fighting for their freedom
or life), the support needs to be
tailored to fit with their campaign
goals. It is important to know
things they support being done on
their behalf. Communicating with
them, or in some cases, their
designated support people, and
starting a support group in your
area is a good way to start.
Obviously, needs will vary from
prisoner to prisoner. Some will be
raising legal funds as a priority,
others may simply be asking people
to write letters of support to
governors or prison officials. Still
others may be asking for solidarity
actions and/or demos.
Strong support networks and visible
discontent with a prisoner's
sentence and/or conditions will be
the number one factor in obtaining
justice. It is only through the word
and dedication of people on the
outside that all political prisoners
and POW's will gain their release.
Having said this, I do not know of
any prisoner, though I can only
speak for myself, that would rather
have energy directed toward us than
to the causes for which we fought.
The absolute most valuable support
that any one person can do is to
continue the struggle for which we
came to prison. Never give up; never
stop fighting until all are free:
Earth, animal and human. Onward to a
world without prisoners.
www.freefreenow.org/
Cuban 5
Rubén Campa #58738-004
(envelope addessed to Rubén Campa,
letter addressed to Fernando
Gonzáles)
FCI Terre Haute, P.O. Box 33, Terre
Haute, IN 47808
Birthday: August 18, 1963
Gerardo Hernández #58739-004
U.S.P. Victorville, P.O. Box 5500,
Adelanto, CA 92301
Birthday: July 4, 1965
Jose Perez Gonzalez#21519-069
CCM Miami
Community Correction Office
401 N Miami Ave. Miami, FL 33128
Antonio Guerrero #58741-004
U.S.P. Florence, P.O. Box 7000,
Florence CO 81226
Birthday: October 18, 1958
René González #58738-004
FCI Marianna, P.O. Box 7007,
Marianna, FL 32447-7007
Birthday: August 13, 1956
Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino,
Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González
and René González, also known as the
Cuban Five, are Cubans serving four
life sentences and 75 years
collectively, after being wrongly
convicted in U.S. federal court in
Miami, on June 8, 2001. The Five are
falsely accused by the U.S.
government of committing espionage
and conspiracy against the United
States as well as other related
charges. Cuba sent the Five to Miami
to monitor the terrorists.
The Cuban Five infiltrated the
terrorist organizations in Miami to
inform Cuba of imminent attacks.
The Five pointed out vigorously in
their defense that they were
involved in monitoring the actions
of Miami-based terrorist groups, in
order to prevent terrorist attacks
on their country of Cuba. The Five
were illegally held in solidarity
confinement for 17 months in Miami
jail.
After seven years of unjust
imprisonment, the Cuban Five won an
unprecedented victory on appeal only
to have that decision overturned a
year later.
www.freethefive.org/
2002
James “Coyote”
Anderson
#67394-065
USP Lewisburg
P.O. Box 1000
Lewisburg PA,
17837
I am thirty years old. I am part
French, part Tsi la ki (Cherokee)
Ani wa ya (Wolf Clan). I am a
warrior for Mother Earth, for the
Animal Kingdom, and most importantly
for the Creator. It is my purpose
and duty in life to do my part to
protect the Earth and the animals
and enlighten the people who stand
in the dark, while sharing and
spreading the love. I am an
anarchist, yet I would refrain from
being called a liberal. I am a
musician and an artist, focusing on
everything from painting, drawing,
to tattooing and body modifications
and piercings.
I was given a 92 month prison
sentence in the feds for allegedly
robbing 28 banks to help fund my
cause. I like to write with
openminded people that care to
share, as well as receive positive
energy. Write me if you wish. In a
short version, my message is. People
it is now 2009. Wake up! 2012 is
almost here. Pollution is at an all
time high, yet spirituality is at an
all time low. We must remove the
blinders that conceal our eyes,
hearts and consciousness. Step away
from the hypnotic tubes! Quit
pampering yourselves and your
children with honeybuns and material
mechanisms. Now more than ever, they
need love and discipline. We must
teach our children love for the
Creator (not fear), love for the
Earth and Nature and Wildlife,
respect, tolerance and love for
others, and love for self. We must
stop pasifing ourselves with the
notion that the world will heal
itself through media and political
structures. Martial law is under our
noses. Can you smell it? FEMA will
not be there with tissue in hand!
Are we to lay down and continue to
allow oppression of Indigenous
Peoples? How about for
corporate/Industrial slavery, “so
you can have what the Jones’ have?”
It’s all so very irrelevant you see.
The fact of the matter is you don’t
get to pack a suit case when you
leave. Understand!
These freemasonic corporations and
secret societies are now collecting
in full. Don’t let them claim your
soul too. The demonic forces have
now (as some of you are aware) taken
another power grid or energy vortex.
They are on the prowl and will stop
at nothing to get what they desire.
Before it’s over, there will be a
stage of immonate domaine all across
the Earth, especially on Turtle
Island. They have already taken the
Appalachians, all in the name of
coal. The mountains of where my
ancestors roamed are now decimated,
and we receive contaminated forest,
lakes, rivers and sludge in our
fishing holes while the elite get
only richer. Our kin folk are across
seas fighting a, “holy war”and
coming back in boxes. Don’t get me
wrong, I love the heart that the
average soldier has, as they feel
they are fighting for freedom
against terrorism. However it breaks
my heart to see how sudued and
confused the masses are in regards
as to what’s really going on.
The Earth is soon to cleanse
herself. The revolution is in the
near. Are you ready? Do you know the
Creator? Are you gonna move on to
the next level or remain stagnate
standing in sludge? Do you love
wildlife? How about your children or
yourself? Is your heart the size of
a pea or the size of the sun. Wake
up! Start setting precedance for
spiritual awakening and enlightment
towards a new and higher
consciousness, by standing on the
foundation of your spirituality, on
the foundation of love. Rise up
Warriors! Preperation, training and
prayer, all a must. “Revolution or
Burst!”
Much Love,
Coyote
http://www.myspace.com/jame
sandersonakacoyote
Tre Arrow
c/o Oregon
Halfway House
6000 NE 80th
Ave
Portland, OR
97218 Birthday:
1-9
Tre Arrow, (born Michael James
Scarpitti in 1974), a Florida
native, is an environmental activist
and politician.
Arrow first came to attention of
police and international media in
July 2000 when he scaled a U.S.
Forest Service building in downtown
Portland, Oregon and lived on a
nine-inch ledge for eleven days, to
protest the plan to log near Eagle
Creek, Oregon. His protest played an
important role in reversing the
Forest Service's plans to log the
area. Arrow ran for Congress in 2000
and received 15,000 votes as a
Pacific Green Party candidate.
In October 2001, he suffered a
broken pelvis, broken ribs and a
concussion when he fell 60 feet from
a hemlock tree where he had perched
to protest a logging sale in
Tillamook County. Arrow's supporters
blame his fall on the Oregon
Department of Forestry's use of
sleep deprivation techniques during
Arrow's tree sit.
Arrow was wanted by the FBI in
connection with the April 15, 2001
arson at Ross Island Sand and Gravel
in Portland. Three trucks were
damaged in the amount of $200,000.
The ELF claimed this fire via a
written communiqué. Another arson
occurred a month later at Ray
Schoppert Logging Company in
Estacada, Oregon, on June 1, 2001.
Two logging trucks and a front
loader were damaged, resulting in
$50,000 worth of damage. The ELF did
not claim responsibility, but the
explosions were similarly created by
milk jugs filled with gasoline, and
a fuse made from incense and a pack
of matches.
Jacob Sherman, a 21-year-old
Portland State University student,
was subsequently arrested by the FBI
and interrogated on four separate
occasions. About four months after
his arrest Sherman admitted to his
involvement in both arsons. In order
to avoid a potential life sentence
in prison, Sherman named two others
who had participated in the crimes:
Angela Marie Cesario and Jeremy
David Rosenbloom. Facing near
certain conviction themselves
because of Jake's testimony, Angela
and Jeremy decided to enter plea
agreements since Sherman had already
implicated Tre Arrow. All three
entered guilty pleas and while
Sherman named the high profile
activist Tre Arrow as the mastermind
behind the arsons, Cesario and
Rosenbloom disputed this and
testified that Jacob himself was the
mastermind.
Arrow was indicted by a federal
grand jury in Oregon and charged
with four felonies for this crime on
October 18, 2002. He was listed on
the FBI's December 2002 most-wanted
list, and appeared on the America's
Most Wanted television program.
Arrow fled to Canada, where he hoped
to receive political asylum. In
2004, he was arrested in Victoria,
British Columbia for shoplifting a
pair of bolt-cutters. Arrow was
extradited from Canada to Portland,
Oregon on February 29, 2008 to face
14 counts of arson and conspiracy.
He faces a possible sentence of life
in prison.
Tre is a raw energy vegan - He has
asked that his letters of
support are written on scrap paper
or tree-free paper.
UDATE: On June 8th, Tre was joyously
greeted by friends in the Portland
International Airport. For the first
time in nearly seven years, he
shared food, embraced, danced,
laughed and sang with people outside
of jail. An entourage of bicycles
brought him out into the sunlight
and traversed the 2.5 miles to the
Oregon Halfway House. This was Tre's
first bike ride since before
incarceration in 2004. He entered
the halfway house with fresh spring
water, bare feet, a healthy tan and
the love of his friends and family
all around him. Tre will be in the
Oregon Halfway House for the rest of
his sentence, though once he gets
employed he could be moved to home
confinement.
www.trearrow.org/
Freddie Hilton
(Kamau Sadiki)
#0001150688
Augusta State
Medical Prison,
Bldg 13A-2 E7
3001 Gordon
Highway,
Grovetown, GA
30813
Kamau Sadiki is a former Black
Panther and BLA Member who was
convicted of a 1971 murder of a
police officer in 2003. He
maintains his innocence.
Allegedly Kamau shot a Fulton
County Police Officer in his
police car outside a service
station. Kamau was arrested for a
molestation charge that he
denies.
His supporters believe this was a
convenient way to keep him in
jail so they could intimidate
Authorities were desperately
seeking information leading to
the capture of Assata Shakur. He
refused to cooperate and they put
him on trial for the cop murder,
30 years after it had occurred.
He has been seriously ill while
in custody and apparently there
has been a change where inmates
are not allowed to sleep at least
8 hours on weekends or holidays.
www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Political
_Prisoners/Kamau_Sadiki.html
Brendan Walsh,
12473-052, FCI
Allenwood Low,
Federal
Correctional
Institution, PO
Box 1000, White
Deer, PA 17887,
USA.
Brendan is an anarchist from
Endwell. He plead guilty to a charge
of attempting to damage or destroy a
building by arson. On April 9, 2003
Brendan threw a Molotov cocktail
through the window of a local armed
forces recruiting station in Vestal,
NY, near Binghamton. He did this to
show his opposition to the war in
Iraq. He was also charged with
attempted destruction of
communication lines utilized by the
U.S. Armed Forces, which carried a
maximum sentence of 10 years. Walsh
is also responsible for smashing the
window of the recruitment center in
the previous year.
Brendan was going to be released
from prison to a halfway house on
February 8th, 2008. He's in need of
support from our movement more than
ever as he faces his release.
The actions included destruction of
Government property (pouring a tin
of red paint over the security desk
of a federal court and making
threatening communications. Prior to
her arrest Helen had served 27 years
for actions which included:
1) Using a hammer to disarm a
nuclear missile silo. 2) Burning
$25,000 on the floor of a bank
whilst denouncing war, environmental
destruction and economic injustice.
During this action you told those
around, “Money is evil. You don't
believe in God; you only worship
money.” 3) Mailing warning letters
with bullets attached to Government
& corporate officials.
2006
SHAC 7
During a visit with Brendan last
week, he communicated a desire for
Kansas Mutual Aid to collect
monetary donations to help aid
Brendan in buying clothes and other
needed items once released.
Brendan's halfway house confirmation
has been repeatedly delayed, so he
has been under a lot of stress as he
fights to ensure his release in
February. He's in need of as much
love and support as we can send.
Please consider sending Brendan some
words of love and support during his
last several weeks in prison.
2004
Helen Woodson,
03231-045, FMC
Carswell - Admin.
Max. Unit, POB
27137, Ft.
Worth, TX 76127,
USA.
Helen is a ploughshare prisoner
serving 8 years & 10 months for a
series of actions that focused the
interrelationship of war and the
destruction of the natural world.
Lauren Gazzola #93497-011, FCI
Danbury Route #37, 33 1/2 Pembroke
Road, Danbury, CT 06811 USA.
Birthday: 5-1
Kevin Kjonaas #93502-011, FCI
Sandstone, PO Box 1000, Sandstone,
MN 55072 USA.
Birthday: 10-31
Jacob Conroy #93501-011
FCI Terminal Island
Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 3007
San Pedro, CA 90731
Birthday:2-3
Andrew Stepanian #26399-050
c/o NYC ABC
Post Office Box 110034
Brooklyn, New York 11211
Birthday: 8-8
The SHAC 7 are 6 animal rights
activists and the organization Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA (SHAC
USA) who were convicted on March 2,
2006, under the controversial
Federal Animal Enterprise Protection
Act. The Act punishes anyone who
"physically disrupts" an animal
enterprise. The charges stem from
these activists' alleged
participation in an international
campaign to close the notorious
product testing lab Huntingdon Life
Sciences.
Specifically, these activists are
alleged to have operated a website
that reported on and expressed
ideological support for protest
activity against Huntingdon and its
business affiliates. For this they
are charged with "terrorism" and
face an aggregate of 23 years in
Federal Prison.
The SHAC 7 case is the latest in an
onslaught of attacks against
domestic dissidents under the guise
of fighting terrorism. Animal rights
is a "fringe" issue and the
government is banking on the broader
social justice movement to turn a
blind eye to those focusing on the
“less important” issue of animals
and expressing “extremist” views.
But make no mistake - these
activists are the canaries in the
mine. This case is intended to pave
the way for further silencing of
activists involved in all issues.
UDATE: Josh, and Darius are free.
Andy is serving in a half-way house.
www.shac7.com/
Nathan Block
#36359-086, FCI
Lompoc, Federal
Correctional
Institution,
3600 Guard Road,
Lompoc, CA
93436, USA.
Joyanna Zacher
#36360-086, FCI
Dublin, Federal
Correctional
Institution,
5701 8th St Camp Parks - Unit
F, Dublin, CA
94568 USA.
Exile (Nathan Fraser Block), and
Sadie (Joyanna L. Zacher), both from
Olympia, were indicted and arrested
Thursday Feb. 23 (2006) in charges
related to a May 2001 arson fire at
Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie,
Oregon, where experimental
genetically altered poplars are
grown. Exile and Sadie accepted plea
agreements that did not incriminate
persons other than themselves. They
are each currently serving sentences
of 92 months in federal prison.
Judge Ann Aiken was dismayed that
neither of the defendants expressed
remorse for their crimes and
sentenced them each to them to the
full term requested by the
prosecution, saying that they wanted
to be known as "activist martyrs."
http://olycivlib.blogspot.com/
Olajidai
Crenshaw
#A519055 Ross
Correctional
Institution
(RCI) P. O.
Box 7010
Chillicothe,
Ohio 45601
Olajidai Crenshaw and Lasandra
Burwell were given harsh sentences
for alleged crimes committed during
their participation in a counter
demonstration to a Nazi invasion of
their community.
On October 15, 2005, the city of
Toledo allowed a full detachment of
uniformed Neo-Nazis to protest
"black crime" at a largely black
high school in a largely black
working class community. To add
insult to injury a largely white
police force was sent to guard these
Nazis. A peaceful counter rally was
organized across from the high
school by an ethnically diverse
coalition of regional activists. The
rally was well attended by several
hundred mostly young community
members and anti-racists from other
areas of the Mid-West.
The rally was peaceful, but at a
certain point an African American
young person from the community
threw eggs over the heads of the
white police officers at the hate
spewing Neo Nazis. Nearly
instantaneously the police charged
on horseback, into the crowd of
protesters. This was accompanied by
the officers raining tear gas onto
the largely youthful, local crowd.
Many of the elders of the community
had been watching the protest from
porches and windows. As the
community witnessed its conscious,
opinionated young people being
attacked, they could not sit by. As
the police arrested people at random
the community reacted in the
incident that came to be known in
the media as the "Toledo Riot".
The police arrested over 110 people,
many of them juveniles. In the
course of the rioting, 17 year old
Olajadai Crenshaw allegedly
destroyed the lock on a local bar.
Later, the bar was looted and burned
to the ground by the angry
community. Outrageously, he was
tried as an adult and incarcerated.
Lasandra Burwell, was sentenced to 8
years in Ohio State Prison for
throwing bricks at police and
smashing a police cars windshield
during the Nazi rally. She was
released in March 2008 but is still
subject to strict parole for 3
years.
http://www.myspace.com/toledosolidar
ity
2007
New Jersey 4
Patreese Johnson # 07-G-0635
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1000
Bedford Hills, NY 10507
Renata Hill # 07-G-0636
Albion Correctional Facility
3595 State Road Albion, NY
14411-9399
On August 18, 2006, seven young
African American lesbians traveled
to the West Village from their homes
in Newark for a regular night out.
When walking down the street, a male
bystander assaulted them with sexist
and homophobic comments. The women
tried to defend themselves, and a
fight broke out. During the
resulting confrontation, Buckle
first spat in Renata’s face and
threw his lit cigarette at her, then
he yanked another’s hair, pulling
her towards him, and then began
strangling Renata. A fight broke
out, during which Patreese Johnson,
4 feet 11 inches tall and 95 pounds,
produced a small knife from her bag
to stop Buckle from choking her
friend—a knife she carried to
protect herself when she came home
alone from her late-night job.
Two male onlookers, one of whom had
a knife, ran over to physically deal
with Buckle in order to help the
women. Buckle, who ended up
hospitalized for five days with
stomach and liver lacerations,
initially reported on at least two
occasions that the men—not the
women—had attacked him. What’s more,
Patreese’s knife was never tested
for DNA, the men who beat Buckle
were never questioned by police, and
the whole incident was captured on
surveillance video. Yet the women
ended up on trial for attempted
murder. Dwayne Buckle testified
against them.
Thus began the women’s nightmare for
almost a year. Three of the women
accepted plea offers. On June 14th,
2007 Venice Brown (19), Terrain
Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson
(20), and Renata Hill (24) received
sentences ranging from 3 ½ to 11
years in prison.
UDATE:- Venice got 26 months time
served and 2 years post supervision.
She doesn’t have to go back to jail!
- Patreese has gotten her GED! She
plans to continue on to college and
is looking forward to that. She
thinks she might be moved to another
facility shortly.
- Renata accepted a plea bargain and
has 1.5 years left as of May, 2009.
Daniel McGowan
#63794-053
USP Marion
U.S. Penititentiary
P.O. Box 1000
Marion, IL 62959
B-day: 5-2-1974
Daniel McGowan is an environmental
and social justice activist from New
York City. He has worked on projects
such as the demonstrations against
the Republican National Convention,
counter military recruitment
efforts, organizing free markets in
his neighborhood, and supporting
political prisoners such as Jeff
"Free" Luers. Daniel was also
earning a Master's degree in
acupuncture and was working at
WomensLaw.org, a nonprofit that
helps abused women navigate the
legal system, when he was arrested
by federal marshals on December 7th,
2005. He was charged in federal
court on counts of arson, property
destruction and conspiracy, all
relating to two actions in Oregon in
2001.
Until recently, Daniel was offered
two choices by the government:
cooperate by informing on other
people, or go to trial and
potentially spend the rest of his
life in prison. His only real option
was to plead not guilty until he
could reach a resolution of the case
that permitted him to honor his
principles.
Now, as a result of months of
litigation and negotiation, Daniel
was able to admit to his role in
these two incidents, while not
implicating or identifying any other
people who might have been
involved. Given a longer sentence
than those who fully cooperated, he
was sentenced to 7 years in prison
on June 4, 2007 and began serving
his time on July 2, 2007 at MDC
Brooklyn.
www.supportdaniel.org/
www.myspace.com/isupportthenj4
Jonathan Paul,
#07167-085, FCI
Phoenix, Federal
Correctional
Institution,
37910 N 45th
Ave., Phoenix, AZ
85086
Birthday: 1-31
Jonathan has been an animal and
environmental activist since the
1980s and a vegan for 25 years. He
and his wife live with 5 companion
animals off the grid, powering their
home with solar panels. Jonathan is
currently serving a 51 – month
sentence in federal prison in
Phoenix, Arizona for his role in the
1997 arson of the Cavel West horse
slaughterhouse in Redmond, OR.
Jonathan has dedicated his life to
protecting the earth and alleviating
the suffering of animals, human and
non-human. From 1999 until the time
he reported to prison in October of
2007, Jonathan served his community
as an Emergency Medical Technician
and volunteer firefighter. Jonathan
has received numerous awards for his
community service. He deserves our
support and we need to let him know
how much we appreciate his
sacrifices.
www.supportjonathan.org/
Grant Barnes
#137563, San
Carlos
Correctional
Facility, PO Box
3, Pueblo,
CO 81002, USA.
24 year old Grant Barnes, is serving
a 12 year sentence for setting fire
to a number of SUV vehicles. H was
arrested by Denver police in
connection with at least two fires
involving Hummer sport utility
vehicles. On one of the vehicles
the letters ELF was spray-painted.An
officer arrested Grant Barnes during
a routine traffic stop about 11:30
p.m., after finding suspicious
materials in his vehicle. He was in
the same neighborhood as the arsons,
police said.
http://grantbarnes.wordpress.com/
SF 8
Francisco Torres #2307534
out on bail.
Eight former Black Panthers were
arrested January 23rd in California,
New York and Florida on charges
related to the 1971 killing of a San
Francisco police officer. Similar
charges were thrown out after it was
revealed that police used torture to
extract confessions when some of
these same men were arrested in New
Orleans in 1973.
Richard Brown, Richard O'Neal, Ray
Boudreaux, and Hank Jones were
arrested Jan. 23, 2007 in
California. Francisco Torres was
arrested the same day in Queens, New
York. Harold Taylor was arrested in
Florida. Two men charged – Herman
Bell and Jalil Muntaqim – have been
held as political prisoners for over
30 years in New York State prisons.
A ninth man -- Ronald Stanley
Bridgeforth – is still being sought.
The men were charged with the murder
of Sgt. John Young and conspiracy
that encompasses numerous acts
between 1968 and 1973.
Harold Taylor and John Bowman
(recently deceased) as well as Ruben
Scott (thought to be a government
witness) were first charged in 1975.
But a judge tossed out the charges,
finding that Taylor and his two codefendants made statements after
police in New Orleans tortured them
for several days employing electric
shock, cattle prods, beatings,
sensory deprivation, plastic bags
and hot, wet blankets for
asphyxiation. Such "evidence" is
neither credible nor legal.
UPDATE: Everyone is out of jail
currently. At the end of July,
Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim were
sentenced to probation and time
served, after Herman agreed to plead
to voluntary manslaughter and Jalil
to conspiracy to voluntary
manslaughter. All charges were then
dropped on Richard Brown, Hank
Jones, Harold Taylor, and Ray
Boudreaux, with the prosecution
admitting it had “insufficient
evidence” against them. Charges had
already been dropped against Richard
O'Neal last year.
Francisco Torres, of NYC, is the
last person still with charges; he
maintains his innocence and will
appear in court on August 10.
Main Jail since the day of his
arrest.
He was arrested along with Zachary
Jenson and Lauren Weiner and all
three were charged with “conspiracy
to destroy property by means of fire
or explosives.” The government’s
case is based on the word of a
single FBI informant who was paid
over $75,000 to fabricate a crime
and implicate the trio. Both of
Eric’s co-defendants have since
caved under the threat of being
imprisoned for 20 years and plead
guilty to a lesser charge. In doing
so, they also agreed to testify
against Eric and cooperate in every
way possible, including testifying
in front of secret grand jury
proceedings. Eric has been
repeatedly denied bail. For over a
year, he has only been allowed to
leave his cell for a few hours per
week and receives very little
contact with the outside world. On
September 7, 2007 Eric was found
guilty of conspiracy and is waiting
for sentencing. His sentencing date
has been pushed back several times
which is obviously difficult for
Eric.
http://supporteric.org/
www.freethesf8.org/
2008
Eric McDavid
X-2972521
4E231A,
Sacramento
County Main Jail,
651 "I"
Street,
Sacramento, CA
95814, USA.
Birthday: 10-7
Eric McDavid was arrested in Auburn,
CA on January 13, 2006 as part of
the government’s ongoing Green Scare
campaign. Eric was held in solitary
confinement at the Sacramento County
Michael Sykes
#696693
Richard A.
Handlon
Correctional
Facility
1728 Bluewater
Highway
Ionia, MI 48846
Michael is a 17-year-old anarchist
awaiting trial on charges in
connection with some antidevelopment/sprawl arsons in
Michigan. Police say that 17-yearold Michael Sykes torched two newly
constructed homes in order to call
attention to the problem of urban
sprawl. The teen was arrested as he
allegedly attempted to siphon
gasoline from an unmarked police
Jeep Cherokee near a new
development. Detectives say that
Sykes confessed to the arsons along
with another at a Kroger supermarket
in 2006, as well as a recent string
of acts of vandalism including
burning an American flag, damaging
an 80-foot utility pole and painting
an anarchy symbol.
Sykes was charged as an adult, and
has pled not guilty. He is being
held in Monroe County Jail in lieu
of $1 million bond. His next hearing
is scheduled for March 26. He loves
nature and would like to receive
books, especially ones about Native
Americans, environmentalism, and
field guides. He said that if people
write him he can send them artwork
and that he would also like
visitors.
http://supportmichael.wordpress.com/
Avelino
González
Claudio
09873-000
287 Bilton Road
P.O. Box 665
Somers, CT
06071
Birthday:
10-8-1942
He moved to New York City where he
lived until the beginning of the
1970’s. He worked in Wall Street in
that city while he carried out
political work with the Puerto Rican
community and organized part of the
resistance
of
the
revolutionary
forces
that
were
beginning
to
organize themselves in “the belly of
the Yankee beast” and had begun to
stand out by the end of the 1960’s.
Avelino
became
part
of
the
leadership of the Vito Marco Antonio
Mission
of
the
Movemento
ProIndependence (MPI) in New York.
Avelino returned to his homeland to
integrate into the political work
where he stood out as one of its
most
capable
and
disciplined
leaders. At the time of the arrests
in 1985 he was known for his role in
the administration of the operations
of
the
political
magazine
Pensamiento
Crítico
(Critical
Thought. For the past 22 years he
alluded
authorities
as
“Jose
Ortega,” and was able to participate
not only in the struggle for the
peoples’ liberation but also as a
worker and computer teacher where he
realized work for the improvement of
the
services
provided
by
the
Department of Education of Puerto
Rico.
Avelino is a recent Puerto Rican
Independence prisoner.
Avelino was
born in the town of Vega Baja on
October 8, 1942. Since his days as a
student in the public schools of his
country he established himself as a
fighter for the freedom of his
homeland.
In August of 1985, Avelino González,
along with other Puerto Ricans and 2
North Americans, were accused of
having participated in the planning
and authorization of an operation to
secure $7,117,000.00 from a Wells
Fargo armored truck in Hartford,
Connecticut on September 12, 1983.
That operation was carried out by
the then PRTP-Macheteros. They are
accused of being part of the Central
Committee and Political Commission
of the PRTP-Macheteros. Avelino, his
brother Norberto and Victor Gerena,
the main person accused, could not
be arrested at that time. Norberto
and Victor remain underground to
this day.
Upon entering the University of
Puerto Rico he became a member of
the
Pro-Independence
University
Federation (Federación Universitaria
Pro Independencia –FUPI), a student
organization founded in 1956 that
has stood out for its struggle for
university
reforms
to
improve
conditions at the university for our
people. Avelino became its vicepresident.
The charges against those arrested
that year ended in a trial of a
group of the accused (Carlos Ayes,
Filiberto
Ojeda,
Juan
Segarra,
Norman
Ramirez
and
Roberto
Maldonado) in 1989 and finally led
to a political-legal agreement in
1992
with
the
accused
Orlando
González, Hilton Fernández Diamante,
Jorge A. Farinacci, Isaac Camacho,
Elías Castro and Angel Días Ruiz and
later led to another trial of the
accused Ivone Meléndez Carrión. The
legal agreement reached recognized
the
Macheteros
as
a
political
organization that fights for the
independence of their homeland.
Avelino was arrested Feb 7, 2008 and
his is held in a state prison in the
city of Hartford in conditions of
“maximum security”. 23 hours in
isolation in a jail cell, with one
hour to get fresh air, with no
access to his family and denied
communication by telephone with his
family
members,
his
lawyers
or
friends. They propose to judge him,
as
they
have
his
comrades
in
struggle, faraway from his Puerto
Rican homeland.
His hearing is set
for later this year.
UPDATE:
Puerto
Rican
Political
Prisoner Avelino Gonzalez Claudo is
being
denied
medical
treatment!
Since his incarceration, he has
developed a neurological condition.
In November 2008, Avelino requested,
several
times,
medical
attention
receiving only a “I do not know”, “I
will read some books” answer from
the
Doctor
assigned
to his
facility.
Avelno has been mvoed to anew
prison, so the campaign has a new
target: Peter J. Murphy, the Warden
of Avelino's new prison, MacDougallWalker Correctional Institution
Briana Waters is compassionate
advocate for peace, and a devoted
mother with a 3 year old daughter
who is accused of participating in
an arson at the University of
Washington in May 2001. On March 15,
2006, she was falsely accused of
participating in a politically
motivated arson which took place at
the University of Washington in May
2001. An informant testified that
she was the driver and look out
during the arson.Briana steadfastly
maintains her innocence.
In 2001, she directed a powerful
documentary, entitled Watch, which
tells the moving true story of a
peaceful campaign that built a
coalition between environmentalists,
loggers, and the residents of
Randle, Washington to save the oldgrowth forest on Watch Mountain.
A federal jury found her guilty of
two counts of arson on March 6,
2008. She is currently detained
while awaiting sentencing. She faces
a mandatory five-year minimum prison
term, potentially subject to an
enhancement of up to twenty years.
http://www.supportbriana.org/
http://www.prolibertadweb.com/id9.ht
ml
Briana Waters
36432-086
FCI Danbury,
Federal
Correctional
Institution,
Route 37,
Danbury, CT
06811, USA.
Rodney Adam
Coronado
#03895-000, FCI
El Reno,
PO Box 1500, El
Reno, OK 73036,
USA.
Rodney Adam Coronado is an American
eco-anarchist and animal rights
activist who has been convicted of
arson, conspiracy and other crimes
in connection with his activism. He
is an advocate for the Animal
Liberation Front and started several
ALF cells. He was the spokesperson
for the Earth Liberation Front. He
is also a former crew member of the
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
and was a member of the editorial
collective of the Earth First!
Journal.
Rod Coronado writes eloquently of
his involvement in high-profile
direct actions, most notorious was
the sinking of two whaling ships in
Iceland.
A former proponent of the use of
direct action to end what he sees as
cruelty to animals and destruction
of the environment, Coronado was
jailed in 1995 in connection with an
arson attack on research facilities
at Michigan State University. The
incident, which caused $125,000
worth of damage and destroyed 32
years of research data, was part of
the Animal Liberation Front's
"Operation Bite Back," a series of
attacks on animal-testing and fur
facilities in the United States
during the 1990s.
In February 2006, Coronado was
arrested on a felony charge of
demonstrating the use of an
incendiary device at a public
gathering in the Hillcrest
neighborhood of San Diego. Rod
leaves his 4 year old son behind as
he once again waits in a cell for
his freedom.
Marie Mason
On 24/7 House
arrest until
sentencing.
Got Your Back
Collective
P.O.B. 23134
Cincinnati, OH
45223
Marie Mason of Cincinnati, Ohio is a
long time environmental, social
justice activist and loving mother
of two. On March 10th, she was
arrested by FBI, Homeland Security
and local police on charges related
to two Earth Liberation Front
actions that occurred in Michigan,
in 1999, and 2000.
Mason had previously experienced
government repression when ELF
actions occurred in her community.
An easy target for the federal
agents in their quest to criminalize
dissent, Mason was an identifiable
and outspoken critic of genetic
engineering and destructive forestry
practices.
Marie’s case is one of the latest
developments in what many have
dubbed the “Green Scare,” a recent
wave of government repression aimed
at disrupting and discrediting
grassroots environmental activism
and criminalizing dissent.
http://freemarie.org
Bryan “Rat Dog”
Lefey
#38664-086
FDC SeaTac
Federal Detention
Center
P.O. Box 13900
Seattle, WA
98198
USA
On July 26 2008, Bryan Rivera, a.k.a
Bryan Lefey, was arrest and remanded
for his accused involvement in an
ELF action eight years ago. 2 other
defendants in the same case,
Katherine Christianson and Aaron
Ellringer, have both been accused of
ELF actions, and appeared in court
on Tuesday the 29th of July, where
they both pleaded not guilty and
were released on bail.
Bryan Riggins
c/o Thurston
County
Corrections
Facility
2000 Lakeridge
Drive SW
Olympia, WA
98502
Jesse James
ForreyRC
Correctional
Facility
297 Century
Avenue South
Maplewood, MN
55119
Jesse, was arrested at the RNC
protests in the Twin Cities last
September, and is fighting a felony
charge of criminal damage to
property in the first degree . He is
from California and courageously
waits to return to his home and
family.
Bryan Riggins
Bryan Riggins, Tacoma-based
anarchist started the demanded 73
day (lessened from the initial 120)
sentence yesterday, Saturday 8/16.
He has been kidnapped for the socalled "riot" during May Day 2008 in
Olympia.Bryan Riggins, Tacoma-based
anarchist started the demanded 73
day (lessened from the initial 120)
sentence yesterday, Saturday 8/16.
He has been kidnapped for the socalled "riot" during May Day 2008 in
Olympia.
Bryan would appreciate books (must
be ordered/shipped from publisher),
zines, letters, and general support
(vistation, donations, etc.).
Especially literature pertaining to
prison struggle, new
anarchist/communist translations
from Europe, and any
introductory/basic anarchist texts.
James
Kevin Olliff,
#1300931,
TTCF 161 D-Pod,
450 Bauchet St.,
Los Angeles, CA
90012
USA
Linda Greene,
#1300927
Century Regional
Detention Facility
11705 S.
Alameda Street
Lynwood, CA
90262
USA
two American animal rights activists
have been remanded accused of
stalking
William James Viehl
Inmate #2009-05735
Davis County Jail
800 West State St.
Farmington, UT 84025
USA
Alex Hall
Inmate #2009-06304
Davis County Jail
800 West State St.
Farmington, UT
84025
USA
On Thursday the 5th of March two
Americans, William "BJ" Veihl and
Alex Hall, were raided and arrested
accused of raiding a mink farm in
Utah, last August, and attempting to
raid a second mind farm, in October
2008. Both are being held at Salt
Lake County Jailed charged with
Animal Enterprise Terrorism.
Both BJ and Alex are vegan, but both
are being denied vegan meals (this
is despite the fact their friends
and supporters are being told, by
the jail, they are getting vegan
food!!!). People are working on
assuring BJ and Alex get the food
they require.
MATTHEW DEPALMA
14126-041
P.O. Box 420
Fairton, NJ 08320
William James
Viehl
Inmate #200905735
Davis County Jail
800 West State St.
Farmington, UT
84025
USA
DePalma is an anarchist convicted of
illegally possessing Molotov
cocktails allegedly intended to be
used at the Republican National
Convention and against the police
outside the convention. The
government indictment stated that
between August 22, 1008 and August
29, 2008, DePalma began to build
roughly about five Molotov
cocktails. Police started watching
him during a CrimeThinc Convergence
near Waldo, Wis. It was here where
they claim he devised his plan to
use explosives to disrupt the RNC at
the Xcel Center. He was arrested on
August 30, 2008 by agent of the FBI
Joint Terrorism Task Force at a
residence in Minneapolis. The plan
involved tunnels near the center and
using explosives to destroy cables
and cause a power outage. As with
the more recent arrests, a great
deal of evidence against DePalma has
come from the assistance of a paid
informant. DePalma pleaded guilty on
October 21, 2008. He pleaded guilty
to 1 count of possession of
destruction device.
In memory of...
Basheed/york
harold thompson
eddie hatcher