“I told them I was gonna move and they still come and sprayed me.”

In a phone call from Wednesday, August 19th, a hunger striker in the Special or Restricted Housing Unit at the GEO Group’s North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin describes being assaulted with pepper spray as a result of his participation in the most recent strike which ended on Monday, August 17th. Strikers have continued to demand an explanation for their prolonged confinement to this unit, as well as the restoration of phone access which has been denied in violation of GEO’s own policies. The recording has been edited for length.

TRANSCRIPT:

“While we was on the hunger strike, they come and pepper-spray me, and also write me an incident report for not wanting to move, when I never refused to move. I told them that I was gonna move. Twelve o’clock, they come and tell me that we have to move to 224. Three o’clock, they come back and tell me, no, we ain’t gonna move to 224 no more, they gonna move us to the hallway. So I was like, ‘The hallway is not a part of the SHU! So why you want to move me there?’ So I was like, ‘If you want to move me, all right, move me to where I should be, at administration detention.’ While I was in there, we wasn’t moving, they come and pepper-spray us and pull us out.

They dragged me out, take me to the shower, and the nurse come and see me, wash up—they threw something in my eye, I don’t know what is it, to wash out the pepper spray, ’cause they pepper-sprayed my eye, I could not really see. My nose—I could not even really breathe with it.

I never really do nothing, I never really fight them or anything, ’cause with pepper spray I can’t really do nothing, so I just put my hands behind my back and they cuff me and take me out.

The incident report said that I ‘refused to work’—then, after, they scratched that and said I ‘refused to move.’ It was all—they’re just doing it because retaliation, because the shot doesn’t really match with what they said.

I’m simply telling them that we are not fighting for nothing that we’re not supposed to have. If you don’t want to give us the phone, give us the phone privilege, we are not going to eat, because you are not giving us what we should really get. Because in the GEO rulebook, it says inmates in administration detention should [be] entitled to the same privilege as inmates in general population. And what really happened—they haven’t do that. When every time you get locked up, and you come into prison, the first thing that they tell us—they say it’s your right to know the rules and regulations. To respect staff and expect staff will treat you with respect. But we know the rules, they try to treat us bad. My old place, I never get a shot. Since I’m here, within less than two weeks, they write me five different incident reports.

We not eating is a problem to them, and they tried to do everything to get us to eat. But I was like, I was not gonna eat until either I pass out—I was really trying to get to pass out. I think if I had gone like until Monday or Tuesday, I would have passed out.

Everyone is tired here because we are not supposed to be in the SHU this long. It’s over 90 days now and Obama did pass a law that we’re not supposed to be in the SHU this long. And I haven’t even done nothing to be back here. I keep begging them, ‘Send me back to the compound.’ They refuse to send me back to the compound. I haven’t do nobody nothing on the compound. I haven’t said nothing to no one on the compound. I keep telling them, ‘Send me back to general population if you’re not gonna give me what I’m supposed to get back here.’ Because—at least have some sympathy on us. We are here, we can’t talk to our families due to coronavirus, and you’re gonna take the phone from us?

Everything we do, they write us a shot—incident report. From all the incident reports that they write me, I ask them, ‘Give me—call the Jamaican consulate, let them translate for me, because me English is very very bad.’ They haven’t do it one time as yet. So that’s the thing they do up here, they’re always writing us shots. They write us all the shots back here. And I know it’s all retaliation, for the hunger strike.

I never refused no direct order. I told them I was gonna move and they still come and sprayed me, and the incident report, what they write also said something different.”

#ShutDownGEO #FreeThemAll