After a week of ongoing actions, FFUP took to the street! For a little more than an hour, cars circled the block that the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility takes up (10th street, State street, Highland ave, 11th street). At one point during the power hour, 16 cars were counted as taking part in this noise demonstration.
In this prison, three staff members have tested positive for COVID 19. From the outside it looks like an office building, however it is actually a building within a building: the windows do not reach into the prison. The spread of this disease throughout MSDF is inevitable as all of the air is recycled. Prisoners in this dungeon are given no outside rec time and never see sunlight.
In the video above, anarchist and prison abolitionist Ben talks extensively about how the Wisconsin DOC continues not to address the issue of COVID 19. Additionally, he discusses issues with the prison system in Wisconsin more generally. Specifically discussing the death of Muhammad Bracey at Columbia Correctional Institute, as well as other deaths that occurred as a result of Warden Susan Novak’s policies and her continued provocation of prisoners at CCI.
For more updates on the situation within Wisconsin’s DOC and the efforts of Forum For Understanding Prisons, check out PrisonForum.org or follow them on facebook @prisonforum. To learn more about the dungeon that is MSDF, check out closeMSDF.org.
March 25th marked day three of the Occupation outside of DOC Secretary Carr’s house.
Early in the morning, demonstrators held signs and shared the hashtag they intend to use throughout the campaign, #WiPrisonersHomeNow.
They then announced that they would be “pulling rank” on Kevin Carr and would spend the rest of day in Madison outside the governor’s mansion.
At about 7am, secretary Carr did come out and offer to speak with one of the demonstrators. He called Ben Turk up onto his property, away from the group of 6-7 others who were at the edge of his property in the street. Carr demanded that Ben turn his phone off for their conversation, but here is a report back from that conversation:
As you can see, the conversation was largely just secretary Carr trying to pass the buck and also paint the ineffective measures that have been taken as effective.
After his brief conversation with Ben, Carr took to a more aggressive response to the demonstrators’ insults and demands for action. He drove his car beside their demonstration and insulted one of them directly and personally, stepping out of his car and, revealing his toughguy attitude, confronting one of the demonstrators directly—a woman who is half his size. Their whole interaction can be seen here.
After that, the police showed up and claimed that someone had called in a disturbance complaint. They spoke with two of the demonstrators and then moved on.
The most of the rest of the day was spent in Madison, first at the capital building (video 1), followed by a trip to the governor’s mansion (video 2):
Unfortunately, each attempt to speak with governor Evers failed, so the demonstrators headed back to Milwaukee, where they were interviewed by CBS58. A brief write up and a video of this interaction can be found here.
Hopefully, given the exposure from CBS, as well as concerns about the issues facing incarcerated people during this pandemic raised by the ACLU in this recent article, meaningful change in the Wisconsin DOC will begin to occur.
You can follow FFUP on facebook (@prisonforum) to keep up with their check-ins hourly. Links to the archive of yesterday’s live feeds can be found here.
Tuesday March 24th was day 2 of the occupation outside DOC Secretary Kevin Carr’s home in Glendale, Wisconsin.
At 6am, the demonstrators began by holding a banner that reads Fire Warden Novak. They sang “Make me a channel of your peace,” a traditional Christian hymn, which picked up on Ben’s speech from the night before and continued the appeal to Carr’s morality and Christianity. Carr came out again to check his mailbox, and again did not want to speak with the group. Two cop cars parked on the corner and watched the demonstration, eventually driving off shortly before 730am.
At about 815am, two of them went to the police station to get the permit to use the speaker, as they’d been told to do about 12 hours earlier by a cop. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, they were denied the permit on the grounds of “being a nuisance.” This despite the fact that all of the police that came by the day before said that they weren’t doing anything wrong, and in fact had been very cooperative, etc. There is also little evidence that any of the neighbors complained, given that the officer declined to answer whether there were any complaints made against them.
For the 8am live stream, there was discussion about mental health and self-isolation, because Governor Evers issued a “Safer at Home” order. Suggestions were made about how people can be safe, but also not completely isolate. The unfortunate fact is that while isolation protects the elderly and immunocompromised populations, it has the potential to create a different group of vulnerable people. There needs to be a balance between the authoritarian measures taken by the Chinese governments and a complete abandon of safer practices, as had been the case by the American government. Some things that are suggested are: making sure to go on walks, practice social distancing, narrow the group of people you interact with (but don’t reduce it to zero), utilize internet communications and/or video conferencing tools.
At 1pm, a viral video went around that a bunch of prisoners had escaped from Yakima jail in Washington state. “People took it upon themselves to protect themselves from coronavirus…The governor in Washington was saying that people are safer at home, and these people took that to heart and got themselves over a fence.”
Throughout the rest of the day, there were multiple phone calls from prisoners in Wisconsin—Chrystul Kizer, Bill Ledford, Elijah Prioleau—as well as a reading of reports from prisoners at even more facilities in the state.
Unfortunately, Chrystul’s video call was cut short. The best guess was that it was because there was more than one person on the camera. Guards monitor all their calls and video transmissions and can turn them off at any point, and in this instance, it seems they took that power in their hands to cut off her communication.
Bill talked about being a disabled, immunocompromised, older prisoner and how he is therefore highly at risk of further complications if he contracts the coronavirus. “It’s a scary spot,” Bill said, “because once it’s in here, it’s gonna run through here like it does every place else. And we got less protection than any other place in society… We’re not gonna be sent to a hospital, we’re just gonna be left to sit in a cell.”
Elijah is currently at Waupun, and was featured on a recent Final Straw Radio show about COVID-19 and it’s status within prison walls. Elijah has pointed out that at Waupun, people are experiencing retaliation from reporting being sick or not feeling well. People who experience illness during this time are being placed in seg (solitary confinement). This is not a hospital, not a care unit – solitary confinement is torture.
You can write to these prisoners and show your support at:
Chrystul Kizer #138378
Kenosha County Pretrial Facility
1000 55th St.
Kenosha, Wi 53140
William N Ledford #080495
Columbia Correctional Institution
PO Box 950
Portage, Wi 53901
Leon Elijah Prioleau #420053
Waupun Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 351
Waupun, WI 53963
From 4pm until Carr came home, there was a further discussion of the demands, followed by a reading of the newly issued DOC FAQ for friends and family members of Wisconsin’s prisoners. The FAQ is frankly laughable. A fact check of the FAQ can be found here. One of the clearest examples of falsehoods the DOC is spreading is, “As of March 24th, 2020, we do not have any known cases of COVID 19…” This is demonstrably false, as news broke on Thursday March 19th that a doctor at Waupun Correctional tested positive for coronavirus.
When Carr arrived at home, he again refused to speak with them. They yelled at him as he continued to ignore them. After that, a couple of his neighbors came and talked with the demonstrators. The neighbors were very supportive of the action and surprised to learn that someone from the DOC lives among them.
The closing statements for the day were done at 7pm, when they held their banner and read an email from Damani Nantambu, a prisoner held at Columbia Correctional Institution. He shared an interaction he had with one of the nurses at CCI. He asked her, “Which one of these nurses brought that shit in there?” She said that it wasn’t a nurse, it was a guard. They’ve been denied the knowledge of who it was that tested positive for COVID-19, which brings up concerns about whether or not this guard has come in contact with them.
You can write to Damani at:
Damani M. Nantambu #594586
Columbia Correctional Institution
PO Box 950
Portage, Wi 53901
The final send off of the day was a releasing of the balloons… some of which ended up in Carr’s tree.
You can follow FFUP on facebook (@prisonforum) to keep up with their check-ins hourly. Links to the archive of yesterday’s live feeds can be found here.
On Monday March 23rd, Forum For Understanding Prisons began an occupation (from dawn till dusk) outside Wisconsin DOC Secretary Kevin Carr’s house in Glendale, Wisconsin. Their intention is to let the secretary know that he is not doing enough to keep the prisoners of Wisconsin safe during this pandemic. And they will remain until the DOC meets their demands (the last few paragraphs of the report found here).
A brief recap of the day’s events goes as follows:
They showed up and held up the banner, announced their intentions. Kevin Carr came outside to put something in his mailbox, and was immediately dismissive of them, he turned and as he was going back inside said, “you’re presence isn’t gonna make me do anything!” They reminded him that they’re not trying to make him do anything other than his job. After Carr went back inside, they began to read the demands.
Shortly thereafter, a police officer came to tell them they are not allowed to use the speaker between the hours of 10pm and 7am, so they could resume the reading at 7am (which was about 10 minutes later). He said that they were otherwise being compliant with the law. He also said that Carr was out of town at the moment, which they knew was untrue, because they’d seen him that morning.
At 9am, they had a phone call with Elijah, a prisoner at Waupun Correctional, which they live streamed to the facebook feed. He explained how the virus got in to Waupun (through a doctor who was recently out of the country and was not tested before he came back to work and was put in contact with at least 18 different people at the facility). He also discussed the lack of effective measures taken by leaders at the facility, which will likely result in the virus being spread around to more people.
Police continued to drive by every half hour to hour from that point on. Around 10am, one of Kevin’s neighbors came and took a photo of the banner. She said she posted it on her social media and asked if there was anything they needed.
At noon, the three people present began a letter writing session and played the most recent episode of The Final Straw (found here), which centers on the COVID 19 crisis in the prisons.
At 3pm, after Carr’s wife came out to get the mail, two more cops came and told them that their banner wasn’t allowed to be set up on the lawn the way that it was (pictured above), and that “if [they] don’t take it down, we’ll take it down for you!” So they took the banner down, even though it had been there for 8 hours already and several other cops had driven past and said they weren’t doing anything wrong.
At about 5:30pm, Carr came home and again ignored them and refused to answer any questions they had about what steps he had taken to ensure the safety of Wisconsin’s prisoners. One of them went to the door and rang the door bell to ask how he spent his day and what progress did he make on protecting prisoners. He opened the door and the exchange went as follows:
Carr: This is private property and you need to leave.
FFUP: I wanted to ask a question about your progress.
Carr: No
He closed the door.
For the 6pm live feed, they continued reading the demands and then began an appeal to Kevin Carr’s morality (he is a devout Catholic), detailing the ways in which the DOC is currently failing the prison population so greatly. The speaker, Ben Turk, has met with Kevin on at least one occasion, and Kevin has admitted that there is an issue with the culture of the DOC in Wisconsin, but said that the change takes time. Time is something we simply don’t have anymore.
Not long after this direct address was finished, another police officer arrived to let them know that they are not allowed to use the speaker without a permit, citing a city ordinance. The demonstrators were told that there’s nothing wrong with what they are doing, but that they simply need to get a permit. The officer said that they would be able to obtain one with no problem the following morning from the police station.
It’s clear that the police are escalating their tactics to frustrate and disrupt this occupation, while at the same time pretending that they are not an overbearing presence for the benefit of the upper-middle class community.
For their last installment of the day, they read the ordinance the cop had cited aloud. There’s a notable exception 11.2.9(10)(c):
The reasonable use of amplifiers or loudspeakers in the course of public addresses which are noncommercial in nature.
If their demonstration is not a non-commercial public address, then what is it?
You can follow FFUP on facebook (@prisonforum) to keep up with their check-ins hourly. Links to the archive of yesterday’s live feeds can be found here.
The following report was sent to us from Forum for Understanding Prisons, check out their site here and keep up with the effects COVID 19 is having on our most vulnerable population—prisoners.
On Friday March 20th, a small gathering outside of the dungeon in downtown Milwaukee took place. There are more than 23,000 people incarcerated in Wisconsin. Because the WI DOC prisons operates at about 130% of capacity, the virus will spread fast. There are at least 1,100 prisoners that are at risk (either elderly or immune compromised), and the DOC is doing nothing to protect them. Captive populations are at the mercy of the state, and the state is not responding responsibly.
The Governor must direct DOC Secretary Carr, his staff, and Parole Commission Chair John Tate II to take dramatic emergency action now, before a COVID-19 outbreak, to mitigate its potentially devastating impact on Wisconsin’s already unstable facilities.
First: Release as many people as possible to reduce dangerous overcrowding.
Grant compassionate release to all elderly and immune-compromised people from Wisconsin prisons. The death penalty is not legal in Wisconsin but by continuing to incarcerate vulnerable people while a deadly virus spreads through the system Governor Evers will be effectively sentencing people to death.
End crimeless revocations and release those held on them. Nearly half of new admissions into Wisconsin’s overcrowded prisons come not from new criminal convictions, but “rules only” violations. Eliminating this practice and releasing everyone currently doing time on a revocation is the single best way to reduce overcrowding and prevent the spread of COVID-19 though Wisconsin prisons. Also, endangering or shortening someone’s life because they violated a technical rule of supervision is grotesque.
Release all parole-eligible people with re-entry plans or on less than 12 month defers. The parole commission under John Tate has been gradually increasing the rate of releases from a virtual standstill under the previous chair, Daniel Gabler. Many of the 2800 parole-eligible “old law” prisoners are at the lowest security levels, with release plans at the ready. Tate could expedite the release of these people so they can self-quarantine with family and not exacerbate the overcrowding and risk of COVID-19 outbreak in their prisons.
Issue a mass clemency or emergency furlows for low-level offenders and people nearing release. Last year Governor Evers reinstated the pardon board to much fanfare, but zero actual releases. He limited criteria to people convicted of certain crimes who had finished serving their full sentence, including supervision more than 5 years ago. Meanwhile, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma recently released hundreds of people in a single day.
Minimum security facilities are among the most overcrowded, and hundreds of people on work release in these facilities have been getting out daily to work in the community already. Releasing these people is surely a lower risk to public safety than forcing them to crowd prisons, turning them into incubators for disease.
Second: Give incarcerated people the means to protect themselves.
Prioritize testing in prisons and distribute CDC prevention guidelines. Testing materials are limited nation-wide, and traditionally incarcerated people are the last to receive care when it becomes scarce, even if they are most at risk. This tradition cannot continue in today’s exceptional circumstances. Prisons are incubators for the disease, they will help it spread across the state. Monitoring these sites closely is necessary to slow that spread.
Distribute soap, tissues, gloves, masks, gauze to filter vents, and disinfectant wipes or sprays. Handwashing is the most effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19, but Wisconsin DOC provides some indigent people with barely enough soap to wash their hands once daily. Tissues and toilet paper are strictly rationed. Masks, alcohol gel or wipes are completely forbidden. All these things must be distributed free of charge immediately.
Stop stealing money through Act 355. Wisconsin DOC is empowered to determine the percentage they take. The new administration continues Governor Walker’s practice of taking 50% or more. Secretary Carr must reduce this amount so people can buy needs with support of their loved ones.
Make phone, email and tablet access free. The people who remain incarcerated need every opportunity to connect with their loved ones during this crisis.
Support re-entry for people being released. Governor Evers needs to expand housing and social services in light of the pandemic already. These services should be made available for the emergency prisons releases we’re demanding.
Third: Drive sadistic racists and staff who dehumanize and endanger people out of the DOC.
Fire Warden Susan Novak and other problem staff. Novak’s track record of medical neglect speaks for itself. Her regime of sadism and racially targeted abuse cost lives when there wasn’t a deadly pandemic going on.
Create an environment that supports nurses and care workers. The DOC has a demonstrated inability to treat its captives as human beings deserving of care. The Department of Health Services should take over care-giving operations in the prisons. DOC staff should defer to medical and mental health professionals.
Mandate emergency de-escalation and anti-racist training. The DOC staff is currently unprepared to manage the heightened tension of an effective COVID-19 containment plan.
The following report was sent to us anonymously this morning:
CO-VID 19 has caused a nearly unprecedented level of unemployment throughout the country, and Milwaukee is not immune. With all the bars and restaurants closing and/or switching to take out, many people are out of work and will be unable to make their rent payments on April 1st.
We hung a banner declaring:
IF WE CAN’T WORK WE CAN’T PAY RENT STRIKE
A petition to governor Evers, asking that he suspend all rent, mortgage and utility collections during the Coronavirus Crisis has been making the rounds, and if governor Evers refuses to agree to our terms, we will have no choice but to rent strike!
Click here and sign the petition. If you don’t live in Wisconsin, sign it anyway, you can list your zip code as 53204.
The following video and call to action was sent to us anonymously:
Calling all anarchists and anti-authoritarians who want to witness the dumpster fire that will be the Democratic National Convention—July 13-16, 2020.
The city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin have been working tirelessly to criminalize protest and dissent, and we wanna let them know their efforts were in vain.
Join us in our front row seats to the end of the american “democracy.”
Some anarchists crashed Bootlicker Night at the Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee with a megaphone, a speaker and a huge banner that reads “Stop the Bleeding Defund MPD.”
The unconditional support that the white supremacist organization that is MPD receives is unacceptable. MPD receives 47% of the city’s tax budget, a budget that they overspend on every year, due to overtime and payouts to the families of the people they brutalize and/or kill. They are responsible for the targeted harassment, imprisonment, assaults and deaths of black and brown people in the city. Many people are quick to claim that “not all cops” are bad, believing that it is possible to be a good cop, to which I would ask, “don’t all police officers arrest and detain people?”
Just at the beginning of this month, a 17 year old black child was murdered by police in Milwaukee county, so I ask: how do the “good” cops that weren’t the one who pulled the trigger respond to this?
The presence of cops on our streets is a violent threat to the people of marginalized communities.
