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.
Video from Forum For Understanding Prisons youtube channel.
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.