FFUP Occupation Outside Kevin Carr’s House (Day 3)

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:

https://www.facebook.com/prisonforum/videos/567228927225621/

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 tough guy 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):

https://www.facebook.com/prisonforum/videos/2619477061619875/

https://www.facebook.com/prisonforum/videos/vb.160106610719617/225887122117719/?type=2&theater

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.