By Jason Renard Walker, NABPP Minister of Labor

In the April 2020 Prison Legal News cover story by Michael D. Cohen, M.D. titled: Protect Yourself and Your Facility From COVID-19. He explained what little is known about the Coronavirus and what prisoners can do to protect themselves and the areas they live and congregate in.

Given that prisoners are already limited, resource wise, information of this magnitude is critical in situations of a pandemic proportion. Guards and medical staff have been pre-prepped to avoid giving us any information about the COVID-19 pandemic; including the number of confirmed cases at the prison, which staff have contracted the virus and anything concerning local and state news about it.

Basically, the Clements Unit has put the entire prison population on an island in terms of out gaining insight on the risks the virus has presented to the unit and how they are trying to prevent new cases. The available radio stations we get seem to skip over examining on goings inside TDCJ and simply give numbers on the amount of guards and prisoners that got exposed in Texas as a whole.

From our initial placement on this “medical quarantine” we were told it would only last 14 days. This announcement was made April 8, 2020. Prisoners were under the impression that we’d be fed sack lunches for 14 days, isolated from any exposure of the virus, then carry on with normal prison life. Somewhere things got out of hand and I believe even staff have no idea on how a simple quarantine actually resulted in the virus spreading throughout the prison.

We’d actually gone seven days into the quarantine before guards said it started over because a sick staff member infected an unrelated part of the prison. As of April 26, 2020 we’ve had a “quarantine” restarted four times because an outside agent (guard) brought the virus to the supposed quarantined area. Despite this the only measure they use is removing working prisoners from their work sites and quarantine their building. Nothing is being done to limit prisoner/guard contact but everything has been done to virtually terminate prisoner/prisoner contact and communication.

Now the Clements Unit has become a giant incubator of quarantined buildings, pods and cells. The prisoners are being treated as if they are the spreaders of the virus while guards now make and handle the sack luches. The same guard sweeping trash and picking up dirty clothes now handout the food without changing their latex gloves in between.

What we are now delving into is the possibility that a sick guard making the food can contaminate the entire prison population, including staff that may eat a sack lunch themself. Some believe the 10 hour gap in feeding could be that food is running short.

A lack of prisoner labor has now slowed down feeding times. On April 24, 2020 we ate lunch at 5:34pm and dinner after 4:00am. Since guards are paid by the hour, they use their entire shift making the sack lunches at their speed, will and might. Their malicious slowness can be seen in how careless the sandwich(es) is placed in the sacks. My neighbor reported that his boiled egg had been peeled and the egg poked; I’ve received several sacks contains one PBJ sandwich. Other prisoners reported having hard crunchy bread, suggesting that the sandwich had laid around for sometime before being sent off.

On April 23, 2020 we were told that we could make a special “medical quarantine” commissary purchase. Strangely this pod (A pod) was the only pod allowed to make this special purchase. As of April 26, 2020 no other pods have gone. I now have learned that this was basically a ‘hush’ spend under the tacit agreement that no prisoners would say anything negative to Huntsville investigators, who happened to be there collecting info/data about the April 13, 2020 murder that happened on this pod.

To give you an understanding on the contradiction in the spend being a medical spend, here is a list of helpful products normally available on commissary :

Mouthwash; cough drops, antacid; chlorphen tablets; earwax drops; eyedrops; fiber lax caplets; chocolate nutrition shake; strawberry nutrition shake; hemorrhoid ointment’ hydrocortisone cream; milk thistle’ multi vitamin; nasal spray; pepto bismuth tablets; stool softener; anti fungal cream; amino acid; calcium pills; garlic pills; vitamin C; vitamin E; triple antibiotic ointment; sardines; tuna; mackerel; chuck chicken in broth; honey pepper turkey; pink salmon; chicken sausage; sunflower kernels; salted peanuts; energizer mix; roasted garlic bagel; grape juice; mashed potatoes; spicy veggie soups; chicken soups; instant oatmeal; instant milk; cranberry juice; V8 juice; orange juice; albacore tuna; geflte fish; pineapple juice; turkey swarm; beef stuffed cabbage.

Of course these are only the more healthy items available on commissary and this is an incomplete list of its entire stock. Now here is a list of what we were allowed to buy:

1 deodorant; 1 toothpaste; 5 small soaps; 1 shampoo; 1 comb; 1 toothbrush (they were out of stock); orange/lime single serve electrolyte mix; 30 envelopes; 30 stamps; 3 ink pens; writing paper; carbon paper (they were out of stock).

Nothing on the allowed list serves any purpose in assisting us during a COVID-19 quarantine.

Regardless if a prisoner has money, they are allowed: soap, razors, toothpaste and correspondence periodically. During any lock down prisoners are allowed to access correspondence materials from the law library after the lock down has surpassed six days (we are on day 19)

All in all any concerned supporters of mine that have called were probably told that I in particular made a commissary purchase but weren’t told that this purchase doesn’t support our effort to combat the virus.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP CLEMENTS UNIT PRISONERS

I am requesting the help of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, the Anarchist Black Cross, Dr. John Dolley and the Central Texas ABC Paralegal services, Azzurra Chrispino and the Texas PAPS blog, Amani Sawari and any concerned citizens who may have read this posting.

I ask that you help mobilize a phone zap call in campaign and mass protest rally to the Clements unit wardens office, ombudsman office, Texas governors office and Attorney General’s office.

The basis of the protest is to force the Clements Unit to move all uninfected prisoners to an area of the prison that prevents them from getting unnecessary exposure to the Coronavirus and allow them to purchase $35 worth of commissary items according to their particular want and need and not according to staffs belief that lockdowns are supposed to be punitive.

As it stands we won’t make another ‘medical spend’ until 30 more days. Please demand that all prisoners be given an immediate $34 ‘regular’ spend until the issue of creating a more comprehensive quarantine program can be established.

Prisoners are hungry, angry and ready to aggressively rebel because its obvious that feeding cold sandwiches every meal is immoral given that they have all respectfully complied with the quarantine but have no control over careless staff failing to get tests for economical reasons. PLEASE HELP FEED US!

Dare to struggle, dare to win! All power to the people!

Jason Renard Walker #1532092

Clements Unit

9601 Spur 591

Amarillo, TX 79107

TIP: There is a special online commissary purchase program called ECOMM direct, see www.texas.gov/ecommdirect. It allows family to purchase food and other items online. Close custody prisoners aren’t eligible to use it but maybe we can find a way to get TDCJ to make it accessible to everyone. As its convenient for staff because all they have to do is pull the order off the computer and send it to the prisoner without any contact between staff and prisoner. As of right now the service isn’t being used at all. Lets make them use it.