Justice in the USA: “You shouldn’t have been Black"

By Dilip -

California prisoner, Talib Williams, is bringing a class action lawsuit on his behalf as well as other Black incarcerated people who were targeted by a July 20, 2020 raid at Soledad, California’s Correctional Training Facility (CTF).  The suit seeks a reprieve from the state-sponsored terror that is their norm. Injunctive and declaratory relief, among other remedies, are necessary to stop the violence, change CDCR policy, and compensate the prisoners for the degradation they have suffered.   

The raid took place against the backdrop of nationwide Black-led uprisings that occurred after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.  It was part of a white supremacist backlash against the demands for justice for Black people across the country.

On July 20, 2020, at approximately 3am, CDCR officers and investigators from CTF, other nearby prisons and headquarters including Special Services Units (“SSU”), Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI) units, and Office of Correctional Safety Gang Investigation Officers (“OCS GIO”), dressed in full riot gear with tape over their nametags, tore approximately 200 Black people at CTF from their beds.

They slammed them to the ground or against their cell walls, hand cuffed and zip-tied their hands, and dragged them out of their cells. Some IGI and SSU officers placed Black incarcerated people in chokeholds and headlocks, pushed them down the stairs, punched and kicked them, and placed their knees on their victims’ necks in the same manner that George Floyd was brutally murdered. Barefoot and unmasked - wearing nothing but boxer briefs - 200 Black people were forced out of their housing units and led towards the dining hall.  

After being beaten and brutalized by CDCR officers, all 200 Black prisoners sat shivering on stainless steel stools in the dining hall with their hands zip tied behind their backs—unmasked, barefoot, and practically naked. The men demanded medical attention, and they demanded masks as this was in the middle of the COVID pandemic. Dozens of SSU, IGI and CDCR correctional officers stood by and ignored their cries for help. Instead, the officers screamed: “I hope you motherfuckers get COVID!” and “Black lives don’t matter!”...







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