Thread by @ORprisonreport

Oregon Prison Report: Voices from the Inside

These words are transcribed from a phone call with a trans woman imprisoned at Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC), detailing an uprising that broke out in the facility on January 17, 2021.

(Testimony from Critical Resistance's (@C_Resistance) Prisoner Phone Line)

Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC) [Monroe, WA] / January 17, 2021.

#ODOCKills #KateBrownKills #FreeThemAll

I'm in the hole right now because they said there was a riot and we set the prison on fire.

It happened because there had been wind storms that wiped out wi-fi and JPay tablets. They didn't tell us what was going on or why it got knocked out.

Meanwhile there was a COVID outbreak. My unit was COVID-free for 10 months and then out of nowhere they started bringing people into our unit who were still infected. They stayed in our unit for 3 days and then left.

Then someone got a positive test and they locked everyone down without saying why. The CO's were lying about whether they had symptoms and not getting their temperatures taken before their shifts so that they weren't forced to be taken out of work.

Everyone was put on lockdown for two weeks, 24 hours a day. The COs lied to us and said they were putting other people in my pod as a protection measure for certain people against COVID but actually those people were already exposed.

We filed grievances but nobody listened, and then of course those people turned out to test positive.

The staff was passing out food without switching gloves between exposed and quarantined units. The mail cut off for a while and people were receiving mail from months prior.

There was no trust. We were being lied to about everything.

Everyone started asking what was going on and the CO's were instructed not to tell us anything and they stopped doing welfare checks to avoid answering our questions.

At one point, they let us out of lockdown for only 10 min to use the bathroom, JPay, microwave, etc.

They let 62 of us out at a time, and inevitably, some of us didn't get a chance to go out.

They told us that the rest of the people who didn't get a chance to go out could do so on the next shift, but instead, they ended up turning off the lights, shower, etc.

At this point, it was like the butterfly effect. Everyone started slapping the sides of their cells. Four hundred of us. Then someone said, “Light this shit on fire!" and another person started singing, “We're not gonna take it.”

It was pitch black and then someone set a fire in the cell and set mattresses on fire. They kept the fire's going by putting grease on papers. There were fires from 9:30PM to 3AM. People were throwing literal shit at the CO's.

I refused to cuff up, and minutes later a bunch of CO's came back to my cell with full riot gear with shields and everything, and I'm just one tiny girl.

They told me to get on my knees and threatened me with their shock shields. I stuck my hand through the bars and they shocked me. Even though I was injured, they made me walk half a mile to the hole.

I might have to stay in the hole for another 8 months because they only hold video for 30 days, but they withheld video footage from me until 31 days later which affected my trial.