Salute Comrades, I want to first thank you all for supporting Behind the Walls Talk and being proactive in this fight against the prison industrial complex. Please continue to share our post and the website itself, because we need more activists. The topic I bring to you today is about the PERT team (Prison Emergency Response Team) who us as prisoners consider having unchecked power. What you will read and hear in the following posts is of incidents where the PERT team has used excessive force and has not been held accountable for any of their actions, till now. The brothers of this struggle that these acts of cruel and unusual punishment were committed against now have a voice to be heard on Behind the Walls Talk and we’re here now to expose them with our stories. Please be mindful when listening to and reading these stories that we are still human-beings and maybe your neighbor in the future tense. Even when we have been punished with the sentence, we’ve been given due to our convictions, we are still being constantly punished by a system that is supposed to be committed to rehabilitation and producing functionally developed citizens back into society. Instead, we’ll be reentering society with PTSD, anxiety, and the pain and grief we have suffered at the hands of NCDAC. Please address our distress call with Todd Ishee Secretary @ todd.ishee@dac.nc.gov Loris Sutton Deputy Secretary- Internal Affairs & Intelligence Operations @ loris.sutton@dac.nc.gov and others at on this link of leadership with NCDAC below.
https://www.dac.nc.gov/about-us/leadership
Reuben Curry #1216391
On November 16,2021, I woke up to Prison Emergency Team (PERT) members entering my then assigned cell (H254) at Pasquotank Correctional Institution located in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. I quickly jumped to my feet and was greeted with one directive: “strip”! With the abruptness of their entry and me being partially disoriented from waking so suddenly to their orders, I had to mentally come to terms to what was happening. Two key details of importance are: 1) it was cold outside, and cold air was coming from the vent in my cell; and 2) in all my time in prison, I have never been approached in such fashion with officers being directly in my personal space, directing me to strip. Usually, during institutional searches that involve prisoners submitting to a complete search of their body cavity, officers open the trap of the door and direct prisoners to pass their clothes to them through there while they inspect the prisoner’s person. That didn’t happen this incident, and felt extremely threatened, therefore, I said, “I will drop and squat for y’all but I’m not giving y’all my boxers. It’s too cold in here for that.” The officer, Riggs was his name, gave a short chuckle, then again directed me to strip. I said, “Look man, it’s cold in here. Y’all can’t force me to strip in this cold environment. I know my rights, that’s cruel and usual treatment.” Out of nowhere, Riggs sprayed me directly in my eyes with pepper-spray. I whirled away from him to avoid his attack, however, he continued to spray me from over my shoulder every time I turned away from him. At the same time, another officer pinned me against my bunk landing punches to my body. Someone then took a hold of my left foot and began twisting it as if they were trying to break my ankle. All the while, they kept ordering me to “stop resisting” and “strip” albeit, I was not resisting. I screamed, “All right! Let me go and I will.”
The officers, however, continued their assault. When I feared that they would not stop and my ankle was going to break, I broke my leg free and attempted to run out of the room to get in view of the camera; however, I ran directly into someone blocking the doorway. I tried to force my way through him, but then someone, assumably Riggs, started whipping me from behind with a baton. I sustained several blows to my upper back and shoulder area before one landed on the top of my head, sending me to the floor onto my stomach with my head bleeding profusely. One of the officers then dropped a knee in my back, making it virtually impossible to breathe. I began to panic in fear for my life, and cried out, “I can’t breathe!” Several moments passed before the lieutenant intervened and ordered them to let me up.
They placed me in full restraints and escorted me to medical. In medical the doctor had to tell me to calm down and take deep breaths to prevent myself from hyperventilating. I honestly thought the PERT members were trying to kill me in the ordeal I had endured, and my nerves had been rattled beyond comprehension. My head was bleeding, I was covered in pepper-sprayed making it hard for me to breathe, I was burning from the pepper-spray, and I was in a lot of pain from the beating I had suffered. Simply put, I was traumatized. I could not believe that the very people employed to keep me safe and secure during my incarceration had tried to kill me or bring me to the point that I felt I was going to die.
When I was finally able to calm down and talk clearly enough to be understood, I asked for all the officers’ involved names, noticing the Warden who was present in the room. In an odd turn of events, I was taken to the Receiving area where I was ultimately strip searched. I sat in a cell in Receiving for a considerable amount of time before the investigating officer came and informed me that I had been charged with an A-03, Assault on Staff, offense then emergency transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, and placed on Administrative Segregation. I was incredulous! I exercised an exorbitant amount of self-control, while I was getting battered and beat on mercilessly, to abstain from fighting back; I did not cause a single injury to any of the officers involved, yet I was made to face bogus allegations of a very serious offense.
Needless to say, after a ton of policy violations pertinent to disciplinary procedures on the part of the staff and administration, I was found guilty of said offense which then led to me serving a total of nearly 14 months in solitary confinement, while the PERT members involved did not suffer so much as a proverbial “slap on the wrist” for their actions and iniquities.
My name is Larry Robinson, but to the average person I am 1016665 or bunk 30. I understand prisons were built for a specific reason, but one of those reasons shouldn’t be to strip our humanity.
I’ve been incarcerated for 17 years, and I am currently housed at Maury Correctional, but what is correct about it? On June 23rd I was involved in an incident with an officer and was pepper sprayed for no other reason then that they were frustrated for being at work and they quote having to do their job unquote.
If you read the write up on the face, I’m not only the antagonist but also the reason why excessive force was used on me and covered up by saying I assaulted them that left no injury.
DHO is nothing but a fake remedy provided so they can say that one was given to us. Even when you are right you are wrong. Of course, when you come and visit this place, giving them prior notice so they can harass and belittle us into waxing the floors, paint, and scrub the prison clean so it can look presentable on the surface when you show so everything will look good.
But ask yourself why they do not let you talk to us. Maybe it’s because they don’t want you to know we haven’t had rec regularly the two plus years I’ve been here. That the excessive force that is being used on us without proper medical attention is why some people are locked in the hole for extended periods of time.
How by me writing this letter to you and you mentioning my name as evidence I will be retaliated against by either having a weapon or contraband planted in my locker during a supposed routine search, or being shipped to the worst facility they can find making it even harder for my family to visit.
When my family calls up here it’s not to reward them with a salad bar and tell them how great a jo they are doing by keeping me locked in the block all day unable to go to canteen but one time a day at seven in the morning with no outlets even though I am in medium custody. They call to see why when I was on my two-year mark and been on the shipping list a year and a half of that time without being shipped. I started getting A charges because they were calling too much. A charge for incense and retaliated against by the same people they are supposed to help me rehabilitate myself. So, no they won’t let you talk to us, but hey we’re just inmates who’s going to believe us, we just like being punished and subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for no other reason that we like it, right?
The link, graphs, and charts below are on the grievance process. When you look at the images from the grievance page, it shows what the complaints are, the amount of them, and each facility. This should align with what we all are saying rather than the narrative that is being fed to society. People lie but numbers do not. Do I think these numbers are accurate, not at all knowing that so many grievances do not make it pass the officers who pick them up. One thing that is missing is the numbers on how many times they have sided with us. If anyone have anything to add to this article, feel free to message on Facebook or Instagram, email, or text us. All the information is on the website. Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
