Spilling Over

It was seven a.m. I was fast asleep when my cell door was opened so hard it slammed against the wall, making a loud “boom.”

I jumped up so fast, I hit my head against the top bunk. Two prison guards stood in the doorway, flicked on the bright light, and yelled, “Up and at ‘em, assholes – cell search!”

I stood up, rubbing my head, and gathered my wits. As I looked past the two guards, I saw no less than fifty C.E.R.T prison guards on our housing unit, and a bunch more at other peoples’ cell doors, doing much of the same.

I knew this was no ordinary cell search. C.E.R.T. is the equivalent of Navy Seals for this booming prison industry. It takes a special man to want to be on a C.E.R.T. They train them to be hardcore fanatical extremists who actually take pleasure in dishing out verbal and physical abuse to us inmates. They won’t hide their intentions either.

“Strip down to boxers only, bitches. Which one of you wants to be stripped searched first?” they asked me and my cellmate. I volunteered first.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to be verbally and physically ashamed and abused, I just like to get it out of the way as fast as possible, and after fourteen years in prison, I’m still not used to it.

After the shame of standing naked in front of another man as he inspected my body for weapons or drugs, I put my boxers back on and reached for my pants. “No! Boxers only,” he yelled at me.

“So, you want us to stand naked out there in front of two hundred strangers?” I asked, incredulous.

“You’ve got boxers on, you’re not naked!” he responded with an attitude.

I walked up to him and turned around so he could cuff me. He aggressively yanked my arms behind my back so hard I thought he pulled one out of its socket. “Damn, man! What the hell’s your problem?” I asked angrily.

“You are my problem, asshole, you’re Antifa scum!” Then he walked me out of my cell and pushed me so hard against the wall that I smashed my face. I really didn’t feel it though, as I was too baffled by what he had called me. Antifa?, I asked myself out loud. I had no clue what Antifa was.

After they stripped my cellmate and searched him, they stood him next to me. I looked to him and asked, “What is Antifa?”

He thought for a second, then said, “It’s an extremist left-wing domestic group, some type of political extremists or something.”

That made me think even harder. I am not a political man at all, but I do watch the news enough to remember hearing that word.

I turned around when I heard a scuffle behind me. I saw three guards punching and kicking an inmate who was laying on the ground, cuffed. Then, at least a dozen more ran over to help kick and punch the helpless, cuffed man. At some point, I saw a C.O. pull his mace out and spray it right in the cuffed man’s face, which, I believe, after someone is cuffed is not called for.

I don’t know what he did, but they were beating him with hate. This is when I noticed the tee shirts they were wearing. On the front, a skull with two assault rifles crossed behind it, like a Jolly Roger, and a slogan written in Latin, but I could only make out “Live for the Cause.” On the back, an American flag, an eagle, and more writing, “P.A. D.O.C. C.E.R.T.” That’s when it dawned on me…

The comment about Antifa. The way they were acting. It was two days after the election cycle. The Republicans had taken heavy losses in the Senate and gubernatorial races. This was payback, politically motivated payback. It was tribalism; Trumpism at its finest. It was spilling over from society to prison.

Trumpism had thickened the prison air with hate and the “us vs them” attitude more and more. This was the product of conservative Republican politics being taken into the hands of constituents. They know the majority of us support left-wing agendas because they are the most lenient towards people like us (i.e. felons).

These men come to work and take out all of the frustrations in their personal lives on us, with NO consequences. They constantly brag about it! It doesn’t help that most prisons are built in highly rural areas, where most of the demographic is conservative Republicans. That being said, it comes down to this: They feel like it’s their patriotic duty to abuse and mistreat the criminals they watch over, especially when they know their political views don’t align with ours.

The harder I thought about what the guard had said to me, the more I understood. The only time I had ever heard the word “Antifa” was out of the President’s mouth.

The guards who were searching our cell ran to join in the madness of beating the inmate. When they walked back to resume their trashing, I said to the one who had cuffed me, “Hey, man, I don’t even know what Antifa scum is.”

He proceeded to walk up to me, put his fist in the middle of my back, and pushed me again into the brick wall, face first. “It means you’re BLM, a domestic terrorist, and I took an oath to annihilate you! So, say another word, and I’ll break your face. You’ll end up like your BLM friend over there.” He nodded his head towards the inmate laying on the ground, beaten up and still cuffed.

“How can he be BLM? He’s white!” I asked incredulously. “And I’m white and Puerto Rican!”

“Get smart again, bitch! I dare you,” he simply stated.

They went back into our cell and threw away over $100 of mine and my cellmate’s property that our families had bought.

Even though the violence and abuse in prison no longer surprises me, what did was how the political landscape of our society was clearly spilling into our prison world.

Don’t get me wrong, I am constantly asking the staff questions about what’s going on out there in the real world. I am a very inquisitive person. I almost have to be an investigative journalist of sorts.

One thing I’ve learned in all of these years is, if you want to know what a person believes, just ask them. A person’s belief system always shows itself by the way they interact with you, or what they say. The only thing you have to do is listen closely and pay attention. It’s not hard to correlate someone’s opinions or thoughts directly to their line of belief.

Another thing I have noticed of major importance is prison guards’ actual opinions. Before 2016, I never heard any guard talk about politics or anything negative whatsoever about the government. After 2016, it’s ALL you hear from 90% of the prison guards; constant rants about the government’s failures and how everything is a conspiracy.

Trumpism brought conspiracy theorists to the mainstream, out from the shadows of society. It created a toxic atmosphere where one can voice all of their anger to anyone and act disrespectfully with no regard to manners or kindness. Trumpism turned patriots to extremists, nationalists to terrorists, civic pride to civil unrest.

All the civilians in American prisons are sitting ducks for the extremists who are employed by the D.O.C. They are given enough power over us that they can make our lives a living hell, as well as control over whether we ever see freedom again.

For example, when Trump lost the election in 2020, I watched an inmate and guard talk about the election being legit or not. The guard’s opinion was that Trump won, but it was stolen by the secret government. The inmate said he didn’t trust the government either, but Trump was a corrupt and pathological liar. The argument got heated, so the inmate left and went into his cell.

I know this guy personally. He had spent the last twenty-six years in prison. He had changed his entire life. He had made parole and was going home in two weeks. His mother was on her deathbed, dying from breast cancer. He was going to spend every moment with her when he got released, quality moments.

Later on that day, he received a Class 1 misconduct for abusive language and threatening staff.

Every other inmate who was around that conversation came to his aid and wrote witness statements saying he was never aggressive or threatening in nature. It was simply a conversation of politics, which the inmate in question felt was getting a little heated, so he took the necessary action to end it.

He went to his hearing with six signed statements, including his own, per D.O.C. policy, all outlining the actual facts of what happened. They didn’t help him, though. Not only did he not go home, he was put in solitary confinement for three months with no phone calls or visits. His mother died while he sat in a cell going crazy. This was a man who had never had a misconduct in twenty-six years! He wasn’t allowed to call home to speak to his mother before she passed, even though his family had called the prison to let him know she was close to dying.

His is just one situation I’m aware of… I can’t imagine what might have happened that I don’t know about.

So, who is going to step up for us? The issue isn’t black and white, or rich and poor, like it used to be. Now, it’s left or right, blue or red. Show me one piece of legislation written by a Republican who pushes for criminal justice reform or second chances within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Show me one that has been written by a Republican in the last decade in Pennsylvania.

We went from trickledown politics to politics spilling over the barbed wire fences of American prisons, causing hate, resentment, judgment, and creating an atmosphere ripe to grow extremist and domestic terrorists. Let’s hope and pray love can defeat these dire circumstances.