Eric wanted to communicate what this week feels like for him. This week would have been his out-date. Halfway house would have been behind him, he would be home and starting his new life. The targeting, monitoring, inciting, and just constant attacks has cost him immensely. Yesterday he spoke about what it was like being a human stuck in a cage. Unable to hug his family, unable to do anything besides live in his mind, play out worries, losses…. over and over. No power, or knowledge about how this is going to all play out. The unsurety is huge regarding even the most basic things… if he is going to be able to come home to his family. If he will be accepted into the federal district that we have built our home.

He was eligible for a halfway house in February, and if he would only just claim to be homeless… He could be free within 1-2 months. He has lost over 8 months because of Bureau of Prisons psyops. Over physical attacks, Union cards and poems. Each lost day is connected to a horrible moment that he’s lived through. Each day is connected to phone sanctions and visit sanctions and deprivation and loss. Every. Single. Day… Is felt. And it hits in a very brutal way when he’s actively fighting so so hard to get medical care for a terrifying situation.

We’ve been trying for three and a half years… We’ve had biopsies canceled… Scans ordered on the wrong side. Electrocution belts worn to medical appointments and doctors that just don’t give a s***. At USP Robert E Lee…. Medical staff claimed to a inquiring Senator that there simply was no mass at all, contrary to all the recent scans as well as the scans in Englewood prior to his trip to Lee. They recommended that he wait years to go to a doctor to follow up.

Last week Eric was given the doctor’s interpretation of an ultrasound that the prison received a month ago. They have been telling prisoners lately over and over that they have access to their medical records …yet someone at the ADX is sitting with his ultrasound report and it’s not him. All he gets is some mumbling about “abnormal”, “ENTs” and “comparisons to past scans”. From the date the prison received his results to the date that he was given it is about how long it takes for him to get a letter there. So apparently his medical information is subject to the same scrutiny And delay that every other piece of mail is.

The FEEL in this is heavy when we know we could have him in a specialists office getting a biopsy within a month if he were out… Yet he gets to start over next week… attempting to call over any staff that walks past his cell… beg for appropriate care. Beg for those ultrasound results. Beg for that biopsy.

The reality is he doesn’t know how any of this is going to turn out. There are a million ways it could go but it isn’t looking good. And as a human being… Sitting in that prison. Without phone calls, emails and a plethora of other things five visits a month (which is a heaven we haven’t felt in years). He wanted to talk about what all of those days feel like in between… The agony of loss.

ALSO wanted to let folks know how beautiful it was to tell him about the fundraiser being at 15k 😍 he definitely cried. He’s been so worried about the future, a world that has grown far past him. But today feels a bit more secure.

Two essays about things that happened one week in January 2021 following Denver’s global noise demo on New Year’s Eve at FCI Englewood. Eric’s ADX referral was extensively about a protest outside the facility that neither he nor his support team had anything to do with organizing.

These are essays that Eric is writing in his programming. He is not able to participate in any other pre-release programming but he is able to write essays for snacks and rewards.

These are two of them.

“Next week is the 30th anniversary of the Lucasville Uprising. To me, this is very important because Lucasville’s lessons are as valuable today as they were then.

One of the interesting things about Lucasville is that it even happened. Every day in almost every prison in America, there exist, to a certain extent, the conditions that lead to the uprising: cold, rotten, vile food; communication either over-priced, delayed, or prevented altogether; families being disrespected or denied access when they try to visit; subhuman and totally negligent medical care; old decrepit facilities that are falling apart, moldy and dangerous; a complete lack of jobs or meaningful activities and the existing jobs paying peanuts; and administrations who totally disregard prisoners’ physical and mental well-being while enacting policies that make life much worse and much more violent…those conditions haven’t vanished.    (See Thomson SMU and every USP)

What the Lucasville uprisers had was bravery, dignity, and a collective mindset that what would come was worth it to stand up for themselves. Organizing any level of resistance inside prison is incredibly difficult.  At USP Lee, we couldn’t get 10 people to join a peaceful ‘Grievance Process Protest’…the reasons it is so hard can be summed up as 1) Apathy 2) Extreme Repression. For even discussing the ‘Grievance Protest’ I was forcibly stripped by 5 USP Lee guards and forced to wear ONLY paper underwear in a completely empty cell for a week. Imagine the bravery of the Lucasville revolters. They knew with 100% certainty that whatever comforts, family contact, and safety they felt was absolutely finished. They knew death was a possibility, either at the hands of self-serving prisoners looking to settle scores or at the more likely hands of the cops who would be acting with rage-fueled impunity. They had the foresightedness to know and accept that there would be extreme brutality now and the chance for dignified treatment in the future. They played the long game with the hopes of feeling human and being treated as such.

I’ve been very blessed to be friends with people who still support some of the Lucasville uprisers. This is amazing and priceless work… The abolition movement cannot succeed without inside action, and knowing the fierce repression that they will face, inside people need to know support is there. Two hands to climb the rope out of the pit of oppression.

Horrible, tragic things happen during revolts, and they happened during Lucasville… this is not a celebration of or glorification of violence, absolutely not. It is a reminder of bravery, that some were willing to face their oppressor head-on… knowing they were living in their oppressors’ dwellings, knowing there was no retreat and no way out… we need to remember them and support them and everyone who put their dignity first and play the long game.

                Free Joe-Joe, free Kojo… free all our elders

EK    @ always

/// everywhere” 

(Featured art in solidarity by Taller Ahuehuete)

In December, a book Eric co-edited will be published by AK Press. Historian Dan Berger calls it “Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners”, an intimate intergenerational dialogue with movement activists representing sixty years of struggle and too many years of incarceration.”

Check it out here:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/rattling-the-cages-a-collection-of-oral-histories-of-north-american-political-prisoners/19648041?ean=9781849355216

Dispatches from behind bars. Political prisoners speak out. The official story is that the United States has no political prisoners. The reality is that there are hundreds of people rounded up, placed behind bars, and kept there for inordinately long sentences because of their political beliefs and activities. A project of popular educator Josh Davidson and political prisoner Eric King, this book is filled with the experience and wisdom of over thirty current and former North American political prisoners. It provides first-hand details of prison life and the political commitments that continue to lead prisoners into direct confrontation with state authorities and institutions. The people Josh Davidson has interviewed include former radicals and Black liberation militants from the sixties and seventies, current antifascists, nonviolent Catholic peace activists, Animal and Earth Liberation Front activists, and more. Their stories are moving, often tragic, yet deeply inspiring. Collectively, these people have spent hundreds of years behind bars, and their experiences speak directly to the cruelty and immorality of our prison and so-called criminal justice systems. Although their sentences and the conditions they have endured vary dramatically, this wide range of voices come together to embody what bell hooks called “a legacy of defiance.” It is this legacy–of tirelessly struggling to right today’s wrongs and create a better tomorrow–that the prison system tries, yet fails, to extinguish.

I’ve got scars, courtesy of guards 

That’ll mark me my whole life 

Some of them, they like to hunt 

They prowl inside my mind 

Others, they like to taunt 

And lurking plain sight 

Every time I see my face and head 

They’re so quick to remind 

The consequences that are in store 

If I speak out a line 

All the gifts prison left me with 

I wish I could return 

All the lessons that they’ve taught 

I wish I could unlearn 

The bureau left its marks on me 

In ways that I can’t hide 

The bureau attacks with savagery 

That’s why we must fight 

The BOP is processing his mail at a .272727272727 letter a day average. Eric has no other forms of contact. Ever since his recent court filings, mail is virtually non-existent.

1. “First, file 5 sick calls, have medical officer Dunne take you serious, but no one else
2. Use the grievance process after being ignored for 4 1/2 months
3. Get seen by a PA, who reviews everything + decides whether to refer to the doc or not. In our case he did
4. The doc has to review it and present the case to the “Utilization Review Committee” who has to approve it.
5. I guess the “URC” approves it, which in our case they did, they pass it onto REGIONAL [BOP office], who has to then approve it… Jesus they had 2 months to approve or deny… then once (if) approved they have to make the appointment w/the outside doctor… Three officers + all armed join you at the facility and you are made to wear the electronic belt [shock collar].
   • The Bureau thrives on promoting the health + safety of its captives =) HA Get fucked”

To give more clarity on the process for this particular (quite serious) medical concern. Eric might have missed a couple of steps.

1. Get approved after 18 months of trying for an outside Dr to evaluate you!
2. Get abruptly transferred clearing all medical orders from the system
3. Have your loved ones with the help of compassionate Senators (Thank you Neguse!) follow you being transferred from prison to prison trying to get them to palpitate your neck.
4. Arrive at USP Lee where the BOP responds to Senator Neguse informing us that there simply is nothing medically found in the afflicted area. They kindly highlight the email to make sure the senator knows exactly who he is helping

However, based on the EXTENSIVE medical work-up done at the ADX (per Eric’s account) it seems there WAS something found there after all. Enough to warrant a MAXIMUM SECURITY specialist doctor visit.

BOP waited and advised Eric to wait THREE YEARS for a follow-up.

To echo the sentiments of EK:

get fucked

It turns out the officer who terrorized Eric… the man who took him into the shower in his underwear and broke his head open while handcuffed… Was hired by the government after being partially responsible for a murder, and subsequently losing his job, as a Nebraska sergeant. It was commonplace for this man to use cell assignments as a way of extra discipline in Englewood. In fact, Eric has a write-up from this officer (Gustafson) for refusing an opposing gang cellmate (Bureau of Prisons classified Eric as “affiliated” being anti-fascist, so they can’t give him gang cellmates, as it is against separate regulations).

So the BOP saw… This man lost his job in Nebraska for using the segregation unit as a way to terrorize prisoners, ultimately leading to a blatantly unnecessary death. And they said “hold my beer 😂 do we have a unit for you to work.” They placed him in the segregation unit at FCI Englewood. They were all complacent in his abuse when they refused to take reports regarding his attempted assaults and harassment of Eric leading up to the horrific incident of Eric being attacked in the showers.

One of the write-ups that ended up being a part of Eric’s ADX Supermax placement involved this same officer. The federal prosecutor, knowing what he did to Eric, still brought this officer back to Denver to testify in an attempt to convict Eric of false charges of assault against an officer.

The kicker is, seemingly even after the Nebraska wrongful death lawsuit was settled, the officer is still employed with the Bureau of Prisons. Was even given an out-of-state transfer. Wonder what it takes to lose your job as a federal prison guard 🤷‍♀️

https://www.lawcommentary.com/articles/nebraska-and-family-of-inmate-killed-behind-bars-agree-to-479000-settlement

If you’d like to read the full lawsuit and allegations:

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5d394c31f175a712721e704d

If folks are interested in a little of Eric’s history with Officer Gustafson:

https://supportericking.org/2020/06/29/deliberate-indifference/

https://supportericking.org/2020/06/24/eric-assaulted-by-guard-at-fci-englewood/