On Wednesday, May 15, 1996, one of the chain gang prisoners here in Alabama was shot and killed by one of the guards. This shooting took place at Staton Correctional facility near Montgomery, Alabama. The DOC has already "determined" that the murder of this prisoner was "justified."

No one will ever know what actually happened but the official story is pretty straight forward. Two prisoners began fighting. One of the prisoners had a bush ax and went after another prisoner who was unarmed at the time. The guard fired a warning shot but the prisoner with the ax kept going at the unarmed prisoner. The guard then shot the prisoner with the bush ax supposedly to protect the other prisoner.

A bush ax is a tool with a handle similar to a shovel handle and is about the same length as a shovel handle. There is a curved knife like steel blade on the end of the handle. However, the steel blade is about 18 inches long and 5 inches wide. You could easily slice a person's head off with one swing of it. Each prisoner on the chain gang is usually given a bush ax or some other weapon just as deadly.

Common sense leads to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to shoot to kill this prisoner. The guard was armed with a pistol and a shotgun, and was at close range, within 10 or 15 feet from the prisoners. The guard could have just as easily shot the prisoner in the lower body to wound him instead of just murdering him. They have "justified" this murder but the real reason was a sadistic desire to kill.

This will not be the last murder to take place on the chain gang. Fights are routine on the chain gang between prisoners here. Whoever heard of giving prisoners deadly weapons and chaining them together, and then thinking everything is all right? Will the guard simply gun down both prisoners the next time there is a fight and both prisoners are armed? It sounds like something from the days of the Romans and the reign of Caesar. This practice is mediaeval in the worst way.

The DOC had previously been considering extending the time that a prisoner spends on the chain gang to one year from its present six months. However, a couple of weeks before this recent murder they were already considering reducing the time spent on the chain gang to three months.

Ironically, the name of the mascot for Limestone Correctional Facility's sport's teams is the Gladiators. The DOC is making this pretty realistic. They are gladiators in every sense of the word and they will continue to be murdered in one way or another until the chain gangs are stopped.

By condoning the murder of prisoners on the chain gangs in Alabama, Gov. Fob James tells us that it is time to kill, that this summer in Alabama is the season for killing young Black men on the chain gangs. We are left to wonder: When will it be time to heal?

A prisoner

Capshaw, Alabama

Incarcerated
I am incarcerated in an underground maximum security prison here in Minnesota. I've recently got my hands on one of your papers and I totally support it and all the views in it. If there is some type of discount for prisoners, could you send me information on it? I have no job here and my income is very little.

A prisoner

Stillwater, Minnesota

East Timor
Seventy people attended a meeting May 21 at the Park Slope Methodist Church in Brooklyn to discuss the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and recent demonstrations by Timorese people to oppose continuing human rights violations. The event was sponsored by the East Timor Action Network, a solidarity organization based in White Plains, New York.

The main speaker at the event was José Ramods Horta, the special representative of the Council of Maubere Resistance, the umbrella group for East Timorese organizations supporting self- determination for the former Portuguese colony, which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

"We cannot talk about resistance in East Timor as being only guerrillas in the mountains," Horta said. "Resistance today, like in the past 30 years, is an all encompassing movement that includes school children, workers, cab drivers, and other sectors of the population. That is why they have not defeated the resistance."

Lisa Rotach, Róger Calero

Brooklyn, New York

Relieved to find `Militant'
I've read your magazine The Militant and was relieved to find such a newspaper around. I would like to get a subscription. I work with the university here in Athens.

Karolina Bjornheden

Athens, Georgia  
 
 
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