Kwame Shakur brutally assaulted by guards at Pendleton Correctional Facility, Indiana

by IDOC Watch

On Saturday, Dec. 30, Kwame “Lil Beans” Shakur was brutally assaulted by correctional officers at Pendleton Correctional Facility in Pendleton, Indiana. For a full week prior to the attack, inmates in disciplinary segregation had been kept in their cells for 24 hours a day, in violation of policy and international standards of human rights. No form of recreation or bathing was allowed during that time and for at least a full week following the 31st.

Inmates at Pendleton are allowed showers three times per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. When on Saturday guards refused to escort inmates to the showers, Shakur and a fellow inmate encouraged others on the block to voice their grievance against the guards. Retaliation followed when Shakur was removed from his cell so that guards could shake it down. He was placed in a holding cell while COs rifled through and confiscated his letters, manuscripts and personal items.

As he was being escorted back to his cell, handcuffed, almost immediately guards began slamming him into walls and railings, punching and kicking his ribs and attempting to break his fingers. When, realizing that Shakur is double-jointed, and his finger would not break so easily, they threatened to “break his neck” instead. The attack continued uninterrupted up the full five floors to Shakur’s cell.

On Saturday, Dec. 30, Kwame “Lil Beans” Shakur was brutally assaulted by correctional officers at Pendleton Correctional Facility in Pendleton, Indiana.

It comes as no surprise that Kwame Shakur would be singled out by Pendleton staff. As the co-founder and chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective, he has been an uncompromising voice for the millions held in slavery by the U.S. prison system. His skills as an inspirational speaker and writer have caught the attention of many throughout the country and have gone a long way in rebuilding a movement decimated by police-enforced counterinsurgency and mass incarceration of this country’s internally colonized people.

Last year, he helped to launch the Prison Lives Matter movement in an effort to capture the energy generated by the mass popular resistance to racist police brutality and draw attention to the lived experience of people behind bars. To paraphrase Shakur from a recent interview, “We see that police are capable of murder in cold blood out where there are cell phone cameras. Imagine what they do behind 30-foot concrete walls.”

Recently, he has co-hosted Freedom Fridays: Prison Lives Matter with Kwame Shakur on the YouTube channel 3rd Eye Live TV and Radio, a caller-driven program emphasizing the physical and mental repression faced by prisoners throughout the U.S.

It comes as no surprise that Kwame Shakur would be singled out by Pendleton staff. As the co-founder and chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective, he has been an uncompromising voice for the millions held in slavery by the U.S. prison system.

Thanks in large part to the work of people like Kwame Shakur, without whom the endless stories of prisoner abuse would simply fade into obscurity, we know how prison staff tends to handle dissent. When one refuses to be discouraged by the mechanical denial of grievances issued by corrupt and/or inept prison administrators, guards more often than not take to daily acts of humiliation, like spitting in food, confiscation of mail or other property, denial of recreation and, as in this case, outright violence. Only the most determined inmates are even capable of communicating their conditions to the outside world.

The attack on Shakur also comes at a peculiar time, in that it confirms a pattern that has repeated over the last several years. On disciplinary segregation status, Shakur was less than a month from being returned to general population after an 18-month sentence.

And this is not the first time that an incident has occurred in such close proximity to his release to general population; in fact, it is the third such incident. Shakur has attempted to demonstrate this pattern through documentation, but staff has made sure to confiscate his mail to cover the paper trail, speaking directly to our earlier point about the difficulty faced by inmates trying to make their voices heard.

The attack on Shakur also comes at a peculiar time, in that it confirms a pattern that has repeated over the last several years. On disciplinary segregation status, Shakur was less than a month from being returned to general population after an 18-month sentence.

Nonetheless, it is of obvious benefit to Pendleton that Shakur remain isolated. His revolutionary potential as an influential leader and organizer threatens the very foundation on which their regime of oppression rests. If they have to manufacture an assault charge to keep him locked up, that would only be standard operating procedure.

It will require outside voices then to amplify Shakur’s and help it reach the widest possible audience. Pendleton Correctional Facility and the IDOC must know that its selective treatment of Kwame Shakur will not be tolerated, that it is understood that he is being held in isolation to prevent him from spreading his message, and that they will be held accountable for the actions they have taken.

Support Kwame today!

Please call, write and/or email:

• Inspector General Lori Torres, Office of the Inspector General, 315 West Ohio St., Room 104, Indianapolis, IN 46202, phone 317-232-3850, toll free 866-805-8498, fax 317-232-0707, email [email protected], and
• Warden Dushan Zatecky, 4490 W. Reformatory Rd., Pendleton, IN 46064-9001, phone 765-778-2107.

Say that you are aware that Michael D. Joyner (Kwame Shakur), No. 149677, was assaulted by staff at Pendleton Correctional Facility on Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017, and that inmates have been kept in their cells for 24 hours a day for at least two consecutive weeks. Demand that incident be investigated and that Mr. Joyner not be charged with assault on staff, his property be returned, and he be returned to general population on schedule. Additionally demand that all inmates be allowed their mandatory recreation time outside of their cells.

#PrisonLivesMatter

The mission of IDOC Watch is to bridge the gap between outside activists and those of us in prison willing to come together to fight for fundamental systemic change. Learn more and get involved at https://www.idocwatch.org/.