The Exile of William Thorpe From Virginia to Texas, An Extraordinary Act

On May 29th, 2019 at approximately 6:30 am, a Wednesday. I had just had the starvation breakfast portions Red Onion State Prison in violation of its foodservice procedure, the Virginia Department of Corrections Food Service Manual and the cruel and unusual punishment prohibitions of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides prisoners it detains in Solitary Confinement. When a contingent of 8 of its prison guards, including 2 sergeants under the command of Lieutenant Lambert came to the cell door and told me that I was going on transportation and I won't be taking my property. I wasn't told where I was being transferred to.

What Lt. Lambert and his comical lies of not knowing where I was being transported to didn't know was I had been told, just the day before, by one of his colleagues that I would be transferred to Texas        So began the end result of a process by official elements of the Virginia Department of Corrections to exile me to good ole Texas. After a 3 hour plus ride on the Governor of Virginia's plane, under escort of 4 plus pilot and co-pilot, the plane landed at the Huntsville, Texas Airport. The Huntsville area of Texas is a gulag in its own right, growing prisons.

After 39 years of imprisonment in Virginia and 24 continuous years of ongoing Solitary Confinement. Virginia claimed I was a Security Threat as basis to execute a scheme of exiling me to Texas. Aspects of my exile to Texas are universal and common. During my detention at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison in Solitary Confinement, I worked to expose by publicizing specific and general violations of its prison officials and in extension official elements of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

The question my exile poses besides the obvious Governmental abuse with its deceptive security threat basis which is nothing more than cover for petty and crass extrajudicial vindictiveness for the Virginia Justice System is simple and it isn't limited to my circumstance. Besides regardless of the "legality" of the exile, it's motive details an extrajudicial act and its execution underscores an intrinsic aspect of our human condition which in a nutshell is: irrespective of the backdrop of law, there isn't a just and democratic accounting of its misuse. People will apply their petty tyrannical impulses, which in this instance prison officials under cover of law but in unlawful ways. Those prison officials who decided that my work, of exposing their violations and malfeasance as it were, was so intolerable, despite the fact it is inalienable, that they had to pervert the privilege the citizenry of Virginia had given them        to lawfully imprison humans, by misapplying the extraordinary authority of characterizing a prisoner, a security threat have no measure of its accounting save for publicity and it's exposures.

The only response my exile ask of all people who understand that prison officials, in particular, must be held accountable is:

• Demand I am returned to Virginia and released from Solitary Confinement
• Involve yourself in the work of holding officials of national [including state and local] justice system accountable so the question of what is justice and due process isn't stuck in an academic-speculative loop while in practice it is left to the savagery and Sado -barbarity of reactionary minds and hearts who substitute presumptions and suppositions for thought.

The work of Justice reform contrary to how it is formulated and presented to the public even by advocates isn't removed or exclusive of society's integral narrative, instead, it is fundamental and germane to it. The prison official is subject to a type of bias that society's apathy and ignorance has allowed and permitted to exist to the point it is assumed as an unimpeachable fact. A heightened recognition of this is vital to whether we are informed and practical in our anticipations. If society is to hold prison officials accountable and it must, the understanding of what is being done in the name of the Virginia taxpayer should not be left to colloquial hypocrisies.

 By William Thorpe detained at the Eastham Unit in Texas in Solitary Confinement

NOTE Get a Feel Of Eastham Unit Our appreciation for Photos by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images