THE WORK OF THESE WOMEN, OUR SISTERS, MARIE DEANS AND ELIZABETH ROSE ALEXANDER, HOLDING THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS TO ACCOUNT WAS REAL, WE DON'T FORGET AND WE SALUTE THEM BAYETE !!!. By William Thorpe

Elizabeth Alexander

If we don't speak for ourselves no one will and even worse, what might get said will be insulting, a mockery and a perversion.The Virginia Department of Corrections has since inception been a charnel agency as such, work has been to reform it and people great and anonymous, have over the years contributed and still are towards wrangling enlightenment and reform on it , along with the requisite accountability. One of these greats, was Elizabeth Rose Alexander, a lawyer from The ACLU's NATIONAL PRISON PROJECT, her work and the Projects' was to hold accountable the Prison Official in their work of holding the imprisoned convicted accountable. In other words Elizabeth Alexander and her colleagues, for one the indomitable Adjoa Aiyetoro, were simply ensuring that the prison official didn't think impunity had over ruled equality under law and its no one is above it, demands, specifically and particularly, uniforms of The State or Government i.e The Virginia Prison Official. I saw Elizabeth Alexander back in, I think 1983 when I was in Administrative Segregation or Solitary Confinement at Building 1 B-pod Left of Virginia's Mecklenburg Correctional Center. She and her colleague Adjoa Aiyetoro were working on the case, BROWN v. LANDON #81-0853 a class action, which was focused on holding the Virginia Prison official at Mecklenburg accountable for their savagery and barbarity. Lets fast forward to 1984 and its string of events, starting with the May 31,1984 escape from Mecklenburg Correctional Center of six prisoners from its death-row, which was a then first, in American prison history. So true to the prison officials only response to such occurrences in prison, they retaliated with the usual collective punishment, meaning even though the rest of the prisoner population had nothing to do with, knew nothing about a death row escape, we all got punished. I was at the time in punitive isolation at Mecklenburg's Building 1 A-pod Right, I think in cell #9. The Mecklenburg Prison official's response was, for starters, cancelling showers, outside exercise, visitation e.t.c, for over a couple of months. Cells were flooded with toxic, foul stagnant water for a couple of months, where you had to wade through to the cell's door to get meals. Imagine you're confined to your closet with calf deep water for a couple of months, eating e.t.c in such a condition. That was what we as prisoners held in solitary confinement at Mecklenburg dealt with as a result of sets of events. So when outside exercise was finally resumed, four (4) prisoners went outside on Building 1 recreation yard, then they asked to talk to the Warden, in response to the request over 30+riot gear dressed prison guards, with shields, batons,e.t.c stormed the recreation yard, assaulted the prisoners bloody senseless, then dragged them to their cells. One of the prisoners was beaten so brutally he was covered from head to toe in blood and were not given medical care and attention, all in violation of Virginia law, Virginia Department of Corrections policies and procedures. After this prison official egged on, instigated and exacerbated incident.The then in 1984 Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections, Robert M. Landon, wrote an opinion-propaganda piece, for publication in Virginia's main stream media, which in effect was a declaration of war on Virginia prisoners held in solitary confinement at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center. So on July 26, 1984 true to Landons' propaganda piece Virginia's Government unleashed its organized violence on its solitary confined, imprisoned citizens at The Mecklenburg Correctional Center, by sending unidentified riot gear clad prison guards to The Mecklenburg prison, with the purpose of terrorizing prisoners, because that is how they behaved. Ripping clothes off prisoners, assaulting, hurling racist epithets, abusing and brutalizing prisoners who were in handcuffs, destroying prisoners limited property under a farcical pretext of searching cells for contraband. The evidence of this is simple, as prisoners we know when the prison official's behavior is legitimate, because there is a modicum of comportment with procedures and policies. What transpired on July 26,1984 particularly at Building 1 and 5 of Mecklenburg Correctional Center was fascist and terroristic, a Government violating its own citizens in compromise and at the expense of the same Law ,that created the prisoner.(For an idea of the attitude and mind set of the Mecklenburg prison official, see this case Jackson v. Blair 851 F.2d 714). The gratuitousness and egregiousness of the July 26,1984 sets of events and incident at Mecklenburg Correctional Center,was so blatant that The Commonwealth of Virginia via its Department of Corrections had to take one of its farcical acts of holding its prison official accountable, with this, August 10,1984 administrative act of firing or dismissing two (2) of the jack-booted storm troopers it deployed to terrorize the Virginia prisoner with a third (3d) receiving the typical "temporary disciplinary suspension".Then on August 4, 1984 prisoners at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, seized its Building 5 along with nine (9) hostages, then listed demands from medical care to educational. Now here is where Elizabeth Rose Alexander put her life on the line for the Virginia prisoner.The Commonwealth of Virginia responded with the might,force of its organized violence on the path as Governor Nelson Rockefellers' tragic and catastrophic response to his 1971, State of New York Attica Correctional Center incident.Despite the arrayed rank and file battle orders of Virginia's organized violence, Elizabeth Rose Alexander stood, a solitary sentinel, the only representative compelling compliance to the formulations of the basic terms of Virginia's Social Contract. So as prisoners of Building 5 left the building that Sunday morning,to be handcuffed, shackled and placed on buses for transport to other solitary confinement prisons within Virginia, Elizabeth Rose Alexander watched, a solitary reminder to the arrayed elements of Virginia's organized violence that no one is above law, not even their carnal and visceral urge to retaliate against the Virginia prisoner who moments earlier held their colleagues as speech.

I had heard about Marie Deans,but I met her for the first time after I had just been released from solitary confinement, in 1985 at the Virginia State Penitentiary's C-Building,into the prison's General Population. I was given her phone number to call because she wanted to talk to me.What I knew then and understood about Marie Deans was, she was a paralegal helping prisoners on Virginia's Death Row, or those sentenced to die, who at that time were confined at The Mecklenburg Correctional Center. After the 1984 string of events at Mecklenburg Correctional Center,culminating in the August 4-5, 1984 Building-5 takeover and hostage seizure, her focus and attention was expanding to prisoners in solitary confinement and I had just been released from the cages of Virginia's primary solitary confinement prisons, C-Building of The State Penitentiary, M-Building of The Powhatan Correctional Center or State Farm and lastly, Mecklenburg Correctional Center. I knew a bit about Marie's work from some of the death row prisoners she was helping with their appeals, namely Willie Lloyd Turner,who Virginia executed in 1995 (see his case at Turner v. Murray 476 U.S 28 also Turner v. Commonwealth 221 Va. 513 also Turner v. Commonwealth 234 Va.543) and Joseph Giarratano, who recently died as a free person, after being paroled in 2016 or 2017 (see his case at Giarratano v. Procunier 891 F.2d 483 also Giarratano v. Commonwealth 220 Va.1064) because both had been brought from C-pod which was death row to A-pod which was Special Management and isolation or punitive solitary confinement and on a number of occasions were my neighbors, so I was familiar with Marie Deans work. My 1985 stay on general population at the Virginia State Penitentiary didn't last, as a matter of fact only a couple of weeks, because of retaliatory harassment from the State Penitentiary's prison official due to events at Mecklenburg Correctional Center. What elevates Marie Deans into the pantheon of "Greats" in the work of holding the Virginia prison official accountable is this 1985 event and incident. Before I continue let me say this Marie, also founded an advocacy group, THE VIRGINIA COALITION ON JAILS AND PRISON, of which she was the Executive Director, back in the middle '80's, on its Board were a couple of death row prisoners, Willie Lloyd Turner and Joseph Giarratano along with certain Virginia attorneys. Not long after I was reinterred in solitary confinement at The State Penitentiary's C-Building, in November 1985 during a weekend lunch meal, on either a Saturday or Sunday, one of the guys who was in the basement of C-Building with me, yelled that his meal was tampered with, the lunch meal by the way was tuna fish for those who ate meat which I don't. We helped get the attention of the officer working in the basement, the guy with the suspect meal asked to make a phone call, which he used to call Marie Deans. Now this is what makes Marie Deans exceptional, upon getting the call and the suspicion that a meal probably had been poisoned, she hurriedly came to The Virginia State Penitentiary and not only did she come to the prison, but she managed something extraordinary, Marie Deans came all the way across the prison to C-Building, which was a prison within a prison encased in its own walls, then she came down into the basement which was a virtual dungeon, the most restricted part of solitary confinement, which is where we where, she got the officer to unlock the solid door to the potentially poisoned prisoner's cell, she then put the tuna fish into a ziplock bag she had then left with the suspect meal to be tested at a lab. Such an act in Virginia's prison history was a first. Marie Deans has passed on, but she LIVES

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982