Day of Action to Support Nebraska Prison Rebels March 24th

Day of Action in Support of the Inextinguishable Prairie Fires of Tecumseh

On Thursday March 2nd 2017, prisoners at the Tecumseh State Correctional Facility housing unit 2B again burned mattresses in cells and held control of a housing yard for the better part of the day. Just a dozen weeks shy of the second anniversary of the Mother’s Day Riot in 2015 that wreaked millions in damage and caused by prison-enforced class divides. The billionaire governor, Pete Ricketts, and state prison officials tried to downplay this recent incident and refused to call it a riot in an attempt to save face and reduce outside support, but in reality this event is part of a larger wave of resistance to the conditions that inmates currently endure in facilities all across this country.

In the 2015 riot, Lenaris Brown held a list of grievances up to the tower window where the warden watched the events unfold.

Those grievances included arbitrary placement in segregation; the creation of two classes of inmates, one with access to privileges, the other with a loss of privileges; disrespectful treatment by staff, especially by the younger ones with limited experience; and incompatible inmates being placed together in cells.

The class division was based on a so-called Wellness League for model behavior inmates which allowed for more yard time, more access to jobs training and medical care. Those not in the Wellness League viewed it as unfair, saying less than 10 percent of inmates in Housing Unit 2, (which became the focus of both the 2015 and 2017 riots), were allowed into the league. That unit had a larger number of men classified in a “Security Threat Group,” or alleged gang members. It gave the appearance that Security Threat Group inmates were being “ghettoized” in a housing unit where fewer privileges and benefits were allowed, thereby creating two classes of inmates.

These conditions persisted and intensified in the last two years, and illustrating the clamp down in some of their own words, “We still have no jobs, no programming, or job trades available for us, similar to the exact circumstances before the last riot. We are even allowed less time out of our housing units than before the Mother’s Day Riot and they have taken several visiting hours and days away since that riot […] in Tecumseh, we are all packed in our housing unit with nothing positive to do.”

Prison riots are moments that those locked up can get something past the bars that feel real. Physical resistance puts a spotlight on conditions at the prison at tremendous risk to those who participate. As accomplices outside we must help counter the narrative repeated by those in power, and continue to keep the attention focused on the ones who are seeking freedom and respect. Since the riots, prisoners have been subjugated to many acts of intimidation, again in their own words, “We had to stay in a gym with our ankles and hands tied with no showers or bedding. After a day and a half of this, many were brought to segregation without reason. Now they suited up and running in on fools, use of force to make them go against their will, refusing them a lawyer; making them go up to talk to the state patrol…straight intimidation tactics, suited up in riot gear, saying they have to talk to the investigators and can’t have a lawyer present! They ran in on a cat upstairs and fucked him up because he refused to talk to anyone without a lawyer!”

To help in a small way, a call for acts of direct action on Friday, March 24th. You can also call Director of Nebraska Corrections, Scott Frakes @ 402-471-2654, and tell him how you really feel.

– Omaha Anarchist Black Cross

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