NEW HELL HOLE NEWS
DECEMBER 22, 2008
NEW HELL HOLE NEWS - #6 December 22, 2008 Hey folks! Back again. Before I start telling you this other stuff let me briefly revisit the squirrel issue from New Hell Hole News Dec 17th. One of my friends told me that if he hadn’t known all the intimate particulars of that situation I’d have lost him in my recounting of it, so maybe I lost some of you out there, too. Y’all are probably a lil’ smarter, “But in an abundance of caution”, as judges say, “we’ll revisit the issue”. Simply stated my point was, what are the astronomical chances that I’d read this Court of Criminals opinion on this insane crime and fellow, Thomas, then Fiero’s door won’t close, he gets moved, Squirrel (Thomas) moves in. I discover he’s very interested in the subjects of the fallen angels, templaric and religious history, Satan, etc. and it just happens to be the motivation for his crime. Then he decides to pull out his left eye and eat it on the very day I’d told him the story of Odin and Freyre? (Use this link to read the newspaper story: http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/37299199.html.) Exactly six (6) says after Mr. Wood checked out of existence on this mortal coil? As I say often enough, I live a charmed existence. This place is starting to look like some macabre ongoing sculpture from hell So many bubbas have come and gone and each one wants to leave his welded mark on death row. I wish they’d let me conduct the tours thru here. I’d play the gothic music on an intercom system while I recount all the horrors I’ve witnessed here over the years and all the welded responses along with little interesting factoids like how much all this additional steel weighs en toto, what it cost. What the ridiculous intent or objective was when they put it up there versus what it actually ends up being. Now we got Tiny Tim talking about sealing up solid all the doors. That would make it a punitive cell configuration (i.e. solitary confinement) which violates U. S. Supreme Court precedents, TDCJ Policy, etc. in more ways that I have room to recount here. My cell is now sealed. I’m entombed alive here. But I’m level III so it’s permissible, for a short time………Tiny Tim is also the one who 1
has welded these stupid skirts on the bottom of door and the skirts riveted on the crossover doors. The gap is there for a reason – to facilitate airflow equalization amongst the sections, even cooling and heat distribution and, to prevent rapid de-equalization resulting in sudden vacuum which causes the doors to suddenly slam with violent force. You cannot put dampeners on the doors because those arms on the hydraulic unit and the rods make lovely shanks. Now because of Tiny Tim, two SSIs (support service inmates) have lost their fingers when these doors suddenly slammed shut on them and cut them off. The air flow in these buildings is now so out of whack and unequal that there are cold spots all over the sections, (or hot spots in summer) which lead to excessive humidification and rushing/flaking of metal in that area for example, the FD1 shower is so rusted it’s falling apart. It’s in a dead zone created by Tim’s skirts, which burned up the exhaust fan in that shower (and many other exhaust fans and blowers all over the building.) The other bad results of this are things like, when your neighbor takes a dump the awful smell comes right in your cell and lingers for an hour or so. The air pressure is so unequal, when you open a door to a pod, all the other doors in that pod automatically slam shut and the wind is so strong it’ll almost knock you down. So all of this fetid air, ripe from bad breath of some of the 84 fetid souls living I those cages, defecation, passing gas, germs, etc. just lingers here while we all endlessly re-breathe it as do the officers working in it 12 hours at a lick. The result of all this is that, every time it rains outside or gets humid the whole building’s floors and walls get so wet it looks like it’s crying into a pond……… I mean besides the ceiling leaking like a sieve when it rains. We have all sorts of interesting molds, fungi and bacterium culturing here and there. Health wise, it’s a death trap. Nearly all of us have serious respiratory issues because of this. I suspect many of us and particularly the officers, have some form of chronic malady or permanent damage to their respiratory, pulmonary and or nervous systems resulting from this. I’m kind of wondering why some enterprising young attorney hasn’t sued on behalf of the officers. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia on the Tennessee/North Carolina line……coal country. While coal miners were some of the most maltreated and neglected (by their bosses) workers I’ve ever seen, they were paid and treated better than TDCJ does it’s own officers. That’s the truth. 2
Two and a half (2½) years ago I got all the Plexiglas shields and their obstructions removed from the doors because, on the “A” side of this pod it violated the law and policy. A prisoner cannot be placed in a solitary configurated “management” SHU cell unless he is assaulting officers and or others by shouting epithets out of the cell or by throwing (“chunking”) bodily fluids, feces or other things on staff. Now Tiny Tim is talking about sealing up all the cells and putting us all on permanent management status. Expect the suicide rate, both attempts and completions, to rise dramatically. Expect me to file an 8th amendment claim with the Federal courts asking them to vacate all our death sentences. Why did Tiny Tim do all the aforementioned? Why, just to punish, isolate, suppress and alienate us all further, to keep us from passing kites with the latest football or other sports scores, to keep us from forming little groups like Lamp of Hope, to keep us from communicating and working together on our cases, to keep us from the small and limited manner in which we still socialize with each other, to keep us from working together to file grievances and complaints on him, his staff and TDCJ over the way we’re mistreated and the inhumane, degrading conditions we’re subjected to. Ain’t that right, Tim? You bet it is. Now they’ll try to tell you it’s to “further security objectives, deter trafficking and trading and ‘gang activity’, to stop the passing of these cell phones!” Ha/ha. Well, that overlooks one major fact, Tim----- if there were no cell phones in here to start with, they wouldn’t get passed, would they? Who let them in here? Why you and Billy Boy Hirsch did. You did it intentionally, too. Now the other shoe has dropped. Nathaniel Quarterman wants sixty-six million dollars to put “cameras and ‘high tech’ security devices in all the high security prisons statewide”, starting with the Polunsky hell hole. Here’s a much less costly solution: put pay phones and televisions in all the day rooms of ad seg and death row like they have in every other state in the damned nation and your problems will be solved for virtually nothing! 3
Christian and charitable organizations will donate the TV’s just as they did before. The people who provide the phone services will install the phones and that’s viable under a contract TDCJ already has in place, it just needs to be expanded. Ms. and Mr. TDCJ officer, you better think about why TDCJ’s Mr. Quarteman wants to put these cameras in the prisons – it’s not to watch us convicts! Oh, no. That’s your job. You’re here to watch us. No, the cameras are to watch you because your bosses do not trust you and want to police you like you are a criminal. Ha/ha. “Prison administrators” and “Texas officials” try to paint a false picture to you, the public, out there in order to gain your support for things they don’t otherwise need but want, “toys” they can use to torture us with or, to enforce some draconian, unconstitutional model of isolation, suppression and ill treatment. Regarding the cell phone pseudo-drama last month or two, I was pretty shocked at the level of media bias and distortion, outright fabrication in some instances. For example, in a story dated 11-14-08, which appeared in several papers and credits Austin A.P., right after I’d written publicly in the NHHN saying Tabler never threatened Whitmire and that Whitmire later admitted it at his own senate special session hearing 10/23, Mike Ward and this AP “source” write this story titled “D.R. Inmate Threatens Lawmaker, Again” 11/14! You gotta be kidding me! This story even directly quotes Whitmire directly admitting “my life has never been threatened”. Then they quote this supposed “death threat” from Tabler: “Let’s see you put the %#*+$! Senator and Mike Ward in protective custody for their lies!” -Threat? What?! All he is saying here is that he’d like to see them subjected to the same treatment he’s being subjected to, for their lies on him. At the most you might call it a challenge, but a threat? Please. He never said he wished, would, intended to do a thing to Whitmire. No, Tabler said, “Let’s see you do it. What Tabler is complaining about with this challenge is that Ward and Whitmire’s lies on him have got people wanting to kill Tabler, according to “Texas officials”. Frankly, no one wants to do a thing to this idiot. That’s just more hype for the grist mill. Two cents (2¢) drama, TDCJ 4
style. I’ve heard a few say Tabler ought to have his ass beat for being stupid enough to call a clown like Whitmire to start with but, I’ve not seen anyone volunteering for the job. Whitmire said (in reality) he only felt threatened. Well, that’s his own problem, if it were true (it’s not. Read on); Tabler’s not responsible for Whitmire’s (or anyone else’s) “feelings” but Whitmire didn’t really feel any fear. He gives Tabler his personal cell phone number and says, “Call me any time, just not tonight during the presidential debate.” Whitmire’s actions should tell all of you out there that this thing was contrived, manufactured; it was a set-up. Tabler was manipulated to call Whitmire and someone gave him Whitmire’s private office number; Whitmore was almost certainly expecting that call. Why should it be obvious? Well, I’ll bet you money Whitmire has 3 or 4 lines in his office and he could’ve easily just told Tabler, “Hold on, don’t go anywhere, let me take this other call. I’ll be right back” or similar words, got on another line, called the law or Moriarty or any of a dozen other law enforcers and said simply, “I’ve been threatened by a man who claims to be on death row. I’m scared for my life, I need help, I’ve got him on the line right now on hold, can you run a trap and trace on the call?” Well, I won’t belabor it any further. It’s so obvious Ray Charles could see it. He’s blind and dead. Next thing and last, the ridiculous attempt to falsely inflate the numbers of cell phones confiscated versus reports involving use of a cell phone and cell phones actually confiscated during the “massive prison sweep” (I love these terms they come up with! “Creative” is an understatement). I don’t care much for Mike Graczyk of the A.P; I think he’s a wannabe police and a bit of a ghoul, but I’m not telling you anything I haven’t already told him to his face several years ago. One thing I do know, Mr. Graczkyk to usually be tho’, is accurate with his numbers. Mike says 143 cell phones were found during the governor ordered lock down, 18 total on death row – part of the 143 total. 259 total system wide this year – January – to now. Look at this. Here’s the Austin American Statesman in an 11/20/08 editorial: “Prison officials reported recently that in the past year they seized more than 600 cell phones in the state’s 112 prisons!” That’s a lie. The total number is 259. Secondly, the “hundreds of cell phones” are 743 total in the past 3 years and 5
that’s not confiscations but only “reports” involving the use of a cell phone”. That could be anything from an officer on break calling home on one in violation of the rules, to some prisoner snitching second or third hand information. Rumors , not confiscations. Worse, the Austin American Statesman editorial falsely alleges “such discoveries might be merely embarrassing if it weren’t for the fact that at least some of these (prisoners) have gang or other criminal connections they could use against others. Tabler, for example, made a direct threat on the lives of Whitmire and Ward, and he’s not the only prisoner thought to have used his cell phone before it was confiscated”. Tabler never threatened Whitmire, directly or otherwise. Nothing in that entire paragraph is true or factual except the last addendum stating that others used the phone Tabler used. While it is believed that some of the calls were made by prisoners who were once themselves gang members, there’s been no showing that they were active members still not that they have any current power or “connections” they could use against others. That’s only some fantasy of Whitmire’s, not reality. For all practical intents and purposes, any gang member who comes to death row is cut off and considered non persona il vida – i.e. no longer “in the life”. Guys who are ‘of a kind’ tend to stick together simply out of fear, familiarity and culture. Whites with whites, Hispanics with other Hispanics, blacks with blacks, etc. If there are other reasons to be familiar, if you were affiliated with this or that in the world, you’d naturally gravitate toward others who once were, too, right? There are no drugs, tobacco or major weapons here, no violent confrontations with each other. No really “gang activities”, etc. Each man here is too preoccupied with the fight for his own life and spending his final days time in as close of a contact as possible with those he loves to be wasting that time with silly petty rivalries with each other. “Gang intelligence” (what a misnomer!) or “G.I.”, as we call them, has little to do here except voyeuristically read prisoners’ smut letters to their wives and girl friends.
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As The Dallas Morning News correctly observed but didn’t bother to explore, “TDCJ officials are very circumspect about the details of any alleged crimes committed with these illegal cell phones”. Mmmm-hhmmm… that’s only because no one’s committed any real crimes, other than calling mom and asking her to help pay this month’s phone bill. This whole thing is really pathetic. “Serious security breach”. Ha. The Austin American Statesman, venerable paper that it is, has foregone true freedom of the press and responsible reporting in order to merely bend down and lick John Whitmire’s boots. While you’re bent over like that, someone oughta figuratively, if not literally, kick you right in your asses! To Anna Vahakangas: many of us here have read your request for signatures on the petition sponsored by Dee Hawk and the abolition movement’s freeforums.org site. While we are very grateful for your noble efforts, Ex Major Timothy Lester’s response to that was the December 16th raid where they tore up and/or took more of our stuff, leaving us even more bereft and destitute for Christmas and New Year. Even worse, you should’ve seen how this commissary manager Steven Hillman did the Level I guys. He literally “jacked” many of them for items they paid for; telling them, “F**k you, you ain’t getting’ sh*t, punk”, and similar epithets to others. He did the same to me. When I told him, “Well, at least, you better give me back my I.D. (commissary) card because Warden Simmons just got that new one for me”. Hillman said, “You ain’t getting’ sh*t and f**k that warden, he don’t tell me what to do either!” I started to write the warden and tell him what ol’ Hillman said, ‘cuz I know Hillman ain’t even got the huevos to tell him som’ like that to his face. Although he said it publicly in front of quite a few officers and other witnesses, it still seemed too much like snitchin’ to suit me, so I blew it off. Or, more accurately, just maliciously startin’ sh*t, you know. I’d have laughed my ass off it, just by sheer coincidence, the warden had happened to walk around the corner and heard Hillman going off like that. That would’ve been interesting. Anyway, like I said last time, Merry Christmas, eh. 7
You know, some of these people think whenever something like this Tabler fiasco happens, it’s their personal ticket to get away with mistreating the rest of us. Hate, hate, hate. Take, take, take. Then lie, deny, lie, deny. Ha/ha. (See below for Property Confiscation Slip from December 16, 2008) h.w.skinner@gmail.com http://www.hankskinner.org 999143 Polunsky Unit H W Hank Skinner 3872 FM 350 South Livingston TX 77351-8580
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