The Tiger’s Song

I'm a tiger, I pace my cage
Never forgetting who I am
An apex predator filled with rage
On solid ground I stand

My heart is hardened, I am steel
There's no emotion that I feel
My essence has been recognized;
And I am real

I am patient and I'm wise
Always biding my time
I can't be tamed, I remain uncivilized
Never changing my heart or mind
Through my actions I am defined

You can put me in the tiniest cage
And take all my things away
Surround me with screamers and bangers
Doing everything you can to invoke my anger
And to make me feel pain
You can strip me naked, cold and bare
And starve me if you dare
You can whip me until I bleed
And my bones are broken
I really don't care

You can try as hard as you like
Using all your might
But it doesn't matter what you do
You can't change me
You can't tame or break me
I'm a tiger, I will fight
I'm a tiger, I will strike
You can't break me I'm alright!!!

Coyote
ABC-Nevada Prison Chapter
December 7th, 2009
Ely State Prison, Nevada

Solidarity and Struggle: more on the E.S.P. Jan. 31st Riot

This was published in the SF Bay View, March 21st 2010

Yes, it was a battle. My first report on this riot gave people an ugly look into the violence and bloodshed. I´ve reported it the way it happened, but nothing is to be glorified or celebrated here. It felt good to be a part of struggle and change, to see solidarity in action. You don´t see unity and struggle in these Nevada prisons, not in these days. Only under the most extreme situations will you catch a glimpse of it. It should not have ever gotten this far, or taken to such extremes, our grievances should´ve been looked into and taken seriously, and officers should have never provoked or assaulted any of the prisoners on unit 4. But that didn´t happen, our pleas were ignored, our grievances denied and prisoners were unnecessarily assaulted. So in desperation after every other remedy had been futilely sought, all we had left was violence and frustration. I was wrong to call it a victory though. There´s no victory here.

I´m sure people on the outs who read my report were shocked at my cold and heartless attempt at describing the details of the incident. And probably took umbrage. I can understand how people out there could feel that way. Fortunately, they didn´t live in a world of predation, despair, violence, corruption, oppression and madness. They don´t know about the effects of long-term isolation and confinement, or about sensory deprivation and the effects that psychological warfare has on our minds in this warped environment. They don´t understand the wicked nature of prison and punishment and what it can do to a person. And they don´t want to believe what this place has been known to do to these guards, how it has the capabilities of turning the guards into spiteful and uncaring animals. How they become vindictive and petty, mean and aggressive, fearful and disrespectful. They didn´t see how after each cell extraction the guards would gather in the unit hallway, high-fiving each other as they would physically display how they punched, stomped or beat the inmate into submission.

So, no offense to anyone, but if you haven´t lived in this foul-ass world of darkness and deterioration, then it´s not fair to judge it by your standards. Your standards don´t apply here in this concrete and steel jungle. We play by jungle rules in here, the guards and prisoners alike, and it´s called “the survival of the fittest.” We maintain an “us against them”-mentality sometimes. I´m not glorifying it, I´m not praising it, I´m just trying to shed light on it, so people can be aware of the cruel and unloving nature of life in a graveyard.

For years, myself and others have been trying to bring positive changes to this prison, we´ve been trying to get people on the outs involved, attempting to bring a solid level of outside support to Nevada prisoners. I´ve also been actively educating, politicizing and organizing other prisoners, in Nevada, Texas, Ohio and other states. I´ve been passing out literature, supplying the prison with books and educational materials, teaching prisoners to read, teaching them to write, showing them how to be resourceful and self-sufficient. I´ve been doing all I can to raise consciousness and I´ve been trying to turn every tier that I land on into a learning center, and doing everything I can to help prisoners. Whites, Blacks, Natives and Latinos. I´ve reached out to them all in real ways, striving to make real efforts at change, elevation and empowerment. Myself and other prisoners in here have been known to organize study groups, having study sessions, engaging each other, quizzing each other, and testing each other intellectually, utilizing this time on lockdown as an opportunity to grow, learn and cultivate ourselves while living under such extreme conditions.

Other prisoners in here have been doing similar things. Like for example, a prisoner here at E.S.P. just recently organized a stamp drive on his tier to donate to the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and he even donated $40 of his own money to the people of Haiti. So there are indeed many positive and productive things that do go on in this hellhole as well. It´s not all negative and violent. Unfortunately though, anything good that we try to get going in here, we have to do it ourselves. We don´t expect any help or support from the guards or prison administration.

I´ll be the first to say that violence isn´t always the best option. Usually it´s the last resort, or the result of desperation and what usually happens under the most extreme conditions. All our attempts to grieve, kite, or complain about our injustices through the proper channels have been futile, and left us feeling hopelessly outraged. If you take a look at the history of all the American riots and uprisings – in prisons and on the streets – like the L.A. riots, the Watts riot, Lucasville, Attica, New Mexico, and the Cubans in the federal prisons, and even the recent one in Oakland, where an Oakland police officer, Johannes Mesehrle, fatally shot a civilian, Oscar Grant, in the back, while he lay face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him. You will see that these riots have either happened in areas where people were living under extreme conditions. While sick and tired of the injustices and police brutality, or in places and conditions where people were frustrated and desperate, and in these situations it seemed that riots and uprisings were the only available course of action they had to express their hopelessness and outrage.

Here in unit 4, at Ely State Prison, many tensions were increasingly building up. A lot of retaliation against prisoners by the guards and many other injustices created a potentially hostile situation. This riot did not happen solely because our appliances were unjustly taken from us. Some of these guards in here were deliberately refusing to feed certain prisoners in retaliation of grievances they wrote and because the guards realized that these particular inmates were shunned by the rest of the convicts for internal reasons: these guards were also going out of their way to provoke and instigate prisoners, rudely jumping into our conversations with disrespectful remarks, “losing” or throwing away phone kites, passing our mail out to the wrong cells, (some of these cells which housed sex offenders and “undesirables”), refusing to answer our kites, not taking over grievances seriously. In some cases, guards have even assaulted and injured certain inmates while in cuffs, because of grievances they wrote, and again, because these guards realized that these prisoners were shunned by the rest of the convicts for being informants, or sex offenders, “undesirables,” etc. Our appliances were unjustly taken for violations that occurred before the new rule change was in effect, or for minor or general violations, and even prisoners who were found “not guilty” had their appliances confiscated as well. Leaving us in our cells with basically nothing, while surrounding us by mentally ill prisoners and informants and protective custody inmates, who deliberately go out of their way to terrorize us through the means of noise, verbal abuse and psychological warfare. We were deprived of the opportunity to buy food, coffee and other necessary supplies off of the canteen, while being left with no choice but to eat the foul-smelling / foul-tasting “mystery meat” and rotten vegetables that we are served for lunch every day, just to keep ourselves from starving in here.

They´ve put unnecessary limits and restrictions on our phone calls, and on our visits, allowing us only one non-contact visit a month, with family only, causing a painful strain on our relations and communications with our family, friends and loved ones. This prison is located out in the middle of nowhere as it is, 4 hours away from the nearest big city, what´s the point of having our people drive all the way up here and back (you know how much gas costs these days?) just to talk to your loved one through a plexi-glass window for half a day? There´s only like 7 rooms that facilitate these non-contact visits, so if 10 people get visits in one day, the remaining 3 are burnt, and their families will drive all the way back home for nothing! We need all the love and support we can get from our own people on the outs, these are very important social ties to have and to stay connected to our families, and with the outside world. They´ve even went as far as illegally denying our right to receive books sent in from the outside, even dictionaries! And there´s so much more, everything just added up.

Every time we´ve tried to address the issues through the proper channels, they would retaliate on us, and even fabricate things to justify what they were doing, and they would completely ignore us. Weeks would go by before they´d supply the unit with kites and law library request forms, or first level grievances. Neither these guards nor the administration wanted to do anything to even try to fix these problems, and they were basically letting us know that they were gonna do whatever they wanted, regardless, making our situation see, desperate.

Then, it all jumped off when they came to take away a prisoner´s appliances for a write up he received. The prisoner refused to cuff-up because he wanted to speak with the lieutenant to try to resolve this issue. The Lt. showed up with a squad of officers dressed in riot gear and helmets. The prisoner tried to comply and wanted to cuff-up, but this is someone the guards have been wanting to get their hands on for a while, none of the other prisoners really spoke to this guy, so I guess the guards had assumed he was shunned by the rest of the convicts, so they figured they had no reason to fear retaliation. They cracked his door open in spite of his attempt and willingness to comply, and ran in on him, he put his hands up in the air, refusing to resist or fight back and they tore his ass up! They beat him so bad that they ended up dragging him to the infirmary as he was leaking blood everywhere.

Many of us were already exasperated about the hopelessness of our situation and all the foul treatment we´ve been receiving and we used this drastic situation as an opportunity to exert desperate measures. Two minutes of talking amongst ourselves led to two days of rioting. It´s all we had left. We felt the need to stand up for ourselves and for our rights to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect. We were frustrated and needed to get these frustrations out, and we didn´t see any other available option.

Whites and several Latinos kicked it off on the first day, flooding, burning, capturing foul slots, popping sprinkler heads, forcing them to come in our cells and extract us, so we could fight them. And we fought hard, and they were even more brutal towards us! Until, allegedly an officer on the extraction team got stabbed. They didn´t want to fight no more after that. The Blacks agreed to riot on the second day, but by then, we all felt that we got our point across, the guards showed defeat, so we called it off. This could have went on for days, or even weeks, but we felt that this was enough for now, every guard on the extraction team received injuries, and one was even stabbed from what I hear, every prisoner involved was brutally beat by the officers, which led to the Lt and another officer getting fired!

So we figured enough had been done already, no need to go on.

Year after year it´s been take, take, take. The administration is always taking something away from us, without giving anything in return: no programs, no real educational or vocational opportunities, no incentive, nothing. They take a little here, take a little there, slowly but surely stripping us of everything. They know better to take it all at once, so instead they´ll take one thing now, and then, a few months later they´ll take away something else, and when they see that none of us are coming together to try to stop them from taking away our privileges and necessities, they´ll take more. It´s the game of “take-away.” Subtraction is their favorite math subject. They don´t know how to add, divide, or multiply, except for when they´re adding more rules and more restrictions, dividing us so that we can be conquered, or multiplying the number of beds, other than that, it´s all a game of take-away.

Everybody has been hearing about Ely State Prison in the news, and websites have sprung up because of all the things that have been going on here in this graveyard. All of the many injustices and everything else that has been going on here clearly displays how deplorable the situation is here at E.S.P. The ACLU´s class action lawsuit because of the atrocious lack of medical care, the declaration of Lorraine Memory, the Noel Report, the situation with Ikemba, the situation with Kevin Lisle, not to mention the numerous accounts of all the staff working here being arrested and charged with various crimes, also the federal indictment and trial of the Aryan Warriors, who the government has labelled “domestic terrorists”! The mysterious death of Timothy Redman, and other deathrow inmates before him. The suicides, the indeterminate lockdown of the entire prison (except for one unit), the forcing of cellmates upon us, the riots and work stoppages, and not to mention that in the span of one year over 75 officers have either quit working here, transferred to other prisons, or were arrested, or fired… 75 Officers in a year, now if that doesn´t speak volumes on how deplorable the situation here at E.S.P. is, then I don´t know what does. There has been many deaths in this graveyard, and other things, Ely State Prison has continuously been in the news.

There are 8 units in this prison and all but one of them are locked down and have been locked down for over 6 years, with no solutions or remedies in sight, no programs and no incentives to do good. This prison has been under federal investigation, and under serious public scrutiny, budget cuts have stripped us of everything from food to education, exposing how much they don´t care about our health, or our rehabilitation and re-entry back into society. Anytime you cut into our education, you are cutting into our rehabilitation, limiting our chances to make a successful return back into society. These people are heartless, they don´t care about us. They´re here to punish us, warehouse us, condemn us, and that´s it.

Not only that, but it has apparently been the agenda and the desire of the prison administration and the system, to keep us stagnant and stuck on stupid so that we can surely deteriorate while living in these degenerate conditions. They know that “knowledge is power” and that “truth is revolutionary” and so they deliberately try to make it as difficult as they can for us to get books and literature sent in, trying to use this new A.R. (regulation) to justify the denial of books, which is illegal and violates our first amendment rights, and not to mention all the other obstacles and restrictions and limits they´re always putting on us when it comes to receiving books and reading materials, even making it against the rules to share a book with another prisoner.

It seems like they would rather see us pacified and complacent, locked down in general population, reading pop culture magazines and horror novels, or watching the “idiot box” all day, than to see us reading a book on history, economics, or politics, or learning the law so that we can figure out productive ways to get off of permanent lockdown. They would rather see us stuck on stupid, anti-social, with gangbang mentalities, going against each other all the time, than to see us utilizing this time as an opportunity to build social bonds with our families and friends, and as an opportunity to cultivate, uplift and educate ourselves. Rather than see us grow and get better, everything they do is to bring us down and break us down, they want to break our spirit, decimate our wills and keep us ignorant. That is what these rules are for, that´s what these restrictions are for, and that´s what these cells are for.

It appears that these new administrative regulations (A.R. 733) are designed for those exact purposes as well! This new A.R. affects prisoners who are serving time in disciplinary segregation, taking everything away in a guise to create an “incentive to do good.” But they fail to realize that when they confine all of the prisoners with records of serious disciplinary problems in one area and then take everything away, with years and years of disciplinary segregation (D.S.) time to serve, all they´re doing is creating a situation where we have nothing to lose. This entire prison is locked down except for one unit, so the measures they have taken are impracticable and make no sense. Why implement such measures without a level system or steps program that allows us to advance through the means of good behavior, or get out of lockdown? Some of these prisoners have been suffering this already for years, with no end in sight, These measures taken by the NV Dept. of Corrections (NDOC) are senseless and unreasonable, and (as this recent riot displays) thee only thing these rules are good for is creating anger and frustration that has led to prisoners and officers getting hurt and fired! It doesn´t make sense.

We need people “on the outs” to get involved in these struggles, to help us make changes and modifications that will be effective and beneficial to all. We need people to call and write letters to the head of the NDOC, and to the governor of Nevada and ask them to make modifications to A.R. 733. Be sure to remind him of the January 31st riot and of the officer who got stabbed (c.o. Stubbs) so that they can understand the seriousness of this situation. Here´s what we need the people to push for:

1) Allow us to purchase these items from the canteen: Vitamins, coffee soups, peanut-butter, laundry supplies, batteries for our electronic shavers, beanies, thermals and shoes.

2) Allow us one thirty (30) minute call a week, as the policy says.

3) Allow us our first amendment right: receive books sent in from the outside while serving time in disciplinary segregation.

4) Allow us to have a dip bar over our rec yards, for recreational purposes and exercise.

5) Allow us a “contact” visit once a month for family or friends.

6) We would like for all mentally ill and psycho-tropically medicated inmates to be housed separately, preferably on a unit where they can receive the treatment they need.

7) No appliance loss for minor/general rule infractions, no loss of appliances for prisoners found “not guilty”; and only 60 days total for major violations, before all are returned.

8) Allow us to buy Mexico/Canada stamps so we can write our families and friends there.

9) Allow us to be approved to purchase appliances and c.d.´s after 90 days without any rule violations.

10) Provide a level system or steps program to allow prisoners to advance through the means of good behavior, and to get out of lockdown.

A.R. 733 needs to be modified and a level system needs to be put in place, all mentally ill inmates need to be housed separately, on a unit where they can receive the treatment they need. These (10) things are all we ask for.

Please call and send letters to the Director of the NDOC at this address:

Howard Skolnik

Nevada Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 7011
Carson City, Nevada 89702

And please call and send letters to the Governor at this address:

Governor Jim Gibbons

State Capitol
101 N. Carson Street
Carson City, NV 89701

I´m proud to see so many prisoners of different races and / or different factions coming together and standing up for the injustices being done to us in here. I´m proud to be a part of something that strives to bring real changes for the people in here. It feels food to be involved and to get caught up in the spirit of revolt. Violence isn´t always the best option and I hope that we can come together like this more often, without having to take it to the extreme.

Solidarity and Struggle,

Coyote

For more info on the Jan. 31^st riot, for letters of encouragement and support you can contact Coyote at this address:

Coyote Sheff

#55671

P.O. Box 1989,

Ely, NV 89301

Or you can view his beautiful writings and his reports on either of these websites:

Coyote-calling.blogspot.com, Nevadaprisonwatch.blogspot.com, myspace.com/abcnevada, SF Bay View, Solitarywatch.

Riot at Ely State Prison: It was a battle!

From: SF Bay View

There was a riot here at Ely State Prison that took place in the most restricted unit, 4B and 4A. It lasted from Jan. 31 to Feb. 1. It was a battle!

There has been a lot of changes here at ESP that all started on Nov. 23, 2009. Rather than giving us anything to look forward to or any real incentive by implementing any constructive or productive programs, the administration has maliciously taken things away. Canteen privileges, appliances (radios, TVs, CD players and the like) and visits have all been stripped away from us so they can hold these things over our head and use them as a control method.

On Nov. 23, 2009, all of the prisoners who are serving “Disciplinary Segregation” were moved and placed in Unit 4, A Wing and B Wing, and Unit 3B. They intentionally made 4B the worst tier in this prison by strategically placing protective custody inmates and mentally ill inmates all around us on this tier, while taking appliances away, so that we have no choice but to be subjected to the everyday torture, sensory deprivation and psychological warfare deliberately placed on us by these PCs and mentally ill inmates, who constantly scream, bang, verbally assault other prisoners, snitch and inform on us and several other tactics they do to make us miserable that I cannot explain.

Not to mention the guards on this unit are the most strict, the most petty, spiteful, vindictive and retaliatory guards in this prison. These guards have intentionally gone out of their way to provoke us on several different occasions. They have taken appliances, including mine, away from inmates who committed rule violations prior to Nov. 23, 2009 – which is against policy – and prisoners who have been found guilty of minor and general write-ups have had their appliances confiscated, and even prisoners who were found not guilty of minor write-ups had their appliances taken away!

To top that off, prisoners who have gone two months without their appliances still have not had their appliances returned to them in spite of what the policy states, and the staff are not answering kites (written messages) or making any efforts to try to get the appliances returned to these prisoners.

Year after year it is take, take, take, and it has gotten to the point where we got fed up with this. We have said enough is enough. We needed to get things off of our chest!

Prisoners on 4B, including myself, kicked off a riot by flooding, burning, capturing food slots, popping sprinkler heads, forcing the guards to gear up and extract us from our cells so that we could fight with them! At least eight guards dressed in full riot gear and helmets would line up and run in our cells, trying to beat us into submission.

We fought hard and we took it to them. Many of us were successful at disarming them of their electrical shield, making sure to get our hits in before they wrapped us up and beat us down. One prisoner even got out of his cell and hit a guard so hard in the helmet that the face guard broke off!

When it was all said and done, there were over 16 cell extractions on both wings, totally three prisoners were sent to the infirmary, one of those prisoners was sent to the hospital outside of the prison because of head trauma, but the other two were returned back to their unit two days later. There was so much blood everywhere – in the cells, on the tier, in the sally port, in the hallway and on the walls – it was crazy! It was a battle!

Every guard that was on the extraction team received some type of injury. Each one had to see the nurse about something. One guard, allegedly, got stabbed during a cell extraction. He was laid out in the sally port being operated on by the nurses for about 45 minutes before he was carried out on a stretcher. After that, the guards’ spirits were deflated and they refused to run in on anybody’s cell. They showed their fear and defeat by their use of chemical agents from here on out.

We battled hard! Whites and several Latino prisoners from different factions all came together, successfully building an army in 20 minutes to fight together and take a stand! Guys that normally would not even talk to each other came together to take it to these swine.

Every one of us who got extracted received a black eye, bloody nose and many lumps and bruises, but we are proud of these battle wounds! At least I’m proud of mine! There were many foul and unprofessional acts done by the guards that directly violate the policies of the institution, and an investigation is being pursued. We are taking this as a victory.

The guards bowed down before we were ready to stop fighting. They extracted me from my cell. I quickly disarmed them of their electrical shield and got a few licks in before they wrapped me up. When they brought me back to my cell, Latinos, Whites and Blacks were all chanting my name and cheering me on. It felt good.

This is not my first riot but it was definitely the best. It’s so good to see solidarity in action, to see prisoners of different races and factions coming together like this. We need more solidarity before we can really start making positive changes in this system!

Resistance and sacrifice,

Coyote

ABC-Nevada Prison Chapter, Ely State Prison

Greetings from The Graveyard, Part II

This is the second zine of a 3 part series. This zine is designed to display articles and memos about some of the things going on in Ely State Prison in NV.

I hope that readers will pay attention to what Lorraine Memory has to say in her declaration because more people really need to understand the atrocities that we face in these prisons at the hands of our oppressors.

This zine is designed to raise awareness and to seek support from people on the outside. We can’t get anything good going on for ourselves without support from the comrades and friends on the outs. We need people to get involved in our struggles, to help us build a support group on the outside that will network on our behalf. We need people to send us literature and books so that we can study, educate and elevate ourselves while living under these stagnant conditions. We need people to get in touch with us, to give meaning and purpose to our lives, to help us grow and cultivate ourselves and to give us something positive to look forward to. We need help to become assets to our communities when we are released.

Ely State Prison is a cold, desolate place where lives are destroyed and where we are left to suffer; with no love, no light, just isolation and injustice. There are a lot of foul things going on in this graveyard but my other comrades and I are constantly at work trying to turn that around. We are trying to get good things going for the prisoners here; trying to turn this place into a place of education and growth while planting the seeds of resistance and liberation.

Please help us; please get involved. You can contact me at;

Coyote Sheff # 55671
PO Box 1989
Ely, NV 89301-1989

Brainwashing Techniques Used by the Oppressor

My greetings of solidarity and respects are extended to all comrades on both sides of the razorwire. I just wanted to take this time to reproduce this list of CIA brainwashing techniques that are being used against the imprisoned and the oppressors. This is going on in all prisons across the nation, but especially here at Ely State Prison, Nevada’s notorious maximum security lock-up. I’ve been here for over 11 years and I’ve seen all of these tactics being used against us; and so I felt compelled to make a reproduction of this list so that awareness can be raised!

Here’s a list of 25 tactics being used on us daily:

1) Physical removal of prisoners to areas sufficiently isolated to effectively break or seriously weaken close emotional ties.

2) Segregation of all natural leaders.

3) Use of cooperative prisoners as leaders.

4) Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing objectives.

5) Spying on prisoners and reporting back private materials.

6) Ticking men into written statements which are then shown to others.

7) Exploitation of opportunities and informants.

8) Convincing prisoners that they can trust no one.

9) Treating those who are willing to collaborate in far more lenient ways than those who are not.

10) Punishing those who show uncooperative attitudes.

11) Systematic withholding of mail.

12) Preventing contact with anyone non-sympathetic to the method of treatment and regimen of the captive populace.

13) Disorganization of all group standards among prisoners.

14) Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order.

15) Undermining of all emotional supports.

16) Preventing prisoners from writing home or to friends in the community regarding the conditions of their confinement.

17) Making available and permitting access to only those publications and books that contain materials which are neutral to or supportive of the desired new attitudes. While making it hard or impossible to gain access to radical, political, educational or empowering literature and books.

18) Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations for which the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then putting pressure on him to conform to what is desired in order to win favour and a reprieve from the pressure.

19) Placing individuals whose willpower has been severely weakened, or eroded, into a living situation with several others who are more advanced in their thought-reform, whose job is to further undermine the individual emotional supports.

20) Using techniques of character invalidation, i.e. humiliations, revilement, shouting, to induce feelings of guilt, fear and suggestibility; coupled with sleeplessness and exacting prison regimen and periodic interrogational interviews.

21) Meeting all insincere attempts to comply with cellmates’ pressures with renewed hostility.

22) Rewarding of submission and subservience to the attitudes encompassing the brainwashing objective with a lifting of pressure and acceptance as a human being.

23) Providing social and emotional supports which reinforce the new attitudes.

24) Divide and conquer techniques to quell riots and disruptions. When one prisoner is acting out or causing disruption on the tier over an injustice being done to him, guards will go to other inmates’ door laughing, joking, slandering and defacing the character of the disruptive inmate, trying to turn the other prisoners against him. Those who go along with this and take the bait by laughing and joking with the guards, are in turn ostracized and looked down upon by the other prisoners.

25) Using food as a control method, “doggy treat” tactics”. “If you comply we will give you extra food that we would otherwise throw away.” Those who are extremely non-compliant, or who write grievances, might not get fed at all.

Those are just 25 of the brainwashing techniques being used on us daily. There are more though. But now that we know what is being done to us, it is up to us to figure out ways to defend ourselves against these tactics. The best weapon for anyone to have is knowledge. Knowledge of yourself, knowledge of your enemy, knowledge of your surroundings, knowledge of your culture, your history, knowledge of your purpose in life. Knowledge is a weapon. Arm yourself with knowledge.

My love goes out to all of those who keep the fire of resistance burning in their hearts! Peace.

Solidarity and Respects,

Coyote
January 25th, 2010
ABC Nevada Prison Chapter
Ely State Prison

Article: Voices from Solitary: Coyote Calling

The new website / weblog of Solitary Watch published this article yesterday on their site:

Voices from Solitary: Coyote Calling.

January 24, 2010
by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

One of the aims of Solitary Watch News is to build an online archive of literature, drawings, and reportage by people who are, or have been, in solitary confinement. These will be compiled in the Voices from Solitary section of the site, and sometimes featured in blog posts. Readers are encouraged to send in their suggestions.

A reader from Nevada Prison Watch recently told us about the writings of Coyote Sheff, which are now being published by his friends on the outside on a blog, Coyote Calling. Coyote has been in Nevada’s Ely State Prison for about a decade, much of it in Discliplinary Segregation. In fact, of the eight units at Ely, seven are in some form of permanent lockdown, where prisoners are held in their cells 23 hours a day, either alone or with a cellmate.

Ely State Prison, located in a remote town in Eastern Nevada, is currently being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project for ”grossly inadequate medical care” to its 1,000 prisoners. The ACLU filed suit after state officials failed to act on the findings of an expert, Dr. William Noel, who was sent in to investigate medical conditions at Ely. According to the ACLU:

In his report, Noel wrote that medical care at ESP shows “the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering that I have ever encountered in the medical profession in my 35 years of practice.” According to the report…there is a horrific pattern of neglect, misguided health care policies, and little accountability for frequently under-qualified staff. Noel also noted numerous instances where important medical records were missing from prisoners’ medical files. Finally, Noel and the ACLU have raised serious concerns about prisoners who died and were cremated before autopsies were completed and their families notified.

This piece by Coyote Sheff is called “Solitary Enslavement.”

We sit in these cells like dead bodies sit in cemeteries. Death fills our lungs, fills our minds, fills our hearts and fills our souls as it lurks and lingers and seeps through the concrete. Our minds go numb and our spirits fade into inactivity. We sit here waiting to waste away, erode, dissolve, and disappear into the cracks of the cement.

Solitary confinement. What an evil concept, what a wicked notion, what a clever way to destroy a man without even laying a finger on him. Solitary confinement — the murderer of minds, hearts, and souls. The person who designed such an evil conception must’ve had murder on his mind and hate in his heart.

We die alone in these cold cells, as our hands stretch out to clutch concrete, but fail miserably to hold anything in their grasp other than the death-stenched air. We die alone — a lonely, miserable, suffering death. We die alone….

Not All There

This is the place where demons drool
over petty rule
leaving you all alone

while your mind fades and erodes between the thickness of steel and stone.

This is the place where sadness stains
the looks on our faces
and where madness remains
in the hearts and minds of the opposite races.

This is the place
of misery and despair
locked down in a cell with nothing to lose
and without a single care.

This is the place where we are all here
'cuz we are not all there.

Coyote 2008
Ely State Prison

Greetings from the Graveyard, Pt I: Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. NOT ALL THERE (INSIDE COVER)

2. INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE

3. NOTE FROM MY COMRADE MARCUS

4. E.S.P. THE BASIC RUNDOWN

5. SOLITARY ENSLAVEMENT

6. APPLY YOURSELF

7. MADNESS

8. THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS

9. THE CASE OF THE CASEWORKERS

10. THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE

11. GENERAL POPULOCKDOWN

12. THERE'S NO LOVE HERE

13. KUMITE

14. BUT UNTIL THEN

15. THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL

16. THE EAGLE AND THE SOW

17. BEWARE OF THE GRIMALKIN

18. DEAR MR. CORRECTIONAL OFFICER

19. THE THOUGHTS OF AN EXILE

20. IN SOLITUDE I SUFFER

21. FREE YOUR MIND

22. ON HEART

23. DESPAIR

24. BURIED ALIVE

25. STAGNATION

26. TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO LIVE

27. WE MUST KEEP RESISTANCE IN OUR HEARTS

28. LIFE IS GOOD

Greetings from the Graveyard - Introduction to Part One

"Greetings from the Graveyard" is a 3-part zine I want to use as a tool to raise awareness about the oppressive struggles that prisoners here in Nevada's maximum security prison (Ely State Prison) have to endure. Hopefully in so doing, it will also shed light on the struggles of prisoners all over America. I want to use this 3-part zine, not only to raise awareness, but also to gain support from sincere, dedicated people and activists on the outs.

It is important that people on both sides of the razor-wire understand the struggles, atrocities, injustices, and oppression that people in prison face. In all honesty, this is a crooked, corrupt, and inhumane system where we are being warehoused. There is no rehabilitation in these prisons, no programs, no health care, no love, no support. This entire American Judicial System is foul and corrupt. It is designed to oppress the poor and people of color. It’s just a cruel, merciless system where racism, violence, and sadism take place everyday.

I wanted to break this zine down to 3 sections, to shed light on 3 different aspects of the prison struggle. This first section is made up entirely of my latest writings. I write these pieces to give people a clear understanding of how barbaric and primitive this system on the inside is, and how most prisoners assume violent mentalities and predatory ways just to endure. Violence is glorified, respected, honored, and bragged about in this psychopathic environment. There's really no healthy, productive way for us to be reformed while living in this sadistic, oppressive environment.

I try to shine the spotlight on this type of violent predatory mentality in a couple of these essays, such as "Central PopuLockdown", and "Madness". I wrote those not as an imprisoned radical intellectual, but from the perspective of a convict who once took up the means of violence as a survival mechanism. I want people to see all different sides and different types of mentalities that we take up as the everyday "norm" in these dungeons.

Also, some of these writings were written as "Release Therapy" for me. These were instances where I was using the paper and pen as an avenue to release my frustrations, anger, and stress. This can be seen in essays like "Writings on the Wall", and "Dear Mr. Correctional Officer", just to name a couple.

I want people to understand that it’s hard for us to rise above this madness and to overcome these violent, predatory mentalities. It’s hard, but its necessary if we are to hold on to a sense of what's left of our humanity. It’s necessary for our communities, society and humanity. We truly and sincerely need outside support. We need people to get involved in our lives and in our struggles. We need people to give us genuine love and support. These warm rays of life are what keep us sane in here; keep us going in here; and keep us alive and human in here.

We need people to send us letters, accept our phone calls, come visit us, and most importantly, send us books so that we can use this time to educate/ re-educate ourselves and liberate our minds. It is through books, literature, education, and study that we become conscious. Consciousness is a saviour. It's what enables us to rise above this madness and change our ways of thinking from violent, criminalistic, predatory and unproductive thoughts to a more healthy, honest, wise, productive, and truthful outlook on life. With this outlook and a conscious level of thinking, we begin to understand on a more clear, truthful and active level. Conscious people don't do stupid things. Conscious people have a true appreciation and respect for life and humanity. This is why I'm always passing out zines and literature and giving books away to other prisoners in here. This is why I'm always writing zines and literature of my own: to raise consciousness in the hearts and minds of my fellow prisoners.

So, I sincerely want for this first zine to help people on the outs to understand what we are going through in these graveyards called prisons. I need people to understand why we need help from the outs and what kind of help we need. Love can conquer hate. Love can help and love can heal. And that's what we need: love, healing, and support.

I want this zine to inspire people to start getting involved in our lives and our struggles in real and meaningful ways. Help us help ourselves, because we cannot expect the people who imprison us to help us. If you are an activist, get involved in a real struggle. If you are not an activist, now is your chance to become one. We need sincere, dedicated, compassionate people to get involved in our plight.

As always, my writings are for people on both sides of the walls.

In solidarity and with respect, Coyote

ABC- Nevada Prison Chapter

Note from my Comrade Marcus

To become aware of these atrocities, one must first become introduced to the 3 W's: World, War, and Warehouses. Once one becomes familiarized with these three, you'll then find that we are all prisoners with like struggles. Therefore, we are all subjected to the same institution and its forced mentalities of insane thinking. The relevance of this institution is it needs for us to become reliant upon its mechanisms. Like a clock ticking away and we're the sprockets turning its gears. It needs us to keep in tune to its tock. For without us, it cannot function. The clock takes extreme measures against all resistance.

These prison warehouses, for some, is the beginning of its extreme measures; and for others, it is the end. Those on the outs are subjected to wars and fighting for the continuous reign of capitalism. And some are just plainly confined to the world and its oppression, living as puppets till death, finding that in the end, it costs way too much to die. Lives pay dearly for war bullets, while the institution hails on and on. The warehouses destroy human nature with no compassion towards our wellbeing. And the institution hails on and on, biting its own tail for nourishment. And we come straight from its ass as its substance.

Apply Yourself

They say you learn something new everyday, but do you really? I see people losing their minds everyday and sometimes it seems like the people who keep us here want our minds to stay stagnant while we are in here, but it's really not up to them, it's up to us. It's up to each and every one of us to take true strides to educate and elevate ourselves. It's up to each and every one of us in here to take true strides to liberate our minds, liberate our souls through books, through knowledge, through the connections we make with others. It's up to each and every one of us to get our minds right and our game tight. For those who choose to stay stuck on stupid while they sit here and dwell here, that's up to them. If that's what they choose to do, then that's on them. It's sad to see, and it's hard to be around people like that, but what can you do?

Man, I've been through so much, up here in E.S.P. for 10 years and I've been through it all. All the ups and downs, all the riots, conflicts and struggles, I've got the mail room officers hating on me, fucking with my mail and trying to make my life a living hell because of the zines that I create, zines like this one right here ("Greetings from the Graveyard"). I've got the officers appealing to the assistant warden trying to get me thrown on H.R.P. status (High Risk Prisoner) for my latest "assault" on an officer and for everything else I've been through in the past 10 years.

I try to do good, but when they see me trying to do good they try to make it harder for me; when they see I'm doing good they always try to find some petty offense to write me up for. So it's hard to maintain, after all the shit I've been through, and go through.

There's been many times when I wanted to do right and was making an effort to do good and then something would go wrong and I'd slip up and just like that I'd be back in the hole for another assault. It's easy for my family and friends to tell me, "just do good, just ignore them, just don't feed into it," but they could never understand the struggles that I go through in here. When you're living amongst all this foulness and misery sometimes it's hard to maintain your focus. It's hard to care about things when you're living in a world where no body cares. It's hard to care when nobody around you cares about you and when some of these people don't even care about themselves. It's a struggle to do right when everything's going wrong. And it's even harder to get your people to understand it when you call them and tell them, Man, I just slipped up again."

We sit here locked down in these cells, letting our minds go numb as every man is pent up within the limits of his own frustration and rage. I always speak on the importance of resistance, and I always speak on the importance of making real connections with people on the outs. I feel that when you try to elevate and educate yourself while living amongst all this stagnation and deterioration, you are engaging in a true act of resistance. Resistance isn't always about clashing with the authorities, or physically fighting the system, because under these circumstances you're only burying yourself deeper in a hole every time you get violent. I've been violent the whole time I've been incarcerated and sometimes it was necessary for me to be violent, but even though it's kept my head glued on to my shoulders it has prolonged my sentence.

So, when you take true strides to educate and elevate yourself while living under these dreary and gloomy circumstances, I'd say you are participating in a healthier act of resistance, because by doing this you're resisting intellectual death and you're also resisting spiritual famine. You are becoming conscious while dwelling in a contemptuous, disdainful, ugly nebula of ignorance and hatred. You are taking true strides to rise above it all.

It is important for us to try to make meaningful connections with people on the outs too, because nobody in here cares about you one way or the other. There's no love here. The love here is earned, not a given. Love shouldn't be earned, that's not true love. That's prison love. It's not the good kind of love. Prison love is artificial, it comes and it goes and then has to be earned all over again, it isn't given freely, there is no compassion in the type of love you'll find in prison. But we can get that from people on the outs, they can help us, they can heal us, they can show us love, friendship and compassion. That's they type of love we need, that's the type of love that's going to help us endure and grow and develop and blossom and those are the type of people who are going to get us through this and beyond this miserable, lonely existence of prison life. We need love from the people on the outs, 'cuz that's true love, not like this artificial, condensed stuff you get in here. We need real love and real support.

Maybe the people who keep us here 'want to keep our minds stagnant, maybe they just don't care one way or the other. But the fact of the matter is we, ourselves have to take true and healthy strides to rise above the madness and stagnation that we live and suffer through every day. I feel that having our minds stagnant while in prison is not only an injustice to ourselves, but an injustice to society (after we get out of prison) and an injustice to humanity. It definitely makes you question the role of prisons in America and it makes you question the intentions of those who are intent on locking us up and building more prisons. It is c1ear that they don't care about us. It is c1ear that we have to take it upon ourselves to rise above this madness.

I sit here in this cell trying to cultivate my mind and trying to encourage others to do the same. We use this time to get our minds right and our game tight, trying to rise above all of this mental and spiritual oppression. We try to make the best out of a bad situation, taking the good with the bad, making sure we get back on our feet after each time we stumble and fall, still striving to move forward, towards the imaginary light at the end of the imaginary tunnel, because it's all about perseverance and survival. And yes, you can learn something new everyday if you have the desire to do so. Just because they want us to stay stagnant in here, doesn't mean we have to. Staying sharp and staving strong is what we should aim to do. Don't lose your mind, use your mind! Apply yourself.


Just in here trying to stay on the sharp side!

Coyote

Ely State Prison, Ely, Nevada

October 27th, 2008

"Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall, escape

Walk out like somebody born into color.

Do it now"

- Rumi, 800 years ago

Please write to me and send me letters of solidarity and encouragement:

Coyote Sheff #55671
P.O. Box 1989
Ely, Nevada 89301-1989

Madness

As I sit here in this cell or whatever it is, I find myself wishing that they would come and get me and take me to prison. I say that, because all of this weirdness around here and all of the foulness I see, I don't know where I'm at anymore.

Lately, I haven't been talking on the tier anymore. I know that there are at least 20 protective custody inmates locked down on this tier right now, sitting in the hole with me. What I don't know is how many of them are informing for the pigs or how many of them are sitting back and listening to everything we say. So, lately, I've chosen to stay quiet and alone. It would be nice if there were a couple conscious prisoners close to me, there would be plenty to discuss. But, they've got me stranded and strained up right now and I don't have nothing to prove, therefore, I have nothing to say.

The prisoners are so friendly with the police around here, it scares me.

The foulness disgusts me, disturbs me, makes me sick. I hate this place. this place used to be my stomping grounds. I've sent many pigs away, either bleeding or covered with feces, and yes, they had it coming! I've done deeds that could be bragged about for years in this setting, this place. But I know if I had a reason to lash out and do something to these pigs right now, the prisoners around here would look at me like I'm crazy. they wouldn't understand the concept of standing up to the man, no, not on this tier.

I sit up in this cell and I read, I study, I write, I keep myself busy and I apply my knowledge as often as I can. fuck this place, these people, fuck what they think, fuck what they do, I gotta shake it off and continue to be who I am. I can't explaln how much this place fills me with disgust. It has become sickening to be here. I need to get out of here, I need to cleanse my soul, or get high, or something, cuz it is becoming very very difficult to deal with this madness.

If there's someone out there who's reading this, someone who cares, pick up a pen and write to one of the prisoners who has placed an article in this zine. Show us some love, give us some encouragement, send us some books, help us rise above this madness. We need your support. we need to have real contact, communication, and truthful relationships-meaningful connections with people on the outside. We've been cut of from love, society, life, community, family, and friends, and been confined to a corner of coldness and darkness. We need your support. We need your compassion.

From the depths of these dregs, Coyote

Ely state prison, Nevada 2008

If you would like to write me, I can be contacted at this address:

Coyote Sheff #55671,

P.O. Box 1989

Ely, NV 89301-1989

That´s What Happens

Your heart turns into stone, your soul turns into ice, and your mind turns into jelly. That's what happens when you sit and sit and sit in one of these cells, that's what happens when love leaves you, its what happens when you stop trying. It’s a constant cycle of torture. Lt’s a constant battle, a never-ending struggle. One day you feel good, the next day you feel bad. You go through so much conflict and turmoil with yourself, it nearly kills you. You can feel a deep sense of mental anguish and a deep sense of spiritual torment. It hurts so bad, it tears you up into little pieces, it scars you, and it destroys you inside.

You're filled with hate, rage, and vengeance.

You want to kick the pig’s head in, the same way they kick on your door. You become suspicious of others, and paranoid. You begin to think they're talking about you, you think they're out to get you, out to rob, steal, or cheat you. You're losing your fucken mind.

That's what happens when you sit and fester and marinate in one of these cells for hours at a time, days at a time, months at a time, years at a time. That's what happens when your heart stops finding a real reason to beat, that's what happens when you quit resisting. Your heart breaks a thousand times, you lose your cool. You lose your mind, your soul freezes and you die inside, you fucken die.

My name is Coyote and my heart still beats with love and resistance. But there's been times when it would skip a beat or two, or three ...

January 22, 2008

The Case of the Caseworkers

The caseworkers here at Ely State Prison have become so good at lying that it scares me. They're always out to give us the classic run around, just to see us running in circles like dogs chasing their tails. I've trained myself not to believe anything they say and never get my hopes up. I am able to live with the understanding that there isn't very much I have coming from them. I know these people don't care about me, they don't care about my problems in life or what the hell I'm going through. They're not going to help me, they're not here for that. These lying caseworkers are so full of shit, they can keep on walking past my cell to the next one. I'm cool right here. Fuck 'em.

EI Coyote 2008

The Spirit of Resistance

Those who live in fear of authority, live in slavery. Mental slavery, psychological slavery, and even physical slavery. Those who live in fear of authority are in a prison all of their own. A prison of their own making.

I am a prisoner to concrete and steel, but I am not imprisoned by fear. I do not conduct myself with those who are in fear of authority. We who live in prison are sure to not allow the walls to chip away at our existence; but with our spirit and attitude of resistance we chip away the walls and barriers that presume to behold us.

The thoughts that seep to the strengthened center of our well-being were created from the sheer will to survive under drastic circumstances. We are refined by hardships when befriended by darkness and we come out strengthened in the center and sharp around the edges, ready to cut through our bonds with a diligent ease.

It is will power that guides us through these sloppy situations. It is the spirit of resistance that keeps us alive and well. We are not imprisoned by our fears, we are determined to perservere.

EI Coyote

ABC - Nevada Prison Chapter June 7th, 2008

General Populockdown

At the time of this writing, I've been here at Ely State prison for a solid 10 years. I've been through all the motions, all the ups and downs, all the trials and tribulations. I've been in fights, I've sent officers to the hospital, I've been sent to the hole for alleged stabbings, I've fought with the goon squad on cell extractions, I've participated in riots and I've demonstrated all kinds of acts of real resistance. I've been shot, gassed, tazered--you name it, I've been through it all.

Wherever I go in this prison, I am locked down. There's only one unit in this prison that isn't locked down and the caseworkers and wardens say that I am not eligible for that unit because of my history of institutional violence. All of my visits have been behind glass for almost 9 years now. They won't let me have contact visits with my family or friends because of my history of institutional violence.

So I am stuck, whether I am in the hole, or in "General populockdown", it doesn't matter, they will not give me any type of breathing room.

So, other than the fact that I will one day be released from prison, I have no incentive to do good, or follow their petty rules. I have no hope, nothing to look forward to. I’ll be here in Ely State prison until I go home, stuck in a cell, on 23 hour lock down, trying to maintain and keep from losing my cool. It's hard, sometimes it's a real struggle when you're confined to these cells for long periods of time, your thinking gets a bit distorted and it can take one little thing to set you off. when rage and aggression set in, you go flying off the handle before even thinking twice about it. It’s a psychological struggle and we are up against great odds.

This place has the ability and the tendency to do great amounts of damage to our psyche and our minds. We are living in a real-live man-made hell.

We need people on the outs to show their concern and get involved in our lives and struggles. We need people to send us letters and books and give us hope and something to look forward to. We need people on the outs to accept our calls and give us good, healthy, productive conversations to get our minds off of this sick, demented place for a little while. We need people to care about us and about what we're going through in here. We need support from people on the outside.

The psychological torment that takes place in this prison can be unbearable at times. If our souls are out of tune and our minds aren't strong and if our hearts are in the wrong place, then we are lost to this cold, desolate darkness. It takes a lot of strength and a good amount of resistance to get through this.

Listen up! There's nothing cool about this place, there's nothing cool about being here. This place sucks.

Coyote 2008

Ely State Prison