Showing posts with label Open Letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open Letters. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2009

To all who care: another open letter

This is a response to a discussion in the Ely Times, where a former officer of Ely State Prison, who calls himself Local Boy 76, comments without verifications about Coyote.

The first letter by Coyote was published here:
Make the Walls Transparent
and here.
This is his second letter.

by Coyote

These few humble words go out to the “Local Boy 76” and to all who care to know what I have to say and to all who would like to join in these open chats. Please, try to stay as open-minded as you can, because I know that most people in society have been taught to believe that all of us behind these walls are the ”scum of the earth,” but I'm just here to try to put things into perspective, if I can.

And I know people really don't know what goes on inside of these sunless cemeteries; they don't know about the effects of long-term isolation; about sensory deprivation; and they don't know about inmates assaulting officers, or about officers assaulting inmates; they don't know about the code of honor that the convicts live by, or about the gang bang mentality of a lot of these prison guards; they don't know about the barbaric nature of prison life; or about the racism, the stagnation, the deterioration, the gangsterism, the perversion and all of the crazy, sick and depressing things that take place in these graveyards, and how both the guards and inmates alike have to turn off their feelings and numb themselves daily just to be able to adapt and cope with the constant madness that goes on in this demented world of darkness; where there is no real love; no real hope; no incentive to try to do good; no programs; real medical care, treatment and no serious opportunities to reform; and where the quality of life is very low, causing things to only deteriorate and get worse and worse as time goes by.

So, for those who actually care, it is important to use sites like these to be able to air it all out, and hopefully to address some of these issues so that it can lead to positive results. Not only for prisoners, but for the communities that some of these prisoners will have to return to.

Well, in my previous engagement I tried to bring “Local Boy 76” (a former guard here at ESP) into the foray, to get him to really be honest and critical about things and to give him a chance to be a real hero and help us get to the root cause of why this place has the ability to turn even the guards into animals, and maybe to help inform the general public of the true nature of these prisons; and to examine the mentality of the prison guard and of the convict; but it seems like he's more concerned with how many letters of commendation he's received while working at the prison, which he tries to make it appear that these letters of commendation make him out to be such an outstanding prison guard!

Well, I was curious about these letters of commendation that the big shot caller, “King of Ely,” Warden McDaniel likes to pass out to his faithful followers, so I asked about seven of these officers if they've ever received any letters of commendation from the big-time circus leader, McDaniel and every officer that I asked, except for two of the new guards still in training, said, “Yes.”

And when I asked them what did they get these letters of commendation for, some of them just shrugged their shoulders and said, "For working overtime and stuff like that." These letters of commendation don't seem to be very important to them, more like a "doggie treat" and a pat on the head than anything else, I guess for sitting, fetching and rolling over for the “King of Ely,” himself.

So big deal "Local Boy 76,” you got some letters from the warden telling you how good of a suck ass you were. So what? That doesn't make you a hero, Man, so take your cape off and sit your goofy ass down in a corner somewhere.

And so you think I'm a waste of life, huh? I'm glad you can be honest and say what you really feel about me. I think your statement gives people a glimpse into the average mentality of the prison guard. I know a lot of guards (not all) think that all of us in here are worthless "pieces of shits” and I'm glad you could help me make this point. But more so, I'm really glad that you don't work here anymore! And I don't tell myself lies, "L. B. 76;" I just don't let people like you tell lies about me.

The truth is, I've had plenty of time to sit back and think about things, because believe it or not, I actually have a deep passion and joy for life that pushes me to really want to rise above all this degeneration, which drives me to just really sit back and reflect on my life, taking the time to slay my own personal dragons (which has been a real struggle!).

I've taken a good, hard look at my life, at life in general, at the system, and society, at love, relationships, family, everything, and believe me, I'm not disillusioned, by far. I don't claim to know it all, but I've been able to come to know myself and come to know my own conclusions of things.

In my previous letter I told it like it was, everything I said was real. Yet you came back and tried to discredit me again, by saying that if I keep lying to myself that I'll eventually believe the lies (even though you've failed to admit to lying yourself with your fictional story about my so-called assault of a female officer), but you provide no real argument to try to show how anything I said in my open letter was untrue, so you're just blowing hot air dude, talking out the side of your neck, with your doggie treat letters, knowing damn well what I said was the truth, even though I was only just touching the surface.

You're sitting out there in the free world, on the computer at midnight, arguing with ladies like "Little Missy" and "Six Wheels," about a man in prison, and yet you have the self-centered audacity to call me a waste of life? Get real, Dude. Do something with your life, Man. You make these fake allegations of me being someone who caused problems all the time, failing to elaborate, trying to make me look bad. How do we know that your definition of causing problems isn't just me putting articles on MTWT, telling it like it is?

But if you want to get real, we can sit here and discuss things, if you want? If you want to pretend that nothing is wrong here at ESP and that overall nothing of any significance is going on here in this death camp, but then if that's true, then tell me why there have been about 60 officers in the last year who have either quit working here, or transferred to other prisons? And then tell me, in what other prisons in this country has a dropout rate of correctional officers as high, or higher than that?

And if nothing´s happening here, then why has the ACLU taken up a class-action lawsuit against ESP? Why have the Feds investigated certain doctors/medical staff that have worked here at this prison? Why did Lorraine Memory -- a real hero -- risk her career and more to write a 13 page declaration about the deaths, discrimination and the negligence that have all taken place here?

Why are there so many different lawsuits going against “The King of Ely” and his goons? Answer these questions, “Mr. Firm, Fair and Consistent.”

But no, I've never claimed to be an angel. I've gone through rough patches in my life, on a path of self-destruction. I've had my share of ups and downs, took my hits and kept moving. I still struggle to this day to keep my cool and to maintain my sanity in here. It has all been a process of self-discovery, of shedding my old skin, finding my essence and coming into my own. I can honestly say consciousness is a savior, and not to mention that I've had to be a fighter to even get to the point where I am now.

I see prisoners lose their minds in here, fall under, and break all the way down until they've lost their souls. I've seen the madness, I've lived this shit, and the cold part about it is, it takes a serious level of resistance to stay strong and persevere and to keep a shred of your humanity, but it's that same resistance that gets us in trouble with the prison administration and that keeps us confined to a cell for 24 hours a day for months and years at a time. So it's a Catch 22. There's really no way to win. You either let this shit break you, or you don't, but either way you lose. There's no real victories.

You hear about people in the world that gamble away their whole life savings. You hear about drug addicts who throw their whole lives away trying to chase that next fix, but then you've got people like me who could have one bad day and say fuck it all. It's been a struggle to overcome self-destruction, resist depression and come to grips with life all at the same time.

It's hard to care, when no one cares about you.

And that's the case for a lot of people in here. We had it bad before we came to prison, have it bad while in prison, and will still have it bad when we get out. Going from living in a cage, treated like dirt, and then thrown back into a world that makes no sense to you, as an ex-felon, with strikes against you, trying to learn how to live out there, it's no wonder people are scared to leave prison. These are things that people have to understand. These are things that need to be addressed.

I get out of here in three years. I don't want to get out and fail. I don't ever want to come back to this shit, but nobody ever really wants to come back, but it happens, it's a revolving door, it happens, people come back, and it‟s sad.
We've got to talk about all of these things. We've got to hear it from all sides. There's not just one side to this story. Everybody has a side of the story to tell, the victim, the offender, the guards, society, everybody has their own side of the story, and we can't forget that.

People who don't know me can´t really judge me, ´cuz they haven´t been through what I've been through, they haven't endured what I've endured, they haven't seen how this darkness turns people into monsters. All they know is what they've seen on some prime time television drama, they don't want to know the brutal realities of this horrific world called prison!

And until people start to look at things from all sides, there will never be any true understanding, and without true understanding there will never be any effective solutions to these problems, struggles and tragedies of society, poverty, crime and life.

For all those who care, I just want you to know that I'm here to help now, I'm here to raise awareness and to be a part of the solution. I'm here to pour out my soul, plant seeds of consciousness and to make a difference in my own way.
I've seen how this place, these prisons can turn a kind soul into a cold soul. I've seen what this madness does to a man. That's one of the reasons I'm constantly trying to make more people aware of how important it is to build true, solid relationships between the people on the outside and the people in prison who actually strive to rise above these heartbreaking struggles.

We've been placed in prison and separated from our families, separated from meaningful relationships with the only people in the world who care about us and thrown into a zone of war, deceit, violence, negativity, sadism, corruption, gangsterism, racism, addiction and destruction, and then forced to learn how to sink or swim with the sharks and in the process of survival, become as heartless as the next man.

We've been thrown into these prisons, stripped of a sense of purpose, will and spirit and slowly we begin to lose a sense of connection with life beyond these walls and we become more and more tuned into this barbaric world of predation, and as we become more and more tuned into this madness called "prison life" we become less and less tuned in to ourselves as we learn to numb ourselves and brace ourselves and endure loneliness, torment and all kinds of suffering: and then released back into society and forced to learn how to live out there with the odds stacked against you. It's sick!

And until people start caring about us, and about what goes on in these hellholes, things will only get worse. We're not gonna be able to care enough about ourselves until people start caring about us, and that's real!

We need people to get involved in our lives in real and meaningful ways, because we have been exiled from society and placed in an even more hopeless environment, and we start to deteriorate and become even more antisocial until we get to the point where we feel we have nothing to lose and that's when we become reckless with our lives and we go all out, throwing it all down the toilet, and we are destroying ourselves and being destroyed while having to survive this profane existence. It's inhumane. It's madness.

For those who care, we need people to get involved in our struggles, in our lives, we need people to give us something meaningful to look forward to, we need love, support and guidance from our communities, our families, and from people who care. We need to have something real to connect to.

So "Local Boy 76," you can wave around your doggie treat letters of commendation, and put your cape on and tell make-believe stories of heroic attempts to save damsels in distress all you want, if that's what you want to do.

It doesn't matter what you do, because it‟s really not going to stop me from doing what I do. But I‟m asking you one more time, to get involved in something meaningful here. Help us expose the injustices and the inhumanity that takes place in this graveyard called ESP. It´s up to you, Man. You can be a real hero. You can do something real. You can

start by telling people how this prison has the ability to turn even the guards into animals. It´s up to you, “Local Boy 76.”

And with that said, I‟m opening up the lines of communication for anyone who has anything significant to say or who want to get involved. Let‟s air it all out, let‟s put it all on the table, let‟s hear it from all sides. Let‟s talk about these things. If you really care, then here‟s your chance to get involved in something positive.

In truth and with sincerity,

Coyote
AKA: “Local Prisoner 77”

P.S.
For letters of encouragement you can write me at this address:
Coyote Sheff # 55671
PO Box 1989
Ely, NV 89301-1989

This was also published here.

Open Letter to Localboy76 (i)

By Coyote Sheff
Note: This is in part a response to a poster on the Ely Times Message Board who calls himself Localboy76.

It is important what Local Boy 76 said about how prison has tendencies turn officers into animals…

I find it hilarious how people try to discredit my stories and call them “fictional”, and then when confronted and asked why my stories are fictional, all they can say is that I’ve assaulted officers.

Yes, for the record, I have assaulted officers in the past. I have been taken to court, pled guilty, and picked up new charges and time for it too. But no, I’ve never tried to shank any female officers and no shank was ever wrenched from my hand. I had to laugh out loud when I read that because it’s funny the extremes people will go to to try to discredit me. Come on, Local Boy 76, instead of trying to make yourself look like a hero by creating fiction of your own, why don’t you tell the people what really goes on in here! Then, you’ll REALLY be a hero!
Try to imagine this. You take the tiger out of the wild and put him in a cage and you starve him and whip him and then you use food to train and tame him until the tiger complies and the next thing you know, you’ve got the tiger jumping through hoops. That tiger isn’t the tiger anymore, now he’s a circus animal.

Well, some of us in here, we don’t forget that we are tigers. We pace our cages and we keep resistance in our hearts, and we are not interested in becoming circus animals. So when the lion-tamer, or circus master comes around rattling our cages and insists on poking and prodding us with a psychological stick, the tiger in us is going to come out, and yes, we are going to try to lash out, I mean what do you expect us to do?

When locked down in a cell all day, for years on end, you undergo a process of sensory deprivation, and for some, the effects of sensory deprivation are different than they are for others. Some of us become depressed. Some of us become violent. Some of us become paranoid and some just completely lose their minds. These are extreme circumstances and even a lot of the guards who keep us contained in these cells have told me personally that they couldn’t last a day living in a cell like this.

In these drastic circumstances, many of us prisoners have learned to see ourselves as “combatants” as a means to survival. (Kind of like Sen. John McCain when he was a POW.) And this is more of a psychological battle than it is a physical one. And while we are affected by the effects of long-term isolation and sensory deprivation, and at the same time when we are provoked, this perspective, were treated unfairly, while we live on perpetual lockdown in this prison, with nothing to lose and with no real incentive to do good, then yes under these extreme and primitive conditions we sometimes explode and get violent.

There’s many factors involved, it’s not solely the guards fault. I mean one guard might be the one provoking the prisoner, and another guard who had nothing to do with it at all might be the one who gets assaulted. There are many sides to this story and there are deeper things going on. One example to take into consideration is the mentality of the convict, versus the mentality of the prison guard. You have two different mentalities thinking along two different lines. The guards want to teach the prisoner a lesson, the prisoner refuses to recognize the authority of the guard and feels that he can’t be taught a lesson because the prisoner feels he already knows right from wrong according to his own set of standards that he lives by as a convict. Or whatever. So then, we have a psychological power struggle, that can very easily get out of hand and directed violence.

Also, the way people like me and Funches see things, politically, are completely different than the mainstream political perspective of most of these guards. Like for example, Local Boy 76 says: “Don’t get me wrong, there are several decent convicts that know they have done something wrong and realize that they have a debt to pay to society”.

Well, well, I definitely realize that my lifestyle and my actions are what lead me to prison. But that doesn’t mean I recognize the legitimacy of this so-called American justice system. I know for a fact that this is a corrupt and evil justice system, where the police in our own communities are as criminal and gangster as the people they lock up. There is documented evidence that police have planted evidence, lied in their testimonies, beaten and even murdered so-called suspects. Racism and oppression and all these things are what keep this justice system going, so no, I don’t recognize the legitimacy of the American justice system, and there is no real treatment or rehabilitation inside these prisons, so no, I don’t feel I have a debt to pay to society that doesn’t care about me. I feel that I have a debt to pay to myself and a debt that I have to pay to my family, only.

So my political views are way different than those of most of these correctional officers, and because of this, there’s always going to be a clash, where they feel the need to punish me for some petty rule violation that I don’t recognize, because according to my own standards, I’m not doing anything wrong. And by following these petty rules, it’s not going to help me to get out of here and return to society as a productive member. All it does is belittle and dehumanize me.

Some of these guards here are cool. They are respectful and fair and understanding and they do their job and then go home at the end of their shift. I have respect for them and they have respect coming from everybody, because they respect themselves and because they’re respectful of others. But even then there are a lot of guards who have that gang bang mentality, believe it or not, and when those guards see these guards being fair, or cool with us, then the guards with the gang bang mentality will ride their co-workers and give them hell and call them “inmate-lovers”, or call them “friendly”, or “nice” and use peer pressure to try to discourage them of being fair and respectful towards the inmates. And so they see that it’s better to be an “inmate-hater” than to be shunned or ostracized for being a so-called “inmate-lover”.

And then there’s guards here who are even more spiteful, vengeful and hateful than they say we are, and who are always out to show the prisoners that they are the boss, and that they are in control and they’ll go out of their way to mess with us and do things just to show us that they are the ones running shit, not us. Not to mention the fact that there’s guards here who lie in their reports (write-ups), usually to cover their own asses because they weren’t doing their job correctly in the first place, and no matter if we are guilty or not, we are found guilty nine times out of 10 when we go to disciplinary, whether there’s evidence or not. And then there’s guards who want to enforce the rules that make things hard on the inmates, but don’t want to follow, or abide by certain policies that will make their own jobs more difficult. So, to me, that’s like saying: “Fuck you. You’re a prisoner. You have no rights. I’m an officer. I can do whatever I want!”
So, when you put us in a situation where we don’t have nothing coming, and where we can’t win and the guards don’t play fair, and where we have no incentive to even try to do good, in a maximum-security prison, where the tensions are always high and some of these guards are just as violent, or as criminal as they say we are, then yes, they’re going to be times where staff gets assaulted and there’s going to be times where staff assault the prisoners, and usually when that happens, they get away with it.

Abuses of authority and the violation of our civil rights happen on a daily basis here in Ely State Prison and it’s going to take a situation like that Patrick Cavanaugh case, and the Kevin Lisle case and the Marritte Funches case to expose what really goes on in this graveyard called Ely State Prison, because there is no oversight here in Nevada. So that’s why it’s absolutely necessary for our supporters to put up websites like MTWT. So keep up the good work and don’t get discouraged by people like Local Boy 76 because what you’re doing is real and very necessary.
So, “Local Boy 76″, if you don’t like me ‘cuz I’ve assaulted officers in the past, then say that. But don’t try to make up some bullshit story of me assaulting a female officer on the very first hour of her very first day and how you heroically disarmed me, and try to use that to make it seem like what I’m saying in my articles isn’t valid. Come on now.

I’ve even had guards come to my cell door and tell me that they read my articles on MTWT and that what I’m saying is “very accurate and true, unlike some of the other stories on there by other prisoners.”

“Local Boy 76″, if you want the public to know that I’ve assaulted officers in the past, then I’ll tell them myself. Yeah, I’ve assaulted officers, because I wanted them to understand I’m a tiger and not the circus animal and also they wouldn’t mess with me again, because that’s the mentality I had back then and because that’s what this place does to you. And this place has obviously had a tragic effect on you too, because you said it yourself that prison has a tendency to make even the officers into animals to a certain extent and that you are well on your way to losing your humanity by working here at E.S.P!

Yeah you’ve got out of this place, but this place hasn’t gotten out of you. Instead of trying to discredit me and Funches because you don’t like us ‘cuz we’ve assaulted officers, or whatever, why don’t you be a real hero and help us try to expose what really goes on here and expose the root causes to what makes us want to assault officers.

Most of the prisoners are in prison because they’ve committed crimes and because for some underlying reason or another, they are criminals. And they will tell you themselves that they are criminals, but when the officers behave and act like criminals, then what’s their excuse? Anyone who works for one certain state bureaucrat is working for one of the biggest criminals in Nevada. All of the other officers will then turn a blind eye to the criminal acts that take place against the staff and administration of E.S.P., but are quick to try to discredit me as some heartless predator who stabs and attacks female officers on their first hour of their first day, but don’t even have the paperwork to prove it. You can’t use my history to discredit me, Man, because I’ll be the first to say it: I’ve assaulted officers and you guys are pigs!

Now let’s see if you cowards have what it takes to get on this site and say what you really feel about us! Or we can stop all this hate, and really try to come together and fix the problems that exist in the system and these prisons!

And for the record, I don’t have any problems with any of these female officers. These gang banging male correctional officers are just mad because I’m always asking the female officers to marry me.

I’m opening the lines for discussion or if anybody wants to write me directly you can reach me here:

Coyote Sheff # 55671
PO Box 1989
Ely, Nevada 89301