In Contempt #50: National Guard Sent in to New York Prisons, Leonard Peltier Comes Home

In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.

There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!

HALT Act Suspended as New York Prisons See Uprisings As National Guard Called in During Guard Strike

In recent weeks, guards in New York prisons have launched a large wildcat strike, leading the New York Governor to call in thousands of National Guard soldiers to help run the prisons and put prisoners on lockdown – shutting off basic programs, showers, access to legal resources, medical treatment, and visitation. As the strike by guards has grown, seven prisoners have now died and several prisons in New York have seen ongoing unrest and protests.

The strike isn’t taking place in a vacuum, but against a backdrop of a growing anger at prison guards following the horrific and brutal killing of Robert Brooks in December of 2024. Many prisoners and support groups are now decrying the strike by guards as a “distraction by officers who don’t want greater oversight.” Guards are chiefly angry at:

[T]he Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act or HALT, that place[s] some limits on the use of solitary confinement in state prisons. The guards staged the work stoppage, which affected all but one of the 42 state prisons, based on their claim that the minimal limitations on the use of this barbaric practice shifted the balance of power between them and the inmates in favor of the latter. The unspoken subtext is that it weakened the guards’ ability to impose control by terror, supposedly creating an unsafe environment for them.

In addition to opposition to HALT, which the union has sought to repeal from its inception, the immediate trigger of the guards’ wildcat strike was the indictment of 10 guards and other prison staff in the brutal beating resulting in the death of a 43-year-old inmate, Robert Brooks, at the Marcy Correctional Facility, near Utica, last December. The incident was unintentionally recorded on guards’ body-cams.

As Gothamist reported:

As incarcerated people report deteriorating conditions because of the walkouts, the guards protesting outside have voiced several grievances of their own. In interviews with public media, many of the strikers blamed the problems on the 2021 HALT Solitary law, which limits the amount of time a person can be held in solitary confinement and requires due process before a commitment can begin. It also mandates that any incarcerated individual be allowed at least four hours out of their cells each day and bars staff from putting pregnant and disabled prisoners in solitary confinement…Corrections officers and their supporters argue that the law makes it harder for them to maintain discipline and segregate violent people from the general population.

The [HALT Solitary law] measure’s supporters, however, argue that solitary confinement is akin to torture, and that restrictions on it are necessary to shield incarcerated people from excessive cruelty in the system. Before the law’s passage, prisoners could be confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day. HALT supporters were outraged when, on Thursday, DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello suspended provisions of the law in a memo to the striking officers.

“ What rights are we going to suspend next?” said Jerome Wright, a previously incarcerated man and now co-director of the HALT Solitary Campaign, who blamed Hochul for allowing the directive. Wright said the provisions of HALT haven’t been fully implemented, and abuse remains common across the prison system. He argued the walkouts are a distraction from the indictments handed up this week in the Brooks case.

The Community Resource Hub has produced a short explainer looking at the guard “strike” in the New York prison system that’s led to the National Guard being sent in. At least two uprisings have also taken place in the NY system in recent weeks, at Collins Correctional Facility and Riverview. At Riverview, prisoners “took control of multiple dormitories for several hours.”

As the New York Governor and the labor union representing the prison guards has negotiated an end to the strike, this has led to the New York DOCCS suspending the HALT Solitary Confinement Act. As one call to action explains:

On February 20th, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) initiated widespread lockdowns and canceled personal and legal visits indefinitely at all New York State prisons, further isolating incarcerated people and cutting them off from the vital support of loved ones and attorneys, and illegally indefinitely suspended provisions of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, a law passed by a supermajority of lawmakers and signed by the Governor.

Incarcerated people are locked down in their cells upwards of 24 hours a day, and are suffering delayed or denied access to food, medication, mental health and medical care, heat, electricity, showers, commissary, religious services, college and educational classes and other vital programs and basic needs. These denials of basic rights and necessities are on top of ongoing rampant staff physical and sexual abuse of incarcerated people. Now, they are also being denied the basic human right to see and speak with their families and legal counsel – and, for those in solitary, even fellow incarcerated people.

The suspension of provisions in HALT and cancellation of visits follows an unlawful work stoppage and accompanying protests by rogue corrections officers who abandoned their posts, causing grave harm to people in New York’s prisons, imperiling people’s health and lives, and compelling the Governor to deploy the National Guard to do their jobs for them.

The timing of this strike is no coincidence. The actions of these corrections officers are an attempt to sabotage necessary reforms and shield themselves from accountability for violence they perpetrate inside prisons. It is intended to deflect attention from a moment of reckoning for New York’s violent prison system and culture of impunity as DOCCS’ officers have just been charged for their brutal torture and murder of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility.

Robert Brooks was a 43-year-old Black father with a family and community who cared deeply about him. As seen by the business-as-usual manner in which officers and medical staff tortured and killed Robert on video, his murder was not an anomaly but emblematic of routine racist brutality inflicted throughout New York’s prisons and jails. For years and decades, officers have beaten and killed Black people in New York’s prisons – including Leonard Strickland, Samuel Harrell, Karl Taylor, Terry Cooper, John McMillon, and countless others – and yet the racist system of brutality continues unabated.

There have been countless investigative reports of a “scourge of racial bias” and routine and frequent brutal beatings covered up by locking people in solitary confinement on false charges. Even just since Robert’s killing, there have been reports of other people beaten and killed by officers and people being locked down systematically.

Another collective letter on solitary confinement in the NY system can be found here. At the time of this writing, the New York Governor has announced a tentative agreement, ending the strike. According to the New York Times: 

On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state had reached a deal with leaders of the corrections officers’ union to end the work stoppage by Saturday. The deal included a 90-day suspension of a state law that restricts the use of long-term solitary confinement; limits on mandatory overtime for officers; and a promise not to discipline guards who returned to work before the deadline.

In the meantime, visits by inmates’ lawyers, family members and friends have remained discontinued along with nonessential medical appointments, early release programs and prisoner classes.

Late last year, guards at Marcy Correctional Facility were captured on body-worn cameras beating a handcuffed man to death, a jarring episode that advocates for inmate rights and prison watchdog groups said reflected a widespread culture of brutality behind the walls of the state’s prisons.

And on Saturday, another inmate at a facility across the street, 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi, died after an incident in which other inmates said he was beaten by corrections officers. Eleven corrections staff members involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave while the State Police and other agencies investigate the death, said Thomas Mailey, a prisons spokesman.

Early on, at Auburn Correctional Facility west of Syracuse, an inmate named Jonathan Grant pleaded for medical attention, other prisoners said, but help never came. On Feb. 22, Mr. Grant, 61, who had a history of strokes, was found dead in his cell.

Mason Earle, a 26-year-old inmate at Auburn, described another incident during the strike when someone in his unit began having chest pains. Mr. Earle said he and others shouted for help until the man was taken away in a wheelchair. A short time later, his cell was cleared out. It was not clear what became of him, but soon after, officials announced another death at the facility, that of Jeffery Bair, 40, who was found unconscious in his cell on Feb. 24 and could not be revived.

…[S]ome prisoners began falling ill during the strikes, prompting other inmates to shout in unison, “Medical emergency! Medical emergency!” and bang on the cell gates to get the attention of anyone who could help. Mr. Colon said at least three men were wheeled out of his unit after medical episodes. When prisoners at Sing Sing were let out for recreation after a week of being confined to one unit, one of them, Anthony Douglas, 66, remained behind. He was found hanging dead in his cell just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Four hours later, another man, Franklyn Dominguez, 35, died after he, too, was found unresponsive in his cell.

Political Prisoner News

Long-term Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier has finally been released to home confinement after 49 years of incarceration. You can watch Leonard’s homecoming speech here, as well as a press conference with Leonard’s attorneys here, and a welcome home event hosted by the NDN Collective. Check out a report here from Unicorn Riot.

In less positive news, antifascist prisoner Alex Stokes recently had his sentence upheld in court, and the Upstate Correctional Facility where he is held is currently on lockdown. You can write to him at:

Alexander Contompasis 22B5028
Upstate Correctional Facility
PO Box 2001
Malone, NY, 12953

Chicano anarchist prisoner Xinachtli recently published a statement speaking on the People’s Tribunal on Rojava vs Turkey.

The Rattling the Cages series of talks continues, with anarchist ex-political prisoner Eric King recently hosting an event titled “Abolition is a Family Affair” bringing together his own family with those of Russell Maroon Shoatz and Laura Whitehorn. You can watch it here:

The next event in the series will be “Looking Back at the George Jackson Brigade,” and will go live on March 22nd. Eric King and Josh Davidson also recently appeared on The Beautiful Idea podcast to discuss anti-repression and prisoner support organizing. Printable zines of all previous Rattling the Cages talks can be found here, and all previous talks can be watched through the Firestorm Books youtube page.

Peppy, a long-time activist facing charges stemming from a protest against an anti-LGBTQ+ bigot, has been moved to a new facility in Ohio. Supporters can write to him here:

Brian DiPippa #66590-510
FCI Elkton
P.O. Box 10
Lisbon, OH 44432

Mongoose Distro has published new writing by anarchist and reproductive rights prisoner Caleb Freestone, which is available as a printable zine here. You can donate to help support Caleb here. From Caleb:

Mississippi really is beautiful. The crab grass planted at the prison’s construction is losing a protracted war to clover, wild lettuce, dandelion, and these gnarly purple flowers unknown to me. There are ancient trees in the distance, painted skies in the mornings and evenings; birds and skunks defy the barbed wire as voles excavate their burrows below. Yazoo City once burned to the ground thanks to the ghost of a witch burned at the stake seeking revenge. The rebuilt downtown was ravaged again by Walmart and now stands abandoned. Humans have not fared well here since Europeans brought genocide to the land. Yet that evil has only soaked as deep as the roots of the alien grass being routed by wild flowers yearning to be free.

I read. I write. I pretend heating instant noodles is cooking. I work out. I sift through the lies on CNN and Fox. I dream. I speak of the world as it could be. But mostly I learn. Here in the rotting carcass of this empire, there is such creativity, resilience, faith; we practice mutual aid and solidarity every day. We know who the enemy is. “Nothing in prison is free” was the first and biggest lie from a guard. Our bodies may not be free, but most of our possessions were gifts from one another, paid for in gratitude and reciprocity. The only things for sale are restricted or banned. Artificial scarcity is key to capitalism. Everyone is worse off for having come here, yet there are valuable lesson in the extraordinary nature of our humanity. These lessons are simply disdained by a society which worships domination and greed.

The First Step Act and Good Time Credit will qualify me for release on April 10, 2025 as long as I am not written up. But they will hold me months past this date. The Second Chance Act already qualified me for a halfway house the day after I arrived. However, they keep making up excuses to delay the paperwork. The BOP has no discretion – these Acts are law. In practice, the BOP holds folx as long as they can. Over incarceration lawsuits will not win enough to cover lawyers’ fees unless one has been illegally held for over a year too long. So I remain in the belly of the beast at Yazoo City, Low 1, separated from my spouse and my community along with 1,100 others who deserve dignity and liberation as well. Meanwhile, states are criminalizing abortion and “fake clinics” continue to trick and manipulate folx from seeking actual medical care.

Please consider writing me, recommending books, sharing the details of our case, speaking up for bodily autonomy and the abolition of prison, distributing copies of this essay, and supporting my spouse and I:

chuffed.org/project/visitcalebf

Cashapp – $JadeF64

Instagram – @FTLauderdaleFoodNotBombs, @SolidarityFTL

Write to Caleb here:

Caleb Freestone #07786-506
FCI Yazoo City Low
P.O. BOX 5000
Yazoo City, MS 39194

The support team for Mexican Indigenous anarchist prisoner Miguel Peralta are fundraising or his legal costs, and recently organized a fundraising raffle.

Atlanta IWOC recently held a successful fundraising drive to help Virgin Island 3 prisoner Hanif Shabazz Bey stay connected and able to pay for phone calls.

Ongoing Cases

Luigi Mangione recently accepted nearly $300,000 of crowdfunded donations from the December 4 Legal Committee. Check out Party Girls for more info on this development.

Midwest Books to Prisoners recently published a call to support Dandelion, who is currently going through the court system.

The New Republic recently published a major article on the Atlanta Cop City RICO charges. For those who can’t access the article due to paywalls, a paywall-free version can be found here. From the article:

When the SWAT team beat down his front door in the early hours of May 31, 2023, Marlon Kautz’s first thought was that it was a mistake. His second thought was that he might die.

From his bedroom, Kautz heard the officers debating whether or not to toss a flash-bang grenade into the living room. The house was surrounded by officers in tactical gear, toting assault rifles, from the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Kautz shouted to the officers that he was coming out, his hands raised. “We kept repeating that we were unarmed,” he told me, as he and his roommates walked out of their rooms as calmly as possible. They were immediately arrested, placed in separate squad cars, and taken to jail, where they were held for the next four days as police “ransacked” their house, searching for evidence to support their case that the group had engaged in charity fraud and money laundering in connection to the “Stop Cop City” movement, a sprawling protest and activism campaign aimed at halting the construction of the massive Atlanta Public Safety Training Center outside the city.

Kautz, alongside his roommates and colleagues Adele MacLean and Savannah Patterson, are members of a nonprofit organization called the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has supported local protest movements since 2016 by providing arrested activists with bail funds and legal resources. Their case is an extreme example of how a motivated and militarized government can crack down on protest, dissent, and the civil rights of everyday citizens en masse.

In Atlanta, the raid was a response to years of activism against police violence surrounding “Cop City,” the center’s nickname. But in conversations with The New Republic, legal experts and activists alike said that, in Donald Trump’s second administration, what happened that morning in Atlanta may soon play out all over the country. While our new and former president is known for his high-profile spats with boldface media names, the second Trump administration’s assault on free speech won’t start with CNN but with hundreds, if not thousands, of activists like Kautz across the country, as federal forces seize the precedent that repressive state governments like Georgia’s have been using for years. That dystopian future isn’t far away: New legislation in Congress and new legal cases against groups outside of Georgia show that the right is already devising new tools to stamp out what scant agency Americans have left.

“What’s happening in Atlanta is a vision of the future,” Kautz told me. “This is a test run of a [repressive] playbook that authorities on many different levels are experimenting with to discover what they can get away with.”

In other Cop City news, the Atlanta Community Press Collective has a report up about Jamie Marsicano, who is launching a federal lawsuit against the Atlanta Police Department. From the report:

Attorneys de Janon and Drago Cepar, Jr. filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jamie Marsicano in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. It asserts six different civil rights claims, including for violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, against the City of Atlanta and individual defendants with the Atlanta Police Department (APD), the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Natural Resources, among other agencies. The complaint alleges that “defendants were recklessly and callously indifferent to [Marsicano’s] federally protected rights.”

Marsicano, who alternatively uses she/her and they/them pronouns, was arrested on March 5, 2023, during a multi-agency police raid of a music festival in Atlanta’s South River Forest, or the Weelaunee Forest by its Mvskoke name. Marsicano and 22 others arrested that night were charged with domestic terrorism and later with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in a sweeping indictment that resulted in racketeering charges against 61 people alleged to be part of the Stop Cop City protest movement.

The complaint alleges that APD Chief Schierbaum created a policy of pursuing “pretextual criminal charges against ‘Stop Cop City’ protesters.” The policy has resulted in “an express instruction” that officers with APD and other agencies arrest and charge Cop City protesters, “particularly if they are close or present at the Weelaunee Forest,” according to the complaint.

Read the full report here. Lastly, there is a new report about surveillance cameras being put up outside of the homes of Stop Cop City activists.

The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee is asking people to support Bobby Mason, a Diné Warrior detained in Flagstaff for alleged actions against uranium mining and transportation. Legal funds can be sent via Venmo to @DNW91 or through https://pay.telmate.com/ui#/deposit_type and by choosing inmate number 202501018.

A Louisiana grand jury has issued an arrest warrant for Dr Margaret Carpenter, a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed abortion pills online to a pregnant Louisiana minor, as well as the pregnant minor’s mother.

There’s a call for people to support Atlanta Forest defendant Vienna Forest, whose IDs remain confiscated making it impossible for her to work. Donations can be made to @ccwillneverbb via venmo.

AI and Policing

In Saint Louis County, Missouri, Chris Gatlin spent 17 months held in pre-trial detention after an AI facial recognition programme identified him as an assault suspect. The assault victim had initially pointed to two other people during a photo line-up as looking more like the suspect, and told reporters, “I felt I was being pointed into something.” Gatlin is now suing the police department over the 17 months he was incarcerated without any real evidence.

Trans Prisoners Under Attack

A lawsuit filed by several trans women held in the federal prison system seems to be holding up Trump’s plan to move trans prisoners. On February 24th, US District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction preventing trans women from being transferred into male prisons, although it is likely that further appeals will be issued.

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