Men sue prison over raids, say guards used racist taunts, started conflicts
SOLEDAD >> Two California prisoners have filed a federal lawsuit against the state prison system, alleging guards yelled “Black lives don't matter” and other taunts during a 2020 raid ostensibly targeting the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang.
The suit, filed in December by Talib Williams, 36, and DiMario Pickford, 33, accuses the prison system of oppressive practices like the “encouragement of race wars, gladiator fights, suppression of free speech, and the discriminatory targeting of Black lives,” and challenges the process by which prisons validate alleged gang members. At the center of the suit is a July 2020 raid inside the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, in which dozens of men were taken from their cells and detained.
The suit alleges that numerous people affected by the raid came down with COVID-19, which prison officials have denied. It alleges that “correctional officers were permitted to torture Black incarcerated people with impunity, before, during, and after the Raid, and that the prison's warden, Craig Koenig, “was seen high-fiving officers and congratulating them for a ‘good strike.'”
During the raid, both Williams and Pickford were questioned about the Black Guerrilla Family, or BGF, a notorious and widespread California prison gang that was founded in the 1960s. The suit refers to the BGF as a “defunct organization” and “political movement” that was labeled a prison gang, or “Security Threat Group.”
Asked for comment on the lawsuit, Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said there is “no evidence” of COVID-19 transmission resulting from raid, which was called a response to “ongoing” gang activity in the prison.
“In the course of the investigation, staff confiscated seven contraband cell phones, issued 12 rules violation reports, identified additional Security Threat Group members involved in the coordination of illicit activities, and found evidence of identity theft and fraud against EDD which has been referred for prosecution,” Simas said in an email to this newspaper. She later added, “Security Threat Group behavior jeopardizes everyone, and especially puts in harm's way those who are trying to build better lives for themselves and their families by participating in positive activities and committing to good behavior.”
Both Williams and Pickford are serving life sentences, and have been held at CTF for years. Williams, a Hayward resident, was convicted of murder for a shooting that occurred when he was 17, which he has publicly claimed was self-defense. Pickford was convicted in 2008 of first degree murder in Oakland. Since his incarceration, Williams has become a prominent activist and author, who was also the subject of a 2018 CNN documentary entitled The Feminist on Cellblock Y.
The suit alleges that after the raid, prison officials mislabeled “political activity” as evidence of BGF affiliation, with one corrections officer allegedly writing in a report that “the BGF is constantly educating its members in the area of civil rights, social justice, revolution and African American history,” and accusing Williams of “generating and orchestrating BGF beliefs” with a contraband cellphone.
The prison system has faced similar allegations, such as in a 2019 lawsuit by Bay Area attorney Anne Weills, who alleged that CDCR forbade her from communicating with inmates for her work on a lawsuit that ended widespread solitary confinement. Ronald Yandell, a prisoner facing racketeering charges alleging membership in the Aryan Brotherhood, has accused authorities of concocting the case to retaliate against him for working on a peace agreement between races in prison. Todd Ashker, a prisoner who led a 2012 hunger strike challenging solitary confinement practices, has an active federal suit alleging he is being kept in “torturous” conditions because of his activism.