There is an ongoing campaign to expose three officers at SCI Rockview for hanging nooses in the prison facility for many prisoners to see. This saga begins in November of last year, and since January we have been engaged in a protracted struggle to get officials to recognize the legitimate grievances of the prisoners at SCI Rockview. Since January, some prisoners who have spoken out have been identified and targeted for retaliation. Last Tuesday, Charles Gilyard (# AY3679) and Charles Carrington (#HS1233) were placed in Administrative custody (aka the RHU, aka solitary, aka “the hole”). Charles C. is likely being transferred today, whereabouts unknown. Charles G. is likely to be transfered on Monday.
For a primer on what is going down at SCI Rockview, please check out our recent call for a phone zap, which is ongoing until the end of this week:
https://abolitioniststudy.com/2024/03/25/rock-zap-2nd-week-ftp/
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent’s assistant and “grievance coordinator” informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong. When family and friends of prisoners in the facility called en mass between March 18th and 25th to voice their concern, Paul was flippant, dishonest, and dismissive to nearly every caller. Several family members of prisoners felt incredibly disrespected by the behavior of Paul and other staff who answered their calls. In the process of calling in, it also became known that Paul holds several other titles within the prison, including “staff officer,” “lieutenant’s assistant,” and “community liaison.” Samuel Condo, a PA-DOC official responsible for overseeing SCI Rockview, was called over a dozen of times to no avail. When contact was finally made with Condo, he simply would redirect calls back to Nicki Paul whose multiple roles on the prison staff create severe conflicts of interest.
Paul admits that SCI Rockview does indeed have video footage, yet the reasons why they refuse to make this footage public has not been given any reasonable justification. As of the week of March 18th, SCI Rockview has closed the internal investigation, choosing to protect the guards who did this hateful and racist act over the safety and well-being of the prisoners. In the meantime, the administration removed three prisoners (that we know of) from general population who brought the situation to public light. One was transferred out of the prison, and the other two are still in administrative custody, aka “the hole” under accusations of “encouraging group activity.” We still have no clue what the actual 802 misconduct write-ups say.
3/20 phone call – “We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing”
Please see our blog post from “Phone zap Week 1, which details contradictions in Paul’s responses to family members in prior phone calls.
3/25 phone call – “I cannot change your opinion, or how you perceive it”
Notable lie in 3/25 convo: Charles had no access to phone calls in Administrative custody (the “hole”) – Charles’s wife did not receive a single call from him since last Tuesday. She now (as of yesterday) finally is scheduled to have a video visit with him soon. But it was over a week with no contact. So this one of several instances in the conversation that Paul completely lies about: what he has access to in the “not-hole” hole. More will be coming out in the next few days corroborating our claims.
This noose incident came at the tail end of a year that saw 11 prisoners die in custody. Seven people died amidst an outbreak of legionnaires disease, and four people died while in administrative custody (punitive solitary units with very little public oversight and severely limited communication access). Unfortunately, there is a well-known pattern of premature death and racist discriminatory practices (including beatings and verbal harassment) at SCI Rockview.
Please let Chief Grievance Officer Dorina Varner (717-728-0350) know that superintendent assistant Nicki Paul at SCI Rockview (who also doubles as community liason and grievance coordinator) needs to be investigated for retaliation and staff misconduct .
We now have two recordings of Nicki Paul outright lying in one & using rhetorical tactics to talk around the fact that Charles was indeed thrown in “the hole” with no demonstrable misconduct on his write up, which in fact is against PADOC policy # DC-ADM 802. Furthermore, it is against policy to retaliate against someone for filing grievances. (See the grievances section in DOC handbook). With no demonstrable misconduct on his 802 petition, Charles is being held in administrative custody (“the hole”/solitary) for what?
Nicki’s boss is Chief Grievance Officer Dorina Varner (717-728-0350) who works below the cheif council Timothy Holmes (717-728-7763)
Office of Chief Counsel’s location is: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections 1920 Technology Parkway Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Dreaming Freedom, Practicing Abolition 