This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Chino.
Late April the captain of our yard begins to speak of moving people to a hub, or some ill-defined place. But nobody wants to be moved. We all hope it’s not us. Please, let it be the next guy. Our yard schedule has been changed. We’re basically isolated by unit, not mingling with people in other units. And on TV, it gets worse and worse. April 30th around 10 a.m., the cop on our unit begins calling names over the loudspeaker, lots of names.
As the names out loud I hold my breath, so far so good, about 20 names in, I hear it, of course, my name. Oh shit. About five guys in my unit are handed plastic trash bags, told to pack our stuff. I’m crushed, Just my luck. I’d been moved two times from prison to prison to prison, just spent from thing in the hole at San Quentin, with 12 staples in the back of my head, seven stitches in my lip. I was assaulted, bad, out on the yard one night. And since I refused to tell who did it I was put in the hole, transferred to Chino.
I had a cellphone there, a great job. I saw my friend at visits every few weeks. I was eating LSD on the yard with some buddies, getting out of prison for a day once in a while, I loved it there. And I had finally told my family, everybody, that I was I am dying. It was so hard to do, but my friend said I needed to, give my family a chance to come see me, etc.
Just a rough time, but good also. Coming to Chino was like ripping my heart out and feeding it to a wild boar. Awful. As I packed my stuff my heart sank. There was no way it was going to be good, and it wasn’t. 125 of us, off this yard, were moved to central, to cells with no power, no program, no shit. Just sit in your cell, alone, and wait.
We have all our property, but can’t use it, no way to plug our TVs in, or fans, all of the regular comforts we have were gone.
