INVENTING PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY OFFICIAL CRIMES: PAGES FROM THE PIG PLAYBOOK--READING NUMBER 2 (2021)

By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

PIG PRETEXT CRIMES: THEY ARE NO ACCIDENT!

Everyone is familiar with the game so-called “law enforcement” officials play of creating or using pretexts to justify criminal abuse. Whether it's the unarmed person of color gunned down for holding a cell phone (“It looked like a gun!”), or a similar attack on a driver who was following the cops' instructions to produce his license (“He was reaching in his pocket for something!”), or similarly, when lethal force is used “accidentally” (“I thought it was my taser not my gun!”), or when a submissive and defenseless person is beaten by a group of guards or cops who yell over and over, “stop resisting!”, and on and on, ad nauseam. A lot of people don't realize that these pretext crimes are more often than not deliberate. The pretexts are excuses used to justify intentional abuse.

The entire purpose of using pretexts is to give the pigs plausible deniability, or to justify illegal behavior because of an “error” that was facially believable.

But when official corruption has reached the point where abusers don't care about accountability, because they've become accustomed to having a free hand at being lawless, they don't even bother to come up with even remotely believable pretexts. That was what the world witnessed, and righteously reacted to, in the murder of George Floyd. It's also the case here at Southern Ohio Correctional (sic!) Facility aka Lucasville prison. Officials here have been murdering and brutalizing prisoners and blocking their ability to bring attention to the abuses without any concern for outside accountability or oversight for so long, they don't even feel the need to produce believable excuses for their criminal actions. I witness it daily. I actually wrote a recent article discussing how officials here don't bother to pretend to be professional. Just like Derek Chauvin, they're self-assured, smug and arrogant with their abuse. A recent documented incident of their criminality is illustrative.

WE STOLE MAIL FROM THE FEDERAL COURTS BECAUSE...

Obstructing a court's communicating with parties to pending legal proceedings is contempt of court. Making false accusations against a court is also contempt, it's criminal contempt in fact. Obstructing U.S. mail is also a federal crime.

So tell me why, on September 13, 2021, Lucasville officials refused to deliver to me two official mailings confirmed to be from the U.S. District Court of Indiana, based on their claimed belief that the court was trying to smuggle me narcotics through the mail?! One doesn't need to elaborate on the facial absurdity of this claim. They didn't even try to make the claim seem credible; no attempt was made to test or criminally investigate the mailings for containing a controlled substance. I was given the option of having the mailings returned to the sender at my expense or they would be destroyed. So their proposed “disposition” was to get rid of the evidence that there was no evidence of attempted drug smuggling. How do you explain resubmitting mail to the postal service that believably contains narcotics? In which case how do you explain not delivering it?

People who have been following my recent transfer from the Indiana Department of Corrections [sic!] (IDOC) to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction [sic!] (ODRC) are aware that this move was in retaliation for lawsuits I have in the Indiana federal courts against the IDOC's top officials, and that the ODRC has been actively involved since my transfer in denying me access to my legal property and resources needed to pursue those cases.

In turn, I have filed for contempt in those cases against IDOC and ODRC officials for what amounts to “obstruction of the administration of justice.”(1) One of the targets of my contempt action is Lucasville warden Ronald Erdos; hence his and his staff's motive to intercept and evade my mail from that court, on top of their general inclination to frustrate prisoners' attempts to litigate against prison conditions. As said, Lucasville officials are unaccustomed to and resist external oversight and challenge to prison abuses, and the prison has particular notoriety for its use as a site for retaliating against prisoners who litigate and challenge prison abuses; which is the very reason I was sent here.

The purpose of the Pig Playbook readings is to give the people insight into the games the capitalist system and its pig enforcers play to impose their criminal rule on the people, and to give false legitimacy to their professed right to rule. Power will never be exercised in any just way until it is directly in the hands of the common working class and poor people, whose interests political and economic power must serve.

In the meantime we should develop and mobilize a public oversight network in Ohio to address the daily abuses and official crimes occurring at Lucasville, which the warden and his staff right now believe they are above. This is why they don't bother to even attempt to credibly justify their abuses.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

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Endnotes:

1. 18 United States Code section 401(1) empowers the federal courts to hold in contempt of court anyone who commits misbehavior so near to the court as to obstruct the administration of justice; which extends territorially to anyone within the U.S. who interferes with the court's performance of its duties or the participation of parties in litigation.