Part I – Truth Tellers Will be Punished!
By Malik Washington, Destination Freedom Media Group
These are just a few of the human beings who have died inside Santa Rita Jail. The current death toll at the jail since 2014 to the present is 73 (2 deaths so far in 2025). I was motivated to begin covering these deaths and the conditions inside the jail because I noticed that local newspapers and media outlets which should have been engaging in investigative journalism in regard to these issues WERE NOT…with the exception of David Greenwald at the Davis Vanguard and Lisa Fernandez at KTVU Fox 2. I knew that I was on the right track when the Retaliation began.
After being housed there for approximately one year, I recently left San Bruno Jail located in San Bruno, California. The downtown county jail (CJ#2) which is located on Bryant and 7th street in San Francisco and San Bruno Jail (CJ#3) are operated by the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff for the City and County of San Francisco is Paul Miyamoto. I’ve written a few articles about my participation and experience as an active member of the C.O.V.E.R program (Community of Veterans Engaged in Restoration). Until now, I have not recounted the unique circumstances which led to my arrival at the jail. As a journalist, I spend most of my time telling the stories of others. I believe the community and public at large need to know how I became a lightning rod for retaliation because I chose to speak truth to power.
KICKED OUT OF SANTA RITA JAIL
The chain of events which eventually led to my arrival in San Francisco are so unbelievable that when I reflect on them, I can’t help but smile and shake my head in disbelief and disgust. From March 2022 through August 2023, I was housed at Santa Rita Jail (SRJ).
SRJ is located in Dublin, California and is operated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO). Yesenia Sanchez is ASCO’s Sheriff. In January 2023, Pamela Price became the District Attorney of Alameda County.
Alameda County has a sordid history of systemic racism and institutionalized violence hardwired in the manner that their law enforcement agencies have policed communities of color. This has created inequitable outcomes within the criminal justice system.
Photo credit: https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/10/25/alameda-county-district-attorney-recall-pamela-price-editorial/
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Controversial Retweet of White Supremacist Sparks Protest
The Alameda County sheriff’s ties to the racist far right
https://eastbaymajority.com/the-alameda-county-sheriffs-ties-to-the-racist-far-right
Study slams troubled Oakland police department for racial bias
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/study-slams-troubled-oakland-police-department-for-racial-bias
Oakland Police Commission sustains 1st case of racial profiling
https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-commission-sustains-1st-case-racial-profiling
Pamela Price attempted to right those wrongs. The opposition that she faced was overwhelming). January through April 2023 were exceptional at SRJ regarding the spike in deaths at the jail. For most of that year, I wrote numerous articles which told the stories of detainees’ deaths and unconstitutional conditions of confinement.
A Spike in Deaths at The Santa Rita Jail Deserve Heightened Attention
https://1drv.ms/b/c/bd2dbf553c0a1145/EU0ves8tWvhGhc8tdMG4qbMBZZTV7v8DMqo2–EBJn_4YA?e=nxnsrW
After a rather large vigil and noise protest on April 1, 2023 outside SRJ, I began to attract unwanted attention from employees of ACSO.
Dozens gather for vigil and rally at Santa Rita Jail
ACSO Sheriff’s Deputy Ashley Krause, who at the time worked in SRJ’s Classification Department, informed me that her supervisors were unhappy with my journalistic activities. Deputy Krause warned me that if I did not refrain from writing articles that portrayed SRJ in a negative light, ACSO would ask the U.S. Marshal Service to transfer me away from SRJ. Some may ask, “What about my First Amendment rights?” Here is the lesson I learned.
First, at the time (2023) I was a federal pretrial detainee being housed at SRJ. The U.S. Marshal Service, as well as ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have multiple contracts with local county jails and private jail contractors like GEO Group and CoreCivic all over the United States in order to house federal pretrial detainees and ICE/DHS detainees. There is a special clause in mostly all of these contractual agreements called an “AT WILL” clause. The “at will” clause allows the sheriff of a county or a high-ranking administrator at a privately-run detention facility to request that the U.S. Marshal Service remove a detainee for any reason. Although I never had discipline issues at SRJ, my journalism had offended those in the upper echelon and hierarchy of ACSO. No sheriff in Northern California wanted to house the journalist known as Malik Washington.
Gale and I created a special website which we named Santa Rita Jail Freedom Collective. Although Lisa Fernandez of KTVU Fox2 had been covering deaths at the jail, no one was providing a more detailed and nuanced analysis of the conditions of confinement which led to many of these deaths. This in and of itself began to generate community support and as a result, I became a target for oppression and retaliation. The only reason that ACSO had me transferred was that I was shedding a discerning light on deaths at the jail.
Re-Visiting the Death of Eric Magana
https://1drv.ms/b/c/bd2dbf553c0a1145/EUURCjxVvy0ggL32bwYAAAAB5K1_1FTDjc2cKKAYZqP9IQ?e=Dwmmas
In Memory of Ruben Febo – Freedom Fighter
https://1drv.ms/b/c/bd2dbf553c0a1145/EUURCjxVvy0ggL0CaQYAAAABHqFlqQYN-uewG4reBgJscQ?e=1VdwKn
Withdrawal Protocol
https://1drv.ms/b/c/bd2dbf553c0a1145/EUURCjxVvy0ggL0pSAYAAAABvN2uGs-B1rvxHnSeVd3q5w?e=tg0hgJ
The U.S. Marshal Service was faced with a dilemma, and I had gotten myself into some “good trouble.” In May 2023, my federal public defender from San Francisco, Gabriela Bischof went on maternity leave, and she was replaced by a CJA panel attorney by the name of Robert F. Waggener. Mr. Waggener has decades of federal criminal defense experience in the City and County of San Francisco. Remarkably, Mr. Waggener even represented former Black Panther, Geronimo Pratt, when the legendary freedom fighter was being retaliated against by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
After filing the habeas corpus motion that would eventually lead to his freedom after decades of false imprisonment in CDCR. Pratt’s case was intriguing to me because CDCR began transferring him in a very punitive and retaliatory manner after he began exposing the FBI’s role in his wrongful conviction. Pratt would be retaliated against for exercising his First Amendment rights. Sadly, Mr. Waggener DID NOT provide me with the same quality representation that he offered Geronimo Pratt.
PI Issued for Prisoner Transfer
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1994/dec/15/pi-issued-for-prisoner-transfer/#case-640
Pratt v. Rowland, 770 F. Supp. 1399 (N.D. Cal. 1991)
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/770/1399/2129773
Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt
Kate Coleman: Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt: The Untold Story of the Black Panther Leader, Dead At 63
https://www.hnn.us/article/kate-coleman-elmer-geronimo-pratt-the-untold-story
All throughout the Summer of 2023, I continued to write articles and filed motions with the court in two class action cases that were ongoing at SRJ: the Babu case and the now infamous Gonzalez case.
Babu v. Ahern
Gonzalez v. Ahern
https://clearinghouse.net/case/17341
ASCO began asking the US Marshal Service every week if they would transfer me.
DIESEL THERAPY IS REAL!
On the morning of August 31, 2023, I was awakened around 5 a.m. and was told to pack my belongings because I was not returning. Initially, I thought I was being transferred to FDC SEA/TAC in Seattle, Washington. I was wrong. After being placed on a large aircraft courtesy of the U.S. Marshal Service’s well-known “Con Air” program. My first stop on that hot August day was the State of Montana! From Montana, I was flown with many others to Salt Lake City, Utah, and from Utah to Las Vegas, Nevada.
In Las Vegas I was placed on a bus and driven North to a privately operated facility in Pahrump, Nevada. The Southern Nevada Detention Center is run by CoreCivic one of the larger private prison and jail contractors in the U.S. I never got a chance to shower or lay in a bed at Pahrump. We arrived around 8 p.m. on August 31, 2023. I was exhausted. Unknown to me, the Marshals had designated me for QT STATUS which stood for “Quick Turnaround.” The Core Civic Employees at Pahrump gave me a Bologna sandwich, threw me a blanket and locked me in a holding cell with a toilet and no mattress. I was told to get some sleep and be ready to go by 1 a.m. Please pay close attention to this story because this is exactly how most of the victims from FCI Dublin’s infamous RAPE CLUB CASE were treated after the women’s Federal Prison was shut down in 2024.
At BOP California “Rape Club” Prison: Historic Ruling, FBI Raid, Warden Removed
Lawyers ‘horrified’ at conditions for FCI Dublin transfers at Alabama prison
https://www.ktvu.com/news/lawyers-horrified-conditions-fci-dublin-transfers-alabama-prison
FCI Dublin prison closure: Women describe horrific journey across U.S.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/fci-dublin-prison-closure-women-describe-horrific-journey-across-u-s
Another Retaliatory Transfer
https://1drv.ms/b/c/bd2dbf553c0a1145/EYnoB04R3nBFtxmcaTdoneQB7s6vejtfYmmCb_tXa4MDlA?e=TZNHlM
At 2 a.m. on September 1, 2023, I was handcuffed and shackled and then placed on a bus headed South. We rode for hours and as the sun began to rise, we arrived at an obscure airfield somewhere in the desert wilderness of Southern California. I was placed on another bus and told we were being taken to Geo Group’s Western Regional Detention Center located in San Diego, California. Now, again, some of our readers may ask “Why wasn’t I just placed on a direct flight from San Francisco to San Diego?” Well, folks, that is why they call it “Diesel Therapy.”
Most human beings who are subjected to this type of barbaric and retaliatory transfer strategy known as “Diesel Therapy ” suffer from exhaustion which results in a weakened immune system. This makes it difficult to fight off an infection. I am no Superman. During that final leg of my journey to San Diego, I was shackled in close proximity to a detainee who was hacking, coughing and sneezing during the entire ride. To add insult to injury, he did not cover his mouth, and I did not have a mask to wear. Needless to say, once I arrived at the Geo Group facility in San Diego, I was tested for Covid and soon informed by medical staff that I had tested positive.
I was placed in isolation in the infirmary for approximately 10 days. My only saving grace during this time was that I was granted access to a rolling phone. During this time (September 2023), community activists like John Lindsay-Poland of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) out of Oakland, Richard Speiglman, Bob Britton, and Micky Duxbury of Interfaith Coalition for Justice in our Jails (ICJJ), as well as Joy George and Tash Nguyen of Restore Oakland were pressuring the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to create meaningful oversight of the ACSO. From that solitary cell in San Diego with the help of my future wife (at that time), Gale, I continued my journalism and by doing so, we sent a clear message to the administrators of SRJ: WE WON’T BE SILENCED!
The retaliatory transfer game did not stop. From August 2023 to June 2024, I was transferred about 7 times. In December 2023, I was transferred from San Diego Detention Center to GEO Group’s El Centro Detention Center located in El Centro California. Just a few days before Christmas that year, I was punitively sent to an infamous, privately-operated ICE detention facility in San Luis, Arizona. In late January 2024, I was sent back to El Centro; from there I wrote a series of articles that were published by the Davis Vanguard. In late March 2024, I was sent back to CoreCivic’s Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, Nevada. And then finally on June 3, 2024, I was returned to my beloved San Francisco in order to attend a June 7th court appearance in front of U.S. District Court Judge, Charles R. Breyer.
During that entire time of these retaliatory and punitive transfers, although Judge Breyer told Robert Waggener that the court would foot the bill, my attorney never traveled to meet with me face-to-face nor was he able to acquire a clinical forensic psychologist who would agree to conduct a comprehensive psychological evaluation and assessment of my mental health.
In Federal Court on June 7, 2024, a supervisor from the U.S. Marshal Service informed me that the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office agreed to house me. However, I was asked not to write any negative articles about the San Francisco County Sheriff’s operations inside their jails. Moreover, I was told that I could write about any other jurisdiction I pleased as long as I left San Francisco alone. If I did not follow these instructions, I was told that there would be no guarantee where I would be transferred to.
Gale and I had been attempting to get married for approximately one year and had been unsuccessful in receiving permission from any of the administrators at the privately-operated detention centers that I had been housed at. Gale and I, as a couple, made an “executive decision” to adhere to the parameters and suggestions made by the U.S. Marshal Service in regard to my stay in San Francisco.
Stay tuned for Part 2 which be released on Monday, July 21, 2025, to see the enlightenment and healing that began at San Bruno Jail (CJ#3).
As is customary, we leave you with an interesting video and song by the rock band, 3 Doors Down, entitled Kryptonite.
3 Doors Down – Kryptonite (Official Video)
