Above: Carrington Keys, one of the Dallas 6, filed suit against the Pennsylvania prison system in November 2014 for being put in solitary confinement. Keys is seeking, among other things, compensatory damages of $15,000 and counting for improperly being held in solitary confinement (he wants $1,000 per day) while in Luzerne County, and $250,000 in punitive damages for violation of his constitutional rights. Source: Times Leader.
At SCI Dallas (Pennsylvania), after a series of abuses at the hands of corrections officials, some prisoners housed in the solitary confinement unit decided they had enough and decided to stage a protest in response to the inhumane conditions and mistreatment of prisoners by covering their windows. Each prisoner involved in the protest is now collectively referred to as the Dallas 6.
PACK THE COURTROOM FOR THE DALLAS 6
February 17, 2015 at 9:00 am,
Luzerne County Courthouse
200 N. River St Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711
Judge Lesa Gelb
This trial pertains to an April 29, 2010 peaceful protest against illegal and inhumane and tortuous conditions created by the Department of Corrections’ prison guards in the “hole” at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas PA (SCI Dallas), including food starvation, mail destruction, beatings, medical neglect, use of a “torture chair” and deaths of various prisoners. After guards tortured fellow prisoner Isaac Sanchez in a “torture chair” overnight and threatened several Dallas 6 members with death, prisoners Andre Jacobs, Carrington Keys, Duane Peter, Derrick Stanley, and others decided that they didn’t want to suffer anymore. Covering their cell door windows with bedding, the prisoners demanded that the abuse stop, and requested access to their counselors, state police, the District Attorney and the Public Defenders’ Office. They had no access to telephones or computers and their incoming and out-going mail were being destroyed to undermine their ability to expose the corruption.
On April 28th 2010, one prisoner by the name of Isaac Sanchez was subjected to a planned attack by the Restrictive Housing Unit (RHU) staff, forcibly removed from his cell and brutally beaten by officers in star wars uniforms (riot gear).
Prisoner Sanchez was subject to this attack as a result of speaking out against the abuse at Dallas prison on behalf of his fellow comrades.
After a series of abuses, official misconduct and outright administrative corruption, 6 prisoners at SCI Dallas decided it was time to do something about the inhumane conditions, immediately, before another prisoner dies or is brutally harmed.
As revealed in the Human Rights report, there has long been a policy within the prison walls of Dallas and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) to operate a corrupt administration under an iron wall of silence.
Under this iron wall or code of silence, SCI Dallas, PA DOC, District Attorneys Office, Attorney Generals Office as well as the Pennsylvania State Police operates in participation and conjunction with one another to cover up crimes and misconduct by state offices by overlooking video footage of officers caught on video tape committing human rights violations.