Covid-19 attacked the MDOC's inmates in early March. But it wasn't Covid that attacked the inmates. It was callous staff members who arrived to work every day knowing full  well that there's a deadly pandemic ravaging the state. With staff being more accessible to the virus, you'd think that they'd be more considerate of the fact that they have the potential of bringing the deadly virus inside the prison.

How can inmates escape that? That's the million dollar question. There's no escaping. Social distancing is not possible in prison when you have selfish people who are motivated by a check, but are not required to be checked - unless done so voluntarily. What sense does that make!

Inmates cannot bring the virus in. And we can't blame this on visitation either because visits were terminated approximately six months ago.

 According to MDOC's testing, results, and reports during the week of 07/17/20, then the following week of 07/25/20 there were no positive cases within the entire MDOC. On 07/23/20 it was reported that 10 staff members tested positive for the Covid-19 virus - no inmates though. Then on 07/30/20 ten inmates somehow showed up positive for the virus and it's re-flaring. Now keep in mind that visits ce ased six months ago. Now you do the math. Who's endangering whom?

I'm not saying that all staff had malicious intent. But when you have no regard for human life and choose to come to work every day knowing that you're sick or may have been in contact with the virus, what kind of intent is that? We were punished because of someone else's doing. We were locked down, placed in isolation, property destroyed, and, most importantly, subjected to a huge risk of contracting the virus.  God willing, someone please suppress this deadly virus with no immediate or long term complications.

I was positive in April but the actual test results came in May. It was the scariest days of my life. I grew up in the middle of Detroit that is called Highland Park and it wasn't at all a park. I've seen and done things that I'm not proud of— guns drawn and pointed in my face — some went off some didn't. I was sentenced to natural life for murder. Still, those things didn't compare to my Covid-19 experiences. Waking up with a gold glow over my body and vibration lines radiating from the gold glow--I was hallucinating because my brain was not getting enough oxygen. 1:47 a.m. I got up and told myself over and over - I'm not going to die in prison. The glow and vibration lines disappeared once I got out the bunk and walked around the unit getting my breathing under control. I didn't want to go back to sleep because I was scared that I was going to die. I fought it for as long as I could. I lost my taste, smell , had continuous bowel movements, lost my appetite, got cold chills, had dizziness, nausea, and shortness of breath.

We lost a couple guys at this facility. One in particular I used to converse with on a regular basis. His name was Sanders-Bey. By him being an elder, I was always on his back about exercising. But he would never go. So, I would playfully bust him upside the head and take off running to try and get him to chase me. It worked a couple of times, but as time went on he would just curse me out and say, "You’ll be my age one day". We lost that brother to Covid -19. I can't believe that he's actually gone.

We are trapped inside a cesspool full of sick individuals. We can't determine if we're going to live or die because of another person’s greed or ignorance. Our lives are basically in someone else's hand. That hand may be the hand that writes your direct citation order or puts handcuffs on you escorting you to segregation or aiming a Taser at you or the hand that shakes you down passing you the Covid-19 virus. As you can see, none of these were helping hands.

We committed crimes, some more heinous than others. But that doesn't negate the fact that we have a right to be treated humanely. In most cases we deserve a chance to live long enough to make it home to our loved ones. I say most and not all because I'm speaking realistically. The truth is there are beautiful people incarcerated behind these walls, but you also have the evil lurking inside as well.

These are the things that need to be addressed by society. In prison, is it Covid that's killing and harming us? Or is it the (you fill in the blank)?