by Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) Media Committee

In early September, a prisoner in New York’s Sullivan Correctional Facility was given a glass-laced pastry by a correctional officer in what he describes as an attempt to murder him. Dr. Al-Fatah Stewart, a doctor of divinity and metaphysics, has suffered psychological and physical torture throughout his 19-year incarceration, and this is just the latest outrage. He says:

“Department of Correctional Services employees at Sullivan Correctional Facility raided my cell [and] destroyed my legal work … I filed grievances and complaints over this and, in retaliation, these DOCCS employees framed me with a weapon and placed me in solitary …

“While in solitary, DOCCS staff placed rocks in my food and so I refused to eat, then was placed in the infirmary after not eating for over two weeks. While in the infirmary, in an isolation cell, a DOCCS employee gave me a warm pastry laced with glass in an effort to kill me and end my litigation against staff at Sullivan.”

“While in solitary, DOCCS staff placed rocks in my food and so I refused to eat, then was placed in the infirmary after not eating for over two weeks. While in the infirmary, in an isolation cell, a DOCCS employee gave me a warm pastry laced with glass in an effort to kill me and end my litigation against staff at Sullivan.”

Dr. Stewart sent samples of the pastry to the FBI, the New York State Commission of Correction, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and, in desperation at their inaction, directly to Microtrace Labs in Elgin, Illinois, to have it analyzed at his own expense. In a note to the Bay View, he explains that after the OSI “wrote this off as unsubstantiated and closed the case, my union, Industrial Workers of the Worrld, placed a GoFundMe.com ad on the web to pay for this food to be tested – and the results prove I’m in danger.”

Microtrace‘s investigation (click here to open the full report: Microtrace lab report on glass fragments in pastry sample from Al-Fatah Stewart) found over 100 particles of soda-lime glass, concluding that it was likely added subsequent to baking.

This finding by a certified laboratory should be a wake-up call about the abuse and secrecy surrounding Sullivan. Dr. Stewart reports that “there have been a lot of mysterious deaths at Sullivan, but the families of the deceased can’t afford autopsies to prove the actual case of death … there are a lot of grievances about staff placing glass in prisoners’ food but nothing is ever done.”

Dr. Stewart reports that “there have been a lot of mysterious deaths at Sullivan, but the families of the deceased can’t afford autopsies to prove the actual case of death … there are a lot of grievances about staff placing glass in prisoners’ food but nothing is ever done.”

As part of his state court proceedings, Dr. Stewart has now been transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility for his safety. But with Clinton the site of the infamous 2010 murder of inmate Leonard Strickland and subject of countless reports of racism and violence by corrections officers, he remains in serious danger.

“A judge had me moved from Sullivan because of this,” Dr. Stewart writes the Bay View, “and now I’m in the most violent, racist prison in New York state. Please help me.”

The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, The Hampton Institute and It’s Going Down stand with Dr. Stewart in his call for a full investigation into the abuse that he and others have suffered at Sullivan, an immediate transfer out of the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision system to prevent further attempts on his life, and a wide-ranging probe into corruption and cover-ups in DOCCS.

Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) is a prisoner-led section of the Industrial Workers of the World, struggling to end prison slavery along with allies and supporters on the outside. IWW membership is free to those incarcerated. Email IWOC at info@incarceratedworkers.org, and write to them via Ian Christopher at P.O. Box 178, Paden, OK 74860. Send our brother Dr. Stewart some love and light: Al-Fatah Stewart, 00A-2144, Clinton CF, P.O. Box 2001, Dannemora NY 12929.