Filler Distro || Pittsburgh Anarchist News, Analysis, DIY Publishing & Distribution

Originally published on 05.13.20 by TORCHLIGHT,
an anarchist news website based here in Pittsburgh
Photos stolen from City Paper

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Yesterday [05.12.20] a caravan of almost 30 vehicles circulated downtown, demanding that Allegheny County Jail release prisoners, especially Black mothers, in light of the ongoing Covid19 pandemic. The action was organized by Dignity Act of PA. Protesters hung signs from their cars and honked as they circled the City-County Building beside the county courthouse. After about a half hour there, the caravan headed over to Allegheny County Jail, where they stopped in front until the cops ordered them to move and started handing out tickets. Organizers then held a press conference.

Corporate media coverage was typically sparse, again, in comparison to the flood of coverage given to the right-wing astroturfed “reopen” protests last month. Only City Paper and KDKA Radio reported on the caravan.

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Inside the jail, little has changed. The jail’s oversight board recently voted not to do universal testing for coronavirus. Last week Chelsa Wagner, the county controller, wrote a blistering op-ed in the Post-Gazette calling out county executive Rich Fitzgerald for lack of transparency, and questioning the testing priorities of UPMC and county officials.

Currently, jail testing data indicates 28 out of 59 prisoners have tested positive, a 45% rate. This is actually lower than the 56% from a couple of weeks ago, raising the suspicion that the jail is manipulating the numbers downward somehow. Given the crowded conditions and the number of symptomatic individuals reported to be inside, it is very unlikely that the true positive rate is going down.

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This is an incomplete list of autonomous actions taken in solidarity with the (inter)national prison strike. It is comprised of several anonymous photo submissions and brief report-backs, all of which were sent in to Filler prior to the strike’s start on August 21st.

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Abolitionist Yinzers

Today (8/12), an autonomous group of abolitionist yinzers hit the streets of Pittsburgh to promote solidarity with the upcoming national prison strike & call for police abolition.

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Graffiti Actions

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An Idea

The other night, a friend and I conspired over a sigil to support the prison strike. Later, after catching wind of the counter-repression phone blasts, they remembered a story about an anarchist who faxed thousands of copies of a black piece of paper to several prisons that repressed comrades on the inside. Later that night, after throwing our sigil up around town, we found a working fax machine.

All technology is already weaponized, might as well use it…

Against the prison state.
Against a predictable life.
Against civilization. 
Against consensus reality.

Against toner cartridges >:-)

We also wrote Eric King’s name on a bunch of shit. Much love.

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Action report from the Fight Toxic Prisons convergence.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — On the heels of the 3rd Annual Fight Toxic Prisons Convergence, dozens of organizers, community members, and friends and family of currently- and formerly-incarcerated peoples marched through downtown Pittsburgh, making stops at the headquarters of EQT and ending at a power plant belonging to coal utility NRG Energy on the North Side. The demonstration concludes a weekend of lectures, workshops, and discussion about mass incarceration and its links to environmental health.

EQT Corporation, a major oil and gas company notorious for poisoning drinking water supplies across rural Appalachia, is one of the largest companies involved in fracking, with 793 active wells in Pennsylvania alone. They’re also one of the top ten worst polluters in the industry, according to a 2015 report published by the Natural Resources Defense Council. In 2012, EQT received several charges for water pollution and disturbance of waterways, and a $1.1 million fine for poisoning drinking water supply sources through a shale pit leak at Rock Run in Tioga County, PA, and has received several other fines, violations, and complaints as well.

The march culminated in a rally at the NRG Energy Center calling attention to the health and human rights atrocities occurring at SCI Fayette, a state-run prison that currently houses 2,176 inmates. SCI Fayette was built in 2003, directly on top of a toxic coal ash dump that has been in operation for decades, receiving millions of tons of waste from coal processing companies, including NRG.

The inmate population of SCI Fayette, and the surrounding community of Labelle, PA, have reported alarmingly high rates of health issues linked to the ash that blows off the dumping site and into the surrounding air.

Richard Mosley, a member of Fayette Health Justice and Put People First PA and a former prisoner at Fayette, spoke to the crowd via telephone about his experiences there, including respiratory ailments and medical neglect. “I was admitted into the infirmary well over 10 times and at medical at least 40 times during my four years at SCI Fayette. My weight dropped down from 225lbs to 170lbs. I got so sick at one point that I kept a letter with me to send to my family in case I died.”

Other speakers at the rally highlighted campaigns and organizations working alongside and on behalf of prisoners everywhere, including Shandre Delaney of Human Rights Coalition (HRC), a prisoner-led human rights organization based in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, PA. HRC was a local host of the Fight Toxic Prisons Convergence.

Speaking to the crowd, Ms. Delaney said “HRC believes that it is critically important that prisoners are treated with humanity in every aspect of their incarceration. A prison sentence should not become a death sentence because of the lack of healthcare or the access to legal remedy or complaint of their treatment.”

HRC is involved in drafting legislation to end solitary confinement in Pennsylvania, as well as highlighting ongoing cases of abuse behind prison walls. They were also involved in co-producing a report on the toxic conditions at SCI Fayette with the Abolitionist Law Center, a legal advocacy nonprofit based in Pittsburgh.

More information about the Fight Toxic Prisons Convergence can be found at: FightToxicPrisons.org