Update 2/27: Due to the calls that were made last week, Faheem received a mattress and an indigent hygiene kit. However, he still has not received any bedclothes or his own clothes, appropriate medical attention, food, or his tablet. Please continue to make calls! The script has been updated below.
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2/24/22: Abu Faheem Shabazz (s/n Jerry Smith #129911) is facing severe retaliation for his work defending prisoners’ rights and speaking out against the corruption and brutality of the staff and administration at Westville CF! Faheem has been a leader of political education study groups for the past two years, and has made numerous reports about conditions at Westville CF since arriving there in 2019.
The current repression that Faheem is facing began when guards overheard him identifying the guards who murdered prisoner Richard Canada in April 2021 by throwing him off a tier. Canada’s family has a lawsuit against the administration at Westville, so they are trying to terrorize and silence people like Faheem who might speak out.
He has been repeatedly transferred from unit to unit during the past several months, and each time his property (food, clothing, and hygiene) are stolen by guards. He has been forced to sleep on a cold steel box with no mattress for the past two weeks, and hasn’t been allowed to order any clothes, soap or toothpaste during that time either. He can’t order from commissary, because the guards will steal whatever he orders. Faheem also does not have a tablet (for calls and inmate messaging) despite ordering one and spending $250 over 7 months ago. Most importantly, guards are constantly harassing and attacking him in groups of two or more, trying to get him to fight them so that they can give him another case. He has also been sexually assaulted by guards multiple times recently.
Faheem has been in adult prisons since he was 14 years old, on a trumped up attempted murder charge out of Gary, IN. He was released at the age of 32 in 2018, and reincarcerated on technical parole violations in 2019. He has now been denied parole 3 times since being reincarcerated, despite having completed at least a half dozen programs, including the Recovering While Incarcerated program which is supposed to earn one a sentence modification. Faheem has serious health issues, including severe seizures and major back issues resulting from having fallen off a top bunk that he was illegally forced to sleep on and having a seizure several years ago at Wabash Valley CF.
Now, because he knows how corrupt the Westville CF staff and administration are, and they know that he knows, he is being attacked and harassed, deprived of medical attention, and denied access to the basic necessities for survival like enough food, clothes, and hygiene.
Please call Westville CF Warden Galipeau and the IDOC Central Office and demand that Faheem’s property be returned to him, that he be given the medical attention he needs, and that the harassment and attacks by guards cease immediately!
IDOC Central Office: (317) 232-5711 ext. 0, ext. 1
Westville CF Warden Galipeau: (219) 785-2511 (ask to speak to the warden)
Script: “Hello, I’m calling on behalf of Jerry Smith #129911, who is in IDOC custody at Westville CF. Mr. Smith is facing severe harassment by staff and administration at Westville, and is being denied access to his personal property and proper medical attention, his tablet, sheets & covers, and commissary. Please see to it that his property is returned to him, he given his tablet, bedclothes, and his own clothes, proper medical attention, access to commissary, and that harassments by guards cease immediately!”
Abu Faheem Shabazz, when he was on parole in 2018