Kevin Rashid Johnson is a prison activist – known for speaking out about Virginia’s Department of Corrections. He’s spent years in solitary confinement and last year went on a hunger strike to protest conditions at the maximum-security Red Onion.
Attorney Miriam Nemeth is with the non-profit Rights Behind Bars. “We’re hearing stories of conditions being so bad that men have lit themselves on fire to be taken out of that facility,” Nemeth says.
In 2022, a man named DeAndre Gordon did set himself on fire at Red Onion after he was beaten by guards. With no hospital burn unit in Southwest Virginia, he was transferred to a correctional center near VCU, and Radio IQ has learned of a second such case this month.
Johnson was transferred to the Greensville Correctional Center as part of an agreement to end his hunger strike in March. Nemeth says he was also promised he’d get his eyeglasses and other possessions back.
“He did not receive his tablet for weeks. He was not given access to any of his other property, and it took us weeks to get his glasses.”
And recently, she says, he was beaten by guards at Greensville and returned to Red Onion.
“They transferred Mr. Johnson by airplane, which is pretty unusual, after they assaulted him at Greensville.”
Attorney Nemeth says a correctional officer named in Johnson’s original suit is now telling prisoners that he is the reason they’re being locked down and denied recreation. She fears Johnson may be killed by other inmates and is asking a court to order that he be moved to a safer correctional center.
The Department of Corrections did not respond to our request for more information about Johnson or an inmate now being treated for burns at VCU’s medical center.
