I arrived at Pelican Bay Prison on April 6, 1992 from San Quentin Prison after having my sentence reduced from a death sentence to life without parole  and subsequently, transferred in retaliation by administrators to the Pelican Bay Prison SHU.
As I'd previously heard all sorts of horror stories from other prisoners about Pelican Bay Prison, I was rather leery upon my arrival, to say the least. I didn't really believe the stories other prisoners had told me, I figured they had to be exaggerating. Unfortunately, they were not exaggerating.

Upon stepping off the transportation bus, I was immediately ordered to look straight up and not to look down. My waist and leg chains were removed and I was immediately handcuffed behind my back. An unknown officer grabbed my handcuffs and pulled me backwards while another unknown officer grabbed me by my arm. Again, I was told not to take my eyes off the ceiling as I was slammed into the concrete wall. I was heard a male voice growling into my ear, stating, "Don't look at us unless you want to eat some of this baton!"
Two other officers took control of me (a male and female) and I was then escorted by them, with their batons drawn in an attack position, and taken to cell C-11-215. I was stripped of all clothing by both officers, including my medically prescribed back brace, leg brace, eyeglasses, and tennis shoes. No receipt was given for these items which were confiscated. I was then left in a totally empty cell, completely naked for a number of hours.
The cold dankness of the cell made my body ache and shiver as I already had a terrible cold. My medical appliances were never returned to me, nor were my medically prescribed eyeglasses.
I was transferred with two broken rear teeth which had been keeping me in severe pain for the two previous months. It took me a month to be seen by the dentist here and he informed me they had to be pulled because they were both abscessed. This sounded strange because I had had a root canal done on one of those teeth two years before and was told by that dentist that the tooth could not abscess.
In fact, thesedental problems were the result of haphazard dental care by San Quentin dentists.

They gave me a cell partner in Pelican Bay Prison, despite my objections, on May 22, 1992.
He slipped off his upper bunk and hurt his back, severely, and remained lying on the floor on his mattress, unable to walk for three days. He hardly ate and couldnât get up to use the restroom, so I had to carry him there for three days, off and on. I massaged his back, brought him his food and water, and did whatever I could to help him.
Finally, after a few days of complaining to the officers, they agreed to remove him from the cell on a stretcher, purportedly for the purpose of taking him to the prison hospital for medical care. A few hours later, he was returned to my cell all beaten up!
He had a large, red lump under his eye, a knot on the back of his head, and one of his hands was smashed. Apparently, the M.T.A. (Medically Trained Assistant) and a few officers decided that they wanted him to claim that I had beat him up. When he refused to go along with those false allegations, they all began to beat and kick him (even the M.T.A.). They grabbed him by his handcuffs (handcuffed behind his back) and began jerking his body up and down off the floor, telling him to stand. Somehow, he was finally able to stand, (apparently, this is part of the new ´high tech medical physical therapy treatment´). A few days later, he received a chrono document from the M.T.A. stating that he had refused medical treatment and had begun punching and kicking the infirmary door, (an apparent effort to cover up their deeds).

My cell partner ´Al´, along with my assistance as a jailhouse lawyer, filed various complaints against the officers and M.T.A., including an internal affairs complaint and a federal civil suit soon after the brutal attack. The day these complaints were verbalized to administrators and filed on record, the officers refused to provide us with toilet paper and we were forced to make due without for a number of days.
Our cell was ransacked frequently by guards thereafter, with all of our property thrown around. False reports were manufactured by officers claiming misbehavior and stating in the reports that I ´informed´ officers that my cell partner was going to defecate on a food tray, (a totally, absurd, malicious lie manufactured and given to my cell partner in a written report in an attempt to have me assaulted or murdered).
Due to the fact that the guards and administrators knew I had written all the complaints for my cell partner, because, even though he was twenty nine years old, he had only a fourth grade education level. Administrators and guards knew one of the easiest ways to get a prisoner stabbed or killed is to label him a "snitch-informer". The problem for them was that everyone knew the report was totally false, so they had only created a problem for themselves by providing me with irrefutable evidence against themselves.

On August 27, 1992, my cell partner, after numerous complaints about his health, was removed from my cell to see a doctor. He had been complaining for ten months that he believed he was having a T.B. relapse. I've not seen him since, nor heard anything. His T.V. and all his personal property are still here in the cell with me...today is September 5, 1992.

On August 31, 1992, the M.T.A. came to my cell area and informed me he was ordered by the chief medical officer to give me a T.B. test, (I had already been tested in early May, 1992, soon after my arrival to Pelican Bay Prison, as there was an epidemic of T.B. here at that time). I allowed the M.T.A. to poke my forearm with the syringe. I have not seen the M.T.A. nor doctor since then, and no one has checked my arm to determine if there has been a ´positive reaction´ to the test. As I said, today is September 5, 1992, they are supposed to check the results within 72 hours.

Writing complaints for others as well as myself, including federal civil rights law suits, and state court petitions for writs of habaes corpus, as well as my efforts to expose these types of facts about the judicial and prison system to the news media. Such are the real reasons as to why Iâm now in the most restrictive disciplinary-isolation-lock-up-control-unit in all the California penal system, on an "indeterminate-SHU" program. Pelican Bay prison, where ´they´ claim the 'worst of the worst', the 'most dangerous', the 'toughest and meanest', etc. are confined (clearly retaliations of the worst kinds are being continually taken against others and myself for my legal efforts, not due to disciplinary problems, nor security, etc.). Being a "lifer" prisoner now, I can, without question, conclude that even being in ´lock-up´ on Death Row is not as bad as SHU lock-up in Pelican Bay State Prison. Doesn´t that clearly indicate that something is blatantly wrong with this system and treatment of prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison, the classification process and the mendacious hyperbolic excuses for building and placing prisoners under such conditions?