[It is the families and friends of men who are beaten to death
behind bars who suffer the longest. It is the deepest most evil
corruption that covers and enables cruelty and torture unto death. ]
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SILENT NO MORE  
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Stewart Acuff
March 19, 2023
Stansbury Forum [[link removed]]


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_ It is the families and friends of men who are beaten to death
behind bars who suffer the longest. It is the deepest most evil
corruption that covers and enables cruelty and torture unto death. _

,

 

Marching through Beckley, West Virginia, on March 4, the crowd of 150
friends and families of Quantez Burks and Alvis Shrewsbury stretched a
full block. I was there with others to honor the memories of the two
men killed not far away in the Southern Regional Jail.

It was the first anniversary of Burks’ death. Shrewsbury had died
Sept. 17, 2022, after he was in jail 19 days.

State corrections officials told Burks’ family that he had died of
natural causes. But an independent medical examiner who examined the
body of Burks found he died with numerous broken bones, including a
broken nose, one leg and both wrists as though he had been handcuffed
during the beating.

State officials haven’t publicly stated how Shrewsbury died, but
before his death he told his family how he was beaten by other inmates
who were stealing his meals.

Burks was in jail after being arrested for wanton endangerment after
discharging a firearm in his home. Shrewsbury was in the Raleigh
County jail serving 90 days for a second drunk driving convention.
Neither deserved to be beaten to death. And nobody has been charged in
their deaths or held accountable in any way.

Just this past year 13 men died inside the Southern Regional Jail,
leading the state in that statistic. But it is the Eastern Regional
Jail in Martinsburg that leads in the number of suicides occurring in
state jails.

Massive heroin and opioid addiction that plagues all of Appalachia,
including Jefferson County has crammed West Virginia regional jails
far beyond capacity. Men sleep on concrete floors, have food stolen,
use broken facilities and are denied medical care.

Now the Burks family and the Shrewsbury family have joined with the
Poor Peoples Campaign to seek justice for their loved ones who were
not adequately protected from attacks and abuse. The families, one
black and one white, gathered before the march for prayer led by
Pastor Walter Leach of St. Paul Baptist Temple. In his prayer the
pastor promised, “We will not give in. We will not give out.” I
heard that promise echoed over and over throughout the day.

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While waiting for the march to start Alvis Shrewsbury’s fiancée,
Justine Bradley, said: “I’m glad to be here and not let our
tragedies be swept under the rug. It’s sad that animals in animal
shelters are treated better than people in West Virginia jails.”

Mary Mullins, Shrewsbury’s sister-in-law, said while at the rally,
“Jail is supposed to be for reform. Not killing.”

Under a sky spitting freezing rain with a cold whipping wind, Kimberly
Burks, the mother of Quantez Burks, helped assemble the 150 marchers
and stepped us off from the home of Quantez Burks at noon. We marched
through the neighborhood and out to well-travelled thoroughfares and
around the Beckley Police Station. We then lined a block of the main
street through town holding and waving signs, some folks crying,
others remembered the two men and the shock of their deaths.

Josh Eagle, a friend of Burks, held a sign that read: “What if Quan
was your son? Brother? Father? Husband? Friend? Uncle? We want
answers. We demand justice.”

Rosetta Eagle, Josh’s mother, said, “I cried for days after Quan
died. He was like a son.”

Quantez Burks’ daughter, Kiera Burks, is a 22-year-old senior at
Ohio State University studying social work. Of her father, she said,
“He was the best dad. Loving and caring. Always there for me. It’s
heartbreaking. I miss him so, so much. I think about him every day.”

It is the families and friends of men who are beaten to death behind
bars who suffer the longest. It is the deepest most evil corruption
that covers and enables cruelty and torture unto death.

A class action civil rights lawsuit with dozens of family members of
inmates abused and/or killed in West Virginia jails has been filed in
the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. 
Stephen New and his law firm are representing the families.

Justice in these cases must include an acknowledgement by the state of
overcrowding and abuse and public acknowledgement of what happened in
every death or beating.  Justice must include immediate relief of
overcrowding using innovative sentencing alternatives such as
community service. Justice would include prosecution of everyone
involved in the jail abuses from other inmates to corrections officers
to corrections administrators. Justice would include a complete
overhaul of both the West Virginia Division of Corrections and
Rehabilitation and the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security
which oversees the corrections division.

Last Friday, March 10, national leader, and founder of the Poor
Peoples Campaign (PPC) Bishop William Barber came to Charleston to
stand with grieving families and former inmates to tell their stories
of casual cruelty in West Virginia jails.

Led by mothers of beaten and dead inmates we marched inside the
Capitol to confront the governor with terrible secrets of torture. 

In the hallway of the governor’s office surrounded by police and
state troopers each mother spoke truth to power to the governor’s
staff. Then breaking down, crying as one cries for a dead son, they
were followed by sisters, fiancées and one former inmate beaten but
surviving; they all told everything.

Giving the staff the petition signed by more than four thousand we
asked that the governor join our call to the U.S. Department of
Justice for a full federal civil rights investigation.

The families, PPC and Barber promised one another to pursue this state
outrage till justice is won.

_Stewart Acuff is retired in West Virginia writing and politically
active. He was a union, community and political organizer for 40
years. He was the National Organizing Director and Asst to the
President of the AFL-CIO from 2000 to 2010. Stewart has written four
books including two books of poetry. He's readying his fifth book for
publication. _

* US Prisons
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* incarceration
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* Opioids
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* Poor People's Campaign
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* jails
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