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| California prison hunger strike leader: ‘If necessary we’ll resume. This is war’ |
| By theguardian.com - Rory Carroll |
| Published: 10/01/2013 |
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Todd Ashker enters the visitation cubicle and a metal door slides shut behind him. He places his hands into a slot so a guard on the other side can unlock the handcuffs. He rubs his wrists and sits on the fixed stool. Scars and tattoos cover his arms. The hair is grey and close cropped, the moustache almost white. He is much thinner than the muscled, bulked-up prisoner I have seen in photos. A thick glass window separates us and a surveillance camera peeps down, recording the scene. Ashker picks up the phone. I pick up mine. The voice is strong, with a vaguely mid-western lilt. "So. You're here." Here is Pelican Bay state prison, an outpost of concrete and razor wire in a forest near California's border with Oregon. A beautiful, rugged landscape where Pacific waves crash against cliffs of redwood. You don't see any of that from the super-maximum security jail. Except for the blue guard towers it is drained of colour, a grey sameness coating gravel, fences and buildings. It was built to isolate "the worst of the worst", the most dangerous murderers and gang leaders. Ashker, 50, has spent most of his life here: "They'll never let me out. I'm going to die here, I know that. But I have a choice. I can slowly rot or I can fight. Fight to change things." Ashker grew up in Colorado and moved with his family to California as a boy. He was jailed for burglary in 1982, when he was 19. He got tattoos – Celtic and Nordic images, plus a few swastikas, and allegedly joined the Aryan Brotherhood. Released, he was caught burgling again and jailed at New Folsom state prison. In 1987 he repeatedly stabbed another inmate, an Aryan Brotherhood member. He called it self-defence but a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and he was sentenced to 21 years to life. During the trial another inmate stabbed and wounded Ashker's attorney, Philip Cozens, in what Cozens believes was an attempt to provoke a mistrial. Read More. |
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