On June 7th, 2005, ranking officers of
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), at the
Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, attacked an elderly and
legally blind inmate, Iron Thunderhorse, while he was
attempting to go to the chow hall. They knocked the glasses
and UV shields from his face and sprayed chemical pepper
spray directly in his eyes. They proceeded to spray him all
over with the chemical irritant, kicking him and wrenching
his crippled arm behind his back.
For weeks, Iron had been denied entry into the chow hall, or
any food at all, as the TDCJ was attempting to starve him
into complying with an order to submit to a haircut, despite
the fact that a federal court had recently upheald that his
civil rights were being violated. This was the latest
outrage in a struggle that has been going on for almost
thirty years.
After being railroaded by the FBI's COINTELPRO program,
along with many other dissidents and activists around the
country, in the early 70s, Iron went to court to assert his
rights as a Native American spiritual practitioner. He got
off the bus from jail to prison armed with a court order
requiring the TDCJ to respect these rights, including his
right to wear long hair. He was met by the warden and a
"goon squad" of inmate "building tenders" armed with
baseball bats and axe handles. The warden tore up Iron's
court order and had his "goons" beat Iron unconscious and
then forcibly cut his hair.
Year after year, Iron has suffered repeated beatings and
torture, including years in solitary confinement in the
sweltering Texas heat. His blindness stems from repeated
gassings and being sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray.
His body is covered with scars, only a few of which he
received as a soldier in Vietnam.
Iron is the hereditary chief of the Quinnipiac Renapi, a
branch of the greater Lenape Nation, whose homeland runs
along the Quinnipiac River in Connecticut. His people have
the dubious distinction of being the first North American
tribe to be placed on a reservation by the English settlers
at New Haven, in the early 1600s.
Iron's long ordeal began when he stopped at a diner for a
cup of coffee on his way home from work, more than thirty
years ago. Some of the local Connecticut white boys, who saw
him pull up on his classic Indian motorcycle, thought it
might be fun to give this long-haired Indian a hair cut.
After years in the rough and tumble Indian boarding schools,
his muscles now hardened by long hours of construction work,
Iron defended himself well. It was a clear case of
self-defense, but the white boys were sons of the local
establishment, and so the cops arrested Iron. But this was
the least of his problems, as the white boys, enraged by
their deserved ass-whipping, began to stalk Iron waiting for
a chance to get revenge. It happened one winter night when
two of them spotted his car and gave chase. They ran the car
off the road, but Iron wasn't in it.
After the highway patrol informed him that his young wife
and child had been killed in the resulting "accident," Iron
begain drinking heavily. Then he donned his war-paint, got
on his motorcycle, and went looking for revenge. He found
the boys before the police did, and when they arrived, they
arrested Iron for aggravated assault. It was then that the
Army stepped in, and Iron was released into the custody of a
colonel recruiting for special service in Vietnam.
Having frequently run away from boarding school, Iron
fine-tuned the woodlands skills he had been taught as a
child by living off the land in wilderness areas. These
skills, coupled with the rage he was going through, made him
an ideal candidate for the covert operations he was groomed
for at Fort Bragg and other army training schools. Placed
under the direction of the CIA, Iron was sent to Vietnam,
where he took part in secret operations, as well as
elsewhere in S.E. Asia. But eventually, he and his team
refused to obey an illegal order, and they were sent back to
California and discharged.
Iron gravitated to the American Indian Movement (AIM) and to
others standing up to the system, and he became a target of
COINTELPRO, the FBIs illegal campaign to infiltrate, entrap,
frame-up, assassinate and otherwize suppress activists in
the anti-war and other movements for social justice that had
emerged in the 60s. Their intent was to lock him up and
throw away the key.
Iron went into prison in top physical condition and highly
trained in martial arts. Over the years, he fended off
several attempts to assassinate him, but now his health is
precarious and he is virtually blind. "I suffer from corneal
dystrophy and have cataracts and open angle glaucoma, my
corneas no longer produce tears," Iron wrote in a complaint
over the June 7th attack, explaining the excruciating pain
he was in when he was at last taken to the medical unit.
"Lt. Lawrence and Sgt. Sheffield refused to allow the duty
nurse to conduct a proper PHD exam....Officers refused her
admonishment to un-handcuff me due to excruciating pain in
[my] shoulder." Iron had a pass, repeatedly renewed by
doctors since 1992, prohibiting his being cuffed behind his
back due to his crippled arm. This was confiscated after the
attack.
"Officers refused to allow the nurse to flush my eyes with
water or otherwise decontaminate my person from the pepper
spray. The OC pepper spray saturated both eyes, face, head,
ear canals, neck, torso, arms, palms, buttocks and thighs.
Officers kept saying, 'LET HIM BURN!'"
Iron also suffers from rhinitis and sebhorric dermatitis,
both of which are specifically mentioned on the precautions
list for use of OC pepper spray. This was known by the
officers prior to this premeditated attack, and Iron had
reported that he had been repeatedly threatened with this
type of assault. It was obvious that an allergic reaction
was taking place to the pepper spray, yet Iron was prevented
from showering until more than 12 hours later.
This torture is compounded by medical neglect. Iron suffers
from high blood preasure, heart arrhythmia, sleep apnea,
recurrent shingles and only has one functioning lung. All of
these conditions were aggravated by the assault, yet his
requests to see a doctor were not only denied, so were his
regular prescribed medications for these conditions.
According to his wife, Ruth Thunderhorse: "The warden tells
me that Iron's glasses were lost in the property
confiscation after the 'assault,' but if they cannot find
them, they will get new ones. Anything to keep Iron from his
legal work, I assume. Since the warden hemmed and hawed when
I asked if Iron had his fan, that probably is not in his
possession, either. He also ignored my question as to
whether Iron has his magnifier." Meanwhile, Iron's glasses,
UV shields and his navigational cane, which were
confiscated, have not been replaced, and his typewriter has
been confiscated. Basically, the TDCJ is doing all it can to
frustrate Iron's efforts to defend his civil rights,
including deliberately endangering his health.
President Bush, who was formerly the Governor of Texas, can
claim all he wants that, "We do not condone torture," but
the facts show otherwise. The torture of Iron Thunderhorse
continued throughout his term as governor and it continues
today. The federal court had more than enough justification
to put Iron in federal protective custody while he is
litigating against the TDCJ. The very essence of this case
is the suppression of religious freedom for Native Americans
here in the USA, the history of which spans the whole
history of the US.
Ruth asks for letters of support addressed
to Iron. His adddress is:
Iron Thunderhorse, #624391
Polunsky Unit, 3872 FM 350 South,
Livingston, TX 77351.
