Originally published in the Winter 2024 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 74, printed February 21. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter 2024 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Editor’s Note: The following is an updated version of a Fact Sheet the Defenders have sent to the media and are sending to all 140 members of the 2024 Virginia General Assembly. We are asking that they – and you, our readers – contact VADOC Director Chadwick Dotson and express support for Rashid. The contact information is at the end if this Fact Sheet.

• Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, 52, originally from Richmond, Va., has been serving a life sentence since 1990. While doing his time, he has developed into a writer, author, poet, artist and political activist. Because of his exposure of abuses in various prison systems, he has been transferred numerous times to other states, most recently back to Virginia, where he has been held at the Red Onion Supermax prison in Wise County.
• On Dec. 26, 2023, a group of men incarcerated at Red Onion began a hunger strike to protest the continued use of solitary confinement in the state’s prisons, something many people thought had been ended by a bill passed in the 2023 General Assembly.
• Eight weeks later, one of those men, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, is still refusing to eat. In addition to the general demand to end solitary confinement, Rashid is demanding to be kept at a prison near Richmond so that he can continue to see the doctors that had treated him for prostate cancer. He also has serious heart issues that were discovered in the course of his cancer treatment but have not yet been addressed.
• The health care Rashid needs is not available at Red Onion, and his cancer was not treated until it had advanced to a dangerous stage.
• For the first month of the hunger strike, Rashid was kept in a cell with no running water. He was denied bottled water, along with soap, toothpaste and other hygiene items. The only water he had to drink was from the toilet, which he was not able to clean.
• The Virginia Department of Corrections has gone to court to try and get permission to force-feed Rashid, but the court ruled that he was competent and so had the right to continue his hunger strike. l Around the beginning of February, Rashid was moved to the Powhatan Medical Unit, about 45 minutes west of Richmond. There he was told that, if and when he agreed to resume eating, he would be moved back to Red Onion.
• In January and February, according to his legal team, Rashid was taken to the VCU Health medical center in Richmond 11 times, He is unable to retain liquids. As of Feb.20, he had been moved back to Powhatan. l The Department of Corrections isn’t saying where they plan to keep him. They are not releasing any information about his condition and have even removed his name and prison number from the department’s Offender Locator web page.
• Rashid is being given a choice: Starve himself to death, or agree to end the hunger strike and be kept at Red Onion, where he risks dying from inadequate health care for his heart condition and cancer.
• On Feb. 20, Rashid’s legal team said they were going to seek a preliminary injunction to keep him from being moved back to Red Onion.
• The hunger strike has received some media attention, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Free Press, a few smaller newspapers and Virginia Public Media’s Radio IQ, but Rashid’s condition has not yet been reported on.
• We are asking that every member of the media and the Virginia General Assembly contact Chadwick Dotson, Director of the Department of Corrections, ask about Rashid’s present medical condition and if he will be kept close to Richmond so he can receive the medical care he needs.
• Carrying out a hunger strike for nearly eight weeks is either an act of insanity or extreme desperation. A Virginia court has already ruled that Rashid is competent to make his own decisions. This must mean that he believes he is already facing a life-or-death situation by not receiving necessary medical care.

Please contact Director Dotson. It may save a courageous man’s life.

CHADWICK DOTSON

Director, Va. Department of Corrections

Email: Chadwick.Dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov

Phone: 804-674-3000 (Not his direct line. Call this number and ask to be connected with his office.)