Taxstone Speaks on Rikers Island Conditions During Coronavirus Pandemic
Written by SOURCE on April 2, 2020
As the world struggles with the global health crisis, some of those who are faring the worst are prisoners, whose living conditions are only declining amid the spread of COVID-19.
Taxstone—who is currently incarcerated on Rikers Island—decided to be very candid about what prisoners are dealing with. “I’m currently in my grave, with my eyes open, dirt up to my neck, getting dizzy as the world turns,” he wrote in a note on Twitter. “For a month now, we haven’t been allowed visits, legal or social. Understandable, considering what’s going on. But what I don’t understand is how the only people we have contact with on the outside, the correctional officers and civilians, have no protective gear and they aren’t giving us anything to protect ourselves.”
He said that while he knows some people are being released from prison due to the pandemic he noted that others are not. “I see head of corrections stating not to release people charged with murder, rape or robbery…like it’s ok for THEM die,” he wrote.
“The moral code that they have written and are now breaking, goes against all codes of humanity, in the middle of a global pandemic.” Taxstone continued, “We’re being raped of our rights of being innocent until proven guilty, and being left on an island to be murdered by this uncontrolled serial killer called Covid-19. They don’t even care about the correctional officers. We’re all just a check at the end of the day, in one of the industries that are still intact during this global pandemic. The correction officers have families too, you think they want to catch something and bring it home to their families? Of course not!”
Tax also detailed how an inmate in a cell near him was just told his mother passed away from COVID-19. That inmate was jailed for a 3-month parole violation and was held an extra month because of the pandemic.
Tax shared that he was going on Instagram Live around 5 p.m. ET, where he reiterated some of the points he made in his Twitter note. However, the Live session disconnected after 11 minutes. At the time that this was written, the session hadn’t resumed.
The former podcast host of Tax Season was incarcerated in 2017 after pleading guilty to federal gun charges, following a 2016 shooting in New York where Troy Ave’s bodyguard died.
On Thursday, news surfaced that 6ix9ine was released from jail because he is more susceptible to contracting coronavirus due to his asthma. He will now be on a supervised release and serve the first four months under house arrest, which will be monitored by a GPS tracker.
