The Federal Race War of the 80s as told by a DC Black

[Samson28]

The following was written by ‘Marion Brother’ Eddie Griffin”.

”This is a true story about the eruption of a race war in prison, and about the gladiators that fought them, how they lived and how they died. But of all the prison stories, there is none like the life and death of Raymond “Cadillac” Smith.

Sampson, that was my image of Cadillac, because he was equally as strong, battle hardened, and roared like a lion whenever he went into combat. And, on a good day, his signature battle cry would rattle the walls and shake all the prison cages.

No wonder, MEN IN PRISON FEARED HIM, both inmate and guard. He was invincible in hand-to-hand combat.

There was this old story about how an assailant once stabbed him in the chest, aiming for his heart. The knife folded like tin foil against an ox hide buff, muscles built by iron on the weightlifting pile. The attacker struck from behind, and when the knife wilted, he fled and sought protective custody in the arms of the nearest prison guard.

Cadillac laughed. He always laughed in the face of his enemies. And, there were times when his psychotic laughter caused even me to quiver.

TO HEAR HIM LAUGH WAS NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD FOR SOMEBODY.

They call prison the “belly of the beast”, not merely metaphoric, but because it churned like a cauldron sitting on top of the pit fires of hell.

I was there, at USP Leavenworth, sitting on a two-year parole date like a man holding hot gold in the palm of my hands, when the report of Cadillac’s assassination came to me by the Moors….

It was said of the Moors in prison that they could kill a man, stash the weapons where no one on earth could find them, wash their clothes and dry them, before prison officials could ever discover the body. As far as I know, the FBI had never been able to pin a murder on a Moors.

I was made an honorary Moor, given a kufi as headgear to wear while attending secret meetings, and being briefed on everything, except the “science”….

They knew the art and science of killing, Moroccan-style. And, Cadillac was heir to the “Sword of Justice”, a gleaming curve steel blade about two-feet long.”

When word came to me that the Aryan Brotherhood had assassinated Cadillac, the brothers insisted I not take part in the retaliation. After all, I was nursing a two-year parole release date, and the brothers wanted me to get back to the outside world.

Heretofore, no man had ever gone as deep as we had gone into the system, inside the belly of the beast. And, of those that did, nobody ever came back to the outside world to tell about it. This is why the brothers watched over me like angels. They wanted someone to come up out of super-maximum security and tell their stories and warn the kids especially to not get swallowed up into the belly of the beast, like we had."

April 26, 1983
The FBI memo read:

"At approximately 9:30 a.m. on December 9, 1982, [witness 67C], U.S. Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, while in the Institution’s east corridor adjacent to the entrance grille of C-Block, heard what sounded like loud moaning and screaming coming from the second floor of that unit. [Witness 67C] immediately proceeded to the second floor of C-Block and upon arrival at the stairway landing found inmate Neil Baumgarten, #20586-148, lying partially on the stairs and half-landing leading to C-2 recreation entrance door. Inmate Baumgarten was bleeding profusely from the upper portion of his body… With the assistance of two inmates, [Witness 67C] placed Baumgarten on a stretcher and he was thereafter transported to the Institution hospital.

At approximately 9:40 a.m., Baumgarten arrived at the Institution hospital and was provided emergency treatment by physicians assistants. At the time of treatment it was estimated the Baumgarten had sustained approximately 15 puncture wounds to the upper chest, back and abdomen area. Due to the severity of Baumgarten’s condition, he was immediately transferred to Evangelical Community Hospital, Lewisburg, PA, at approximately 9:55 a.m., and was pronounced dead at approximately 10:00 a.m. …
The crime scene was immediately secured and Special Agents (SAs) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responded to the Institution.

Institution authorities initiated a search of the A, B, C and D-Blocks of the Institution. In addition a search was conducted of the outside perimeter grounds in an attempt to locate physical evidence. The above searches failed to produce any weapon(s), articles of clothing or any suspected physical evidence. Inmates located with the living quarters at the time of the incident were secured and ultimately checked for any possible cuts, bruises, blood stains or torn clothing. All of the above met with negative results…

During the week of December 13-17, 1982, Institution staff and Special Agents of the FBI conducted numerous interviews of inmates towards the ultimate development of cooperative witnesses…

[Witness 67C] felt that the murder of Baumgarten occurred in retaliation for the murder of Cadillac Smith which occurred at the USP, Marion, Illinois, earlier in 1982…

During the period from December 1982 to the present, information has been received and compiled indicating the presence of a large group of inmates with the USP, Lewisburg, which has organized into a retaliatory and murder organization. This group is comprised of Black inmates from the Washington, D.C. area and is known as the “D.C. Blacks”. A large segment of this group also has membership and/or ties with the Moorish Science Temple. Information has been received indicating that this group of inmates have banded together and have plotted the murders and attempted murders of white inmates at the USP their cause being the retaliation of the killing of Raymond “Cadillac” Smith who was purportedly murdered at the USP, Marion, Illinois, by incarcerated members of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB)…

To support the above information, on December 11, 1982, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons transcript of a telephone conversation… indicated an imminent “war” between the AB and the D.C. Blacks at the USP, Leavenworth, and USP, Lewisburg. The “war” was in retaliation over the murder of Raymond “Cadillac” Smith."


More:

[Samson28]

This is also worth reading:
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/20 ... again.html

"A movie production company contacted me in 2008 about doing a documentary on the Aryan Brotherhood, based upon two AB white supremacists, Thomas Silverstein and Clay Fountain, stabbing Raymond “Cadillac” Smith-el to death inside Marion’s notorious Control Unit in 1982. But there were no eyewitnesses for the producer to interview. All were either dead or still in prison. It was not until the release of Nate Bailey in September 2009 that a first hand account could be given. But by then, M2 Pictures had made its documentary, which aired on the Discovery Channel in November 2009. The assassination of Cadillac did not make the cut.

So, it was a project that Nate Bailey and Glenn Simmons were going to complete: The story about Cadillac, one of the toughest prison gladiators that I ever encountered. His death set off the one of bloodiest prison race wars recorded in FBI history. His legacy has been told over and over again.

His assassin, Thomas Silverstein, has been dubbed as the “most dangerous man in prison” by the BBC. Silverstein has been convicted of killing three inmates and a prison guard, though one of the inmate killings has since been overturned. In his own defense of killing Cadillac, Silverstein cites passages of “Breaking Men’s Minds”, claiming that prison officials had pitted him, man against man, against Cadillac, that prison officials wanted them to kill each other.

Nate Bailey is one of the few survivors who saw it. He was supposedly in the process of writing a book about it. But now, here I am, writing about him, in my untold memoirs."

"Now, after only 17-months of freedom, Nate Bailey-el may be on his way back to prison for the rest of his life. His friend and mentor, Glenn, feels that he could have done more to help Nate. I feel even worse, because I was supposed to be his guide and help him recover from the mental scares that he suffered in the Control Unit. The behavior modification program at Marion, which he describes above, was the subject of “Breaking Men’s Minds” written by me in 1977.

Nate remembered my work as a Marion Brother. In his email, he wrote:

It is truly an Honor to be among the ranks of the forgotten few who really earned the degree of MARION BROTHER...For the only few who endured actually know the true meaning of the "SOUTHERN TIP". Those who been and made it out never healed or never was the same, the behavior program laid down there touched the core of the human factor in a man... Brother, the system was a battlefield at which you can attest, we all was in the mist of the fight on a national level. I have a host of rich authentic information which lead up to the Brother’s (Cadillac) passing because I was there. The Brother (Glenn) told me you will be contacting me and I welcome it because I am still finding it hard for those who never been there… (who) fail to understand in our attempt to communicate what it was like for the designed system to suck the LIFE out of a man when he was still breathing...Yes, I do remember you...A MARION BROTHER."

[Samson28]

More:

"It was George Jackson who expanded the violence to the noninvolved….

One day he pulled together a crew of three or four and at the after-lunch lockup, led them along the second tier of the South Cell House. There they stabbed every white on the tier, all of whom wore white jumpsuits, for they had just gotten off bus and had no idea they would be attacked for being white. One died, and one vaulted the railing to avoid the stabbing blades broke both his angles on the concrete below.”

“War Behind Walls”:

Page 5: Men without friends, those trying to quietly serve a term and get out, were in the worst predicament. They had no allies. Warriors stayed together, knew many of their opposition, suspected others from hairstyle, mannerism, and association.

Page 6: The huge cellblocks were silent and motionless as tombs during the evening. Beneath the silence furies were gathering. It had gone too far to end. Whites had to make a showing. If there was no reprisal the blacks would stab and rip off whenever they had the whim.

Is it any wonder Silverstein clicked up? The AB’s oath “Blood in blood out” is binding.
Page 145 of The Hot House: “Four years later, he was paroled, but he was arrested soon after along with his FATHER Thomas Conway, and his cousin Gerald Hoff for three armed robberies….

Bureau records show that Silverstein was sent to the Hot House for the first time in March 1977 to serve a fifteen-year sentence for armed robbery.

Page 148: …on February 17, 1979, a convict named Danny Edward Atwell stumbled from his cell and collapsed on the tier…. He died within minutes. The next day, Silverstein and his prison buddies… were charged with murder…

The jury found Silverstein guilty and on March 3, 1980, he was sentenced to life in prison and transferred to the penitentiary at Marion….

‘I was innocent,’ Silverstein later recalled. ‘I was being framed by these rats who had just flushed my life down the toilet. I was going to Marion with a life sentence, and I had a real attitude problem because I was pissed. I figured I didn’t have much to lose.’

On appeal a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said it was appalled by the quagmire of conflicting testimony and recanted statements…The judges ordered federal prosecutors to either dismiss the murder charge against Silverstein or conduct a new trail.”

There was no retrial.

The scene at Marion:

Page 228: “From the outside, Marion has always looked peaceful… But in 1980 inside there was no such serenity. …between January 1980 and October 1983, there were more serious disturbances at Marion than at any other prison, including fourteen escape attempts, ten group uprisings, fifty-eight serious inmate-on-inmate assaults, thirty-three attacks on staff, and nine murders….

Because Silverstein had been convicted of killing Atwell, he was assigned a cell in the ‘control unit’ when he first arrived….At the time, it was the only long-term facility in which prisoners were locked in single-man cells all day and allowed out only to shower or to exercise.

On November 22, 1981, at 7:15 p.m. guards discovered the body of Robert Marvin Chappelle, a convicted killer and member of the D.C. Blacks prison gang. “

Some information on this gang can be found in the book “The Hot House” on Page 105:
“The black inmates were from Washington D.C., and were known simply as “D.C. Blacks.” They were one of the most difficult groups at Leavenworth for guards to control….”

When called to the stand to testify Norman Matthews… was asked whether he could remember November 22, 1981, he replied, “It was the day I killed Chappelle.”
Although Matthews had previously given a statement to the FBI confessing to the murder–his confession in open court caused a commotion.

Defense counsel said, “All right, now, Mr. Matthews, you have right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States not to incriminate yourself. Do you understand that?” Matthews replied, “Yes.”

When the judge finished explaining Matthews’ Fifth Amendment right to him, Matthews replied, “Maybe I should take the Fifth…. You convinced me I should protect my rights, sir.” The judge then instructed the jury to disregard Matthew’s testimony.

The judge improperly excluded the evidence of a key defense witness, Norman Matthews. Matthews had been an inmate in C range on the day of Chappelle’s murder, and had been let out to recreate right after Silverstein and Fountain were returned to their cells.

The jury convicted Silverstein and Fountain of murder, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The lapse in security that allowed Chappelle to be murdered in his cell cannot be passed over in silence. Because many of the inmates confined in Marion are serving long prison terms without prospect of early parole, the deterrent effects of criminal punishment cannot be relied upon to control the crime rate in the Control Unit. The price of murder must not be perceived as being too high and to some it must be close to zero. This makes it essential that the prison authorities protect the inmates from each other.

Page 121: “Raymond ‘Cadillac’ Smith, at the time was the most powerful D.C. Black in prison.”

Page 230: “Chapplle’s death worried some bureau officials, who feared that it might start a war between the AB and the D.C. Blacks gang. But apparently it did not worry them enough to separate gang members at Marion. In fact, while Silverstein and Fountain were on trail for Chappelle’s murder, the bureau transferred Raymond “Cadillac” Smith, the national leader of the D.C. Blacks prison gang, from another prison into the control unit in Marion and put in a cell near Silverstein’s.

The bureau would later insist it had nowhere else within the entire system secure enough to place Smith, even though guards knew that Chappelle had been a close friend of Smith’s and that Smith had vowed to avenge his death.

From the moment that Smith arrived in the control unit, prison logs show that he began trying to kill Silverstein.

On September 6, 1982, guards opened Smith’s cell electronically so that he could walk down the narrow tier to the shower stall. En route, he stopped in front of Silverstein’s cell, pulled a knife from under his towel, and swung at him through the bars…

Page 231: A few days later, guards caught Smith trying to shoot Silverstein with a zip gun….

“I tried to tell Cadillac that I didn’t kill Chappelle, but he didn’t believe me and bragged that he was going to kill me,” Silverstein recalled."

[Samson28]

The ghost abd the Cadillac:
http://pub26.bravenet.com/forum/static/ ... 8&cmd=show

"In reading Eddie's blog further I found a striking similarity between the stories of Cadillac and Casper the unfriendly ghost. Here are excerpts from his disturbing stories. I hope you can sleep after reading this.

http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/search?q=Casper

Casper the unfriendly ghost:

Speaking from experience, nobody likes to be roused out of their sleep by an armed robber or murderer.

One morning in my prison cell, I was paid a visit by Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost. They called him Casper, because he had killed 10 men in Atlanta Federal Prison. Nobody ever saw him. He left no evidence, other than the slit throat of his victims. Over a period of years, during the 1970s, the FBI never caught him. That is how he got the nickname Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost.

Doing time in a super-maximum security prison can be draining. There was always tension in the air and threats of violence all around. And every night, when I returned to my cell, I was totally fatigue and exhausted. My only reprieve was sleep, an escape for the mind, into a painless abyss. But even in the twilight world, there is the dragon.

Out of another world, I was called out of my sleep at the touch of a sharp object at my throat, and immediately I tumbled out of bed clutching the arm of a hand with eagle claws. It was the hand of a man who had sharpened his fingernails into hardened talons like that of an eagle or a falcon.

The dawn had not yet broken. It was chow time. All the cell doors were open. And, I had overslept. Now I was wrestling for my life against a man with a claw for a hand, a convicted murderer.

To make a long story short, we wrestled to an exhausted standoff. He warned me to never oversleep again. And, that was when he told me the story of Casper. He was the infamous killer of 10 inmates who all overslept, and was attacked early in the morning before men emerged from their cells for breakfast.

Strange that we would become friends and he would become one of my trainers. Every morning thereafter, before day, he appeared at my cell door, checking to see if I was awake and alert. From there, we would drink honey, run 10 miles around the track, barefooted on jagged rocks, lift weights, and punch the punching bag until our knuckles bled. And, after all this, he would come at me in fury, and say, “Stop me from killing you.”

He had a killer’s instinct and he thirst for it. And, there was little doubt in my mind that he would kill me, if I slacked off one bit, if I slumbered just a little, got too comfortable, or folded my arms to get some rest. He would kill me at the drop of a hat pin.

So, this is how I learned not to oversleep.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall poverty come upon you like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:33)

I would be the survivor who came out of prison alive. But my counterpart died.

My counter-part was Raymond Smith-el, a Moorish Science of America gladiator, known as the Sword of Justice, street named “Cadillac”.

Cadillac laughed. He always laughed in the face of his enemies. And, there were times when his psychotic laughter caused even me to quiver. To hear him laugh was not good, not good at all for somebody.

http://eglibraryreferences.blogspot.com ... iator.html

So we have in both stories a stealthy cold blooded killer and although both are his training partners he fears both but considers them his friends.

In my opinion Casper may be Chappelle. Both Casper and Chappelle are said to be convicted killers and friends of Cadillac. Remember this from Tom's Bio.

"On November 22, 1981, at 7:15 p.m. guards discovered the body of Robert M. Chappelle, a convicted killer and member of the D.C. Blacks prison gang."

The Casper killing were in the 70's and stopped after his transfer to Marion where he was killed!

Sleep must have also been difficult for Tom with these two men lurking around. It gives me the creeps!! "