Michigan prisoners rebel

Prisoners in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan rose up and took control of their housing unit for over five hours on Sunday night, Sept. 13. In a display of commendable organization and militancy, over 40 incarcerated workers rebelled after a guard at the Chippewa Correctional Facility used a Taser weapon on their fellow prisoner, causing them to lose consciousness.

While the injured prisoner was being taken away, prisoners seized on the opportunity to force staff out of the housing block. Guards were forced to abandon the unit. The facility’s administration even had to admit that the prisoners’ seizure of power was so swift that no guards were even injured in the takeover.

The Chippewa facility has a capacity of over 2,000 prisoners. Like so many weapons of genocide and dislocation in the U.S. empire, this concentration camp is named after the Indigenous people of this continent. “Chippewa” is an anglicization of Ojibwe, the name of one of the bands of Anishinabe people, who are native to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Anishinabe, Dakota and Menominee peoples all called the Upper Peninsula home long before Europeans arrived in North America. (tinyurl.com/yyxkguw5)