Culture News

Tekashi 6ix9ine Is Afraid of Dying from Coronavirus in Prison, and He's Not Alone.

Healthcare professionals say that nonviolent and at-risk prisoners must released from facilities ASAP.

Katch/Shutterstock

UPDATE: Tekashi 6ix9ine was released from prison this week. He will serve the rest of his sentence on house arrest.

The rapper, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was incarcerated in December 2019 for involvement in a violent street gang. His lawyer, Lance Lazzarro, has called for his immediate release due to the fact that Hernandez suffers from asthma, a vulnerability that puts him at risk from coronavirus. Hernandez was also hospitalized last year for bronchitis and sinusitis, and he has been suffering from shortness of breath, one of the main symptoms of COVID-19.

"Mr. Hernandez has been complaining to prison officials this week of shortness of breath, but apparently the warden of his facility will not allow Mr. Hernandez to go to the hospital despite the recommendation of the facility's medical director that Mr. Hernandez be treated by a doctor at a hospital," Lazzaro said.

In Britain, Julian Assange's lawyers are also requesting the WikiLeaks founder's release on the basis of health risks. He will make an application for bail on Wednesday.

Tekashi 6ix9ine Isn't the Only Immunocompromised Prisoner—Most Just Don't Have Lawyers

Tekashi 6ix9ine and Julian Assange are a few of the many current prison inmates facing profound risks from coronavirus. Even if you dislike them personally, their desperate pleas should raise the alarm about the state of prisons on the whole in light of our global pandemic.

As the rest of the world self-isolates and as New York City shuts down, inmates remain in close quarters, making prisoners extremely vulnerable to exposure—and most of them don't have access to a lawyer and press coverage.

Prisons and coronavirus is a particularly dangerous combination, one that could lead to disaster. "Jails and prisons are often dirty and have really very little in the way of infection control," said Homer Venters, former chief medical officer at Rikers' Island. "There are lots of people using a small number of bathrooms. Many of the sinks are broken or not in use. You may have access to water, but nothing to wipe your hands off with, or no access to soap."

Inside prisons, it may be nearly impossible to successfully separate sick patients from well patients. Outbreaks are inevitable, and healthcare in prisons is often lacking to begin with.

Because of this, most public health officials are arguing that the best solution to the problem is mass release. According to the Marshall Project, Mark Stern, the former Assistant Secretary for the Washington State Department of Corrections, has suggested "downsizing" prison populations in order to ensure inmate and staff health and safety. Downsizing might involve releasing low-risk prisoners and proposing alternatives to arrest for certain crimes.

David Falthi, director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, puts it more succinctly. "The only effective response is to reduce the population density by releasing people," Fathi says, "starting with those who are most at risk of severe injury or death if they were to contract the virus." In particular, people who suffer from preexisting health conditions, like Tekashi 6ix9ine, and other vulnerable populations like older people, ought to be sent back to their families where they can isolate and be taken care of.

"Across the U.S. we have built a system of punishment that is traumatic, and this is only increased with the coronavirus," said Becca Fealk, an organizer with the American Friends Service Committee of Arizona. "ADC must do more than just provide soap to reduce the chance of an outbreak. They need to release people, including older/aging adults who can be cared for by their loved ones."

Many prison administrations have insisted that they're complying with the CDC's guidelines with regards to their incarcerated populations, but if prisons aren't providing inmates with basic human rights and living supplies—and if even Tekashi 6ix9ine can't get to a doctor—how can we expect them to take care of people during an outbreak?

Prisons Begin Releasing Inmates—But Is It Enough?

Faced with a public health crisis that could lead to mass deaths, prisons all around the nation and the world are taking note. Alameda County plans to release 250 inmates, per NPR, and Los Angeles jails have also begun releasing nonviolent inmates. In New Jersey, up to 1,000 inmates will be released this Thursday, including those serving for parole violations and those serving municipal court convictions. In some places, prisons and law enforcement are coming together to reduce their inmate population. France has delayed or suspended short-term sentences, reducing daily prison admissions from 200 to 30.

These actions garnered support from Senator Kamala Harris, who tweeted that the Bureau of Prisons should release "all low-risk inmates, including those who are in pretrial detention because they can't afford to make bail."

Some jails are also beginning to waive copays in an effort to make sure their incarcerated populations receive healthcare.

"The state's decision to temporarily suspend the $4 copay — the equivalent of a week's worth of work at the prisoner minimum wage of 10 cents an hour — for people reporting cold and flu-like symptoms is a step in the right direction," said Prison Law Office attorney Corene Kendrick, "but it exposes how counterproductive it is to have such a barrier to seeking care. Unfortunately, prior to the COVID-19 crisis," she added, "We regularly heard from incarcerated people that there were shortages of hygiene supplies such as toilet paper and menstrual products." Many incarcerated people's families wind up paying for their hygiene and healthcare.

The coronavirus crisis is exposing the flaws in many institutions, and mass incarceration is just one of them. All these revelations beg deeper questions about why inmates weren't given these supplies or opportunities in the first place. Activists have been asking these questions for years, and the tragedy of the American carceral system has come to the fore in the case of migrants enclosed on the U.S.-Mexico border and in ICE facilities across the nation.

In three ICE detention centers in New Jersey, prisoners are currently on hunger strike in protest of poor conditions and coronavirus risks. One detainee told Vice that his fellow inmates are being kept in a small room without access to soap or even cleaning supplies.

"They say they are locking us in so we can be protected," said a current hunger striker named Olisa Uzoegwu. "But they don't do anything different. The cells stink. The toilets don't flush. There's never enough soap. They give out soap once a week. One bar of soap a week. How does that make any sense?"

This week, hundreds of doctors and thousands of activist organizations expressed this concern about these issues, flooding ICE with letters demanding that they release their overcrowded detention centers. The only crime committed by inmates in these facilities is usually non-sanctioned entry to the United States. Despite all this, ICE is still making arrests. Agents were spotted tracking down undocumented immigrants in San Francisco the day of the state's lockdown.

A Global Issue and a Gathering Storm: Colombia, France, Iran, and the US Grapple with Prison Risks

But the coronavirus pandemic is a global issue, and prisons all around the world are facing questions about how to handle incarcerated populations and prison employees. In some cases, inmates are taking things into their own hands. In Colombia, a prison riot left 23 inmates dead. Prisoners were rioting in protest of overcrowding and poor health services that they felt left them at an extreme risk. Riots have also broken out in prisons in Brazil and Italy.

The largest prison coronavirus outbreak in the nation is in New York City, with 38 inmates at the Rikers' Island prison testing positive; 20 have been released, and 200 more will be tested today. In As Mayor Bill DeBlasio considers whether to release 200 more people, 551 people serving "city sentences" for minor offenses and another 666 serving for technical parole or probation violations (like missing a drug test or a parole check-in) are trapped in Rikers alone. These are nonviolent offenders who do not deserve to be exposed to a potentially deadly virus. Still, the New York Police Chief has said that his officers will not cease making arrests, even though 70 officers have tested positive for COVID-19.

All across the nation and the world, jails are releasing inmates. Why they—especially nonviolent offenders—were there in the first place begs a different question. For now, the most important thing is to open the jails and let the people go. Short of mass release, prisons should not be arresting new inmates outside of extreme circumstances; they need to take more precautionary measures, institute comprehensive testing and quarantine, and follow protocols like those called for by the Federal Defenders of New York.

"A storm is coming," wrote Ross MacDonald, the chief physician at Rikers. "We have told you who is at risk. Please let as many out as you possibly can."

How to Help

In the meantime, anyone concerned can make a call to their state representative and inquiring about their current efforts; calling airports and prisons using this script from the New Sanctuary Coalition; participating in actions and protests like those being hosted by the Never Again Action, donating to the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other similar organizations.



CULTURE

Tekashi 6ix9ine's Made Snitching Cool

The bastard got away with it...for now

Tekashi 6ix9inePower 105.1's Powerhouse NYC concert, Inside, New Jersey, USA - 28 Oct 2018

Photo by Steve Ferdman/Shutterstock

Exactly one year ago, 22-year-old Daniel Hernandez was known to the masses as a gruff, Bushwick-based rapper with rainbow-colored hair.

As Tekashi 6ix9ine, Hernandez's brash antics always spoke louder than his music, and, as a result, he became the perfect pop culture patsy. The more attention he got, the more attention he sought. By the end of his breakout rise in 2017, Tekashi 6ix9ine had already faked his own death. By the end of 2018, he was on trial for federal racketeering charges, among a slew of other crimes, and he faced a minimum of 32 years in prison.

The fall of 6ix9ine was imminent, and after Hernandez spilled his guts on the witness stand, exposing the wrongdoings of the Nine Trey Bloods, it seemed he had sealed his fate. In the case of two of his convictions, 6ix9ine's music played in court as confessional testimony, to which Hernandez agreed that his lifestyle was no different than the antics described in his music. The trial garnered an insane amount of media attention and in the process set an ugly precedent for the way rappers are charged. "6ix9ine worked with the authorities to argue that...his art reflects reality," wrote Pitchfork. "He is essentially the biggest rapper ever to say there is no difference between his life and his art, the argument so often and so dangerously lobbed at musicians with far less resources to defend themselves." Hernandez sang like a canary with perfect pitch, and his career was seemingly ending the same way it began: in the form of a meme.

Tekashi 6ix9ine Appears to Order Hit on Chief Keef's Cousin in Shocking New Video | TMZwww.youtube.com

But here we are, 13 months later, on the day of his sentencing, and media outlets speculated all week long how the saga of 6ix9ine would end. Word spread like wildfire (mostly by 6ix9ine and his defense team), that the rapper might walk away today with time served, to which the internet was divided. The judge did not go that route and instead sentenced Hernandez to 2 years in federal prison, plus five years of supervised probation. It seems to be a fitting end to the reign of 6ix9ine, with Daniel Hernandez emerging from his fame-induced coma to issue what appeared to be an honest apology for misrepresenting himself. "I was blessed with the gift of an opportunity that most people dream of but squandered it by getting involved with the wrong people," he told the court today. "I should have been true to myself and my fans."

But 6ix9ine's career is far from over. While behind bars, the rapper inked a $10 million record deal. Complex, Rolling Stone, and Showtime are all crafting various docu-series on 6ix9ine's life. With all this commotion, it's easy for people to forget that the crimes charged came at the expense of real victims. Prior to the sentencing, a handful of victims penned impact statements to Judge Paul Engelmayer and pleaded that Hernandez serves the maximum sentence. "[He] destroyed the normal adulthood that I was striving for," wrote one victim. Did the victims get the justice they deserved, or were their traumatic experiences ultimately undermined?

Either way, 6ix9ine still remains a hurricane, consuming media attention and money despite the very real destruction his actions have caused. As the public awaits the fate of another sour-puss pop culture autocrat, the trial of 6ix9ine in its entirety serves as a fair indicator for how justice is upheld against celebrities. They don't entirely get away with it, but they still kind of do.

MUSIC

7 Smart Ways for Tekashi 6ix9ine to Spend His Millions

With his new record deal and pending release from prison, the world is his oyster!

Katch/Shutterstock

From his face tattoos to his Nine Trey Bloods associations, and then his extensive cooperation with law enforcement to snitch on those associates, Tekashi 6ix9ine has made a name for himself by ignoring advice and being as over the top as he can possibly be.

And so far that's worked out great! First he aligned himself with dangerous criminals, then he got kidnapped by one, then he was offered a way out—which he ignored—then he was arrested for racketeering, and immediately flipped on his former associates.

Already, dangerous people who want 6ix9ine dead are being sent away, and more convictions are certain to follow, which is expected to drastically reduce the 47 year minimum sentence 6ix9ine would otherwise be facing. His sentencing is scheduled for December, and there's even speculation that he'll be released then for time served. Meanwhile, the notoriety he's earned has resulted in an unheard of $10 million, two album record deal with 10K Projects. With all this success piling up, what could possibly go wrong?

With that in mind, he can still have a bright future ahead of him, as long as 6ix9ine makes smart purchases with his millions of dollars.

A Brand New Crew


6ix9ine loves hanging out with big tough guys, but his old group of pals probably won't be a good choice anymore. It's time for an upgrade! But where do you go when you need tough guys today? For around a million dollars a year, you can hire tough guys to follow you around everywhere you go, looking tough, and keeping an eye out for the haters.

MUSIC

Famous Criminals Who Were More Loyal Than Tekashi 6ix9ine

While 6ix9ine sings like a canary on the witness stand, let's take a look at some of the most "loyal" criminals of all time.

Tekashi 6ix9ine at Trillerfest Miami at Miami Marine Stadium

Photo by Walik Goshorn - MediaPunch- Shutterstock

As Tekashi Snitch-Nine wraps up his first day of testimony against former gang members of Nine Trey Bloods, it's important to remember that other major criminals in history have done the same thing but should still be considered more loyal than Tekashi.

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