From the Shoatz family:

We learned just last week that our beloved elder Russell Maroon Shoatz contracted COVID 19. Maroon is a prisoner in Pennsylvania and a former Black Panther who has been imprisoned since 1970. He is 77 years old.

He has been living with stage 4 colon cancer since last year. And just as he was exiting the prison walls last week to get the tumor removed at a hospital, he was stopped at the door and asked to take a COVID test. He tested positive. Immediately they sent him to a small gymnasium where others with COVID are being quarantined in the prison. When he got there, he found 29 senior prisoners who said to him: "welcome. We've been waiting for you, we figured it wasn't long before you got it too."

This means that there are 30 seniors with COVID in a dank, cold gymnasium in a prison in PA. They are being held under the most inhumane conditions imaginable. 30 men including Maroon had access to only one bathroom. Maroon was put in a space without a light and had go to the bathroom on himself because he couldn't risk getting up and falling.

Maroon's family and the community mobilized and we won his transfer to the infirmary. But we need him to come home.

But this human rights catastrophe is repeating itself across the state and across the country because prisons are a death trap in the age of COVID. Prisons are on lock down in PA right now because the virus is spreading like a storm. Countries around the world like Iran and Turkey have massivley released prisoners, but the United States has refused to decarcerate it's mostly black and latinx prison population.

Russell Maroon Shoatz is no danger to his community. He has stage 4 cancer and he has COVID. The civilized and humane thing to do is to allow him to go home to his family. We are asking for his immediate release and for the immediate release of all other aging prisoners over the age of 50 and those with pre-existing conditions for whom incarceration is a death sentence. We ask for the immediately and unconditional release of Maroon!!

All PA-based organizations, please sign a community letter demanding the immediate release of Russell Maroon Shoatz.

New Go-Fund Me to support the Shoatz Family

For sample tweets and graphics, check out the #FreeMaroon Social Media Kit

Continue to Call Governor Tom Wolfe

Contact: (717) 787-2500

Russell Shoatz’s health is rapidly deteriorating. Demand Immediate Release of Russell Maroon Shoatz #AF-3855. They track the calls from different phones and how many times they same number calls so please keep calling and activate your networks.

Our sincere gratitude for all of your support!