[Dryerase] Eddie Hatcher

[Shawn G]

Asheville Global Report
www.AGRnews.org

Reprinting permitted for non-profit organizations, and members of the 
dry-erase news wire.

Hatcher sent to solitary for illness

By Elizabeth Allen

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 1 (AGR)—  After being written up for 
“refusing to submit to a drug test,” political prisoner Eddie Hatcher has 
been sentenced to 60 days “disciplinary segregation” this past week. 
Correction officers came into his cell at 1am on Monday morning for a 
routine “random” drug test. The previous day, Hatcher, who has AIDS, took a 
styrofoam cup of what he described as “almost pure blood” to the unit 
manager after noticing blood in his urine for about a week. The manager then 
called medical. However, Hatcher says he did not receive treatment that 
night and was informed the facility was already occupied by someone in lock 
up.
Later that night he said the nurse at the medicine window told him it 
sounded like he had a kidney stone, and to drink lots of water and fill out 
a sick call.
The condition made him able to urinate, a point he and a nurse from prison 
say is indicated in the medical documentation from the prison. Nevertheless, 
after suffering all weekend, he was administered a drug test. “I told the 
officer I had a health problem and I couldn’t pee if they’d give me parole. 
He told me to drink 8oz of water, which he gave me and then gave me two 
hours,” Hatcher recounts. Still physically unable to cooperate, Hatcher was 
written up.
In a phone conversation with Hatchers Sister, Ginger Ammerman, the nurse 
said if an inmate is unable to urinate then he is in kidney breakdown.
Ginger Ammerman, Hatcher’s sister, said she believes that he received extra 
time in the hole because he pleaded not guilty. Inmates are allowed appeal 
hearings for infractions.
“He has to appeal it himself, and can’t have an attorney. And where is it 
going to go?” Ammerman commented, reflecting her doubt that prison officials 
listen unbiased to an inmate’s cases.
In a conversation with Ammerman, Marion Correctional Superintendent Sid 
Harkleroad reportedly expressed that he and other employees at the prison 
were angry over the contents of Hatcher’s website, www.eddiehatcher.org. He 
mentioned that a couple of employees had contacted lawyers and wanted to sue 
Hatcher, even though the website uses no names and does not specifically 
incriminate any particular officer.
Hatcher’s website contains a new section specifically about the North 
Carolina prison system, including prison articles, poetry, and his personal 
prison dairy.
In this section Hatcher denounces the over 30 prison enterprises operating 
in NC which make the prisons nearly self-sufficient, leaving 80% of the 
Department of Correction (DOC) budget for salaries. He emphasizes that 
nonviolent inmates are treated so harshly that when released they will be 
ill-adjusted and violent, “releasing all of the pent up psychological 
torment compliments of the NC Department of Correction.”
“Prisons have become modern day torture chambers with chains attached to 
cold steel slabs were prisoners may lay naked in their own urine and feces 
for days and weeks,” said Hatcher on his website.
Currently, Hatcher is serving life without parole for the 1999 drive-by 
shooting murder of Brian McMillan, a 19-year-old drug dealer in Maxton, NC. 
A jury convicted Hatcher, after less than 3 hours of deliberation, of 
shooting into an occupied property and first degree murder. He was acquitted 
of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill McMillan’s 
girlfriend, Amila Chavis, who was shot in the hip during the incident. 
Forensic reports show that bullets found in McMillan’s body don’t match the 
rifle Hatcher carries in his truck. There were two types of bullets found on 
the crime scene. In order for Hatcher to have been able to commit the crime, 
he would have had to fire two weapons simultaneously while driving a 
five-speed truck down a country road at night – an impossible feat, 
considering that his left arm is permanently disabled due to a gunshot wound 
he received the previous November.
Hatcher’s conviction was partially based on an alleged “confession,” 
“casually” made to a police officer while the two  were alone, seven minutes 
after the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) read him his rights and he 
refused to make a statement, but asked to see an attorney. There is also 
evidence that the district attorney bribed witnesses, and had previous 
affiliations with and concealed information about a juror. During the trial 
Judge Frank Floyd ordered Hatcher to represent himself as a defendant in a 
capital case.
Prior to the recent jail time, Hatcher served five years after the 1988 
takeover of the Robesonian newspaper offices in Lumberton, NC. Hatcher and 
his friend Timmy Jacobs demanded to speak with Governor Jim Martian to get a 
guarantee of an investigation into dozens of uninvestigated, unsolved 
murders in which police were suspected of involvement, the local government 
corruption concerning the vibrant drug trade coming from I-95, and the death 
of a young Black man in the county jail. Several hostages were released 
unharmed after they negotiated with the governor, who, aside from looking 
into the county jail death, failed to hold up his end of the bargain.
Hatcher and Jacobs were motivated to do the takeover when Hatcher began to 
fear that he would be killed by law enforcement after they began staking out 
his apartment.
Hatcher says the police were keeping an eyeon him because he was 
investigating the Robeson County drug trade and had obtained documents which 
he says implicated the police in trafficking. Hatcher was a member of and 
served as secretary for Concerned Citizens for Better Government, a group 
founded in 1986 by members of the Native American and African American 
communities in reaction to the violence and evidence of police drug dealing 
in the area.
With the September death of Christopher Wood in Murphy and the approximately 
11 other inmate deaths this year
due to lack of medical attention, the treatment of inmates with medical 
problems has gotten a lot of press in recent times. Keith Acree, a public 
information officer for the NCDOC, asserted that most of the problems 
concerning lack of medical care that have been in the press occur in the 
county jails, run by the individual sheriff’s departments. They receive 
minimal state oversight from the Detention Services Department of the Health 
and Human Services office, which also regulates fire and safety codes.
Acree said that he felt the prison was capable of treating a prisoner with 
AIDS, and explained an inmate can be transferred to a different hospital 
facility within the system if sick call deems it necessary.
Ammerman remains doubtful that all necessary medical treatment has been 
provided.
“I know one thing for sure and that’s I can’t see him [Hatcher] or talk to 
him for 60 days, and Eddie might be dead in 60 days,” she said. She also 
said that a doctor had recommended a kidney sonogram on Hatcher because 
kidneys are a particular area of concern for AIDS patients.
“Certainty it doesn’t hurt for people to call or email [Marion Correctional 
Institution] and ask about Eddie and see if he’s doing ok and getting the 
treatment he needs,” said Ammerman. She also noted Hatcher has lost between 
70 and 80 pounds while in prison.
Acree said that the prison policy was to be both “fair and firm with every 
inmate,” and, “We don’t treat Eddie any differently than we treat any other 
inmate.”
In reference to the drug test, Acree claims Hatcher’s name just popped up 
randomly on the computer. and that, “Our medical folks said he was given 
adequate opportunity to give a sample.”
Acree said they weren’t punishing him for his website because he’s already 
had it for a number of years.
Superintendent Harkelroad’s secretary said Harkelroad was currently 
unavailable for comment and was not likely to do so.


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