The Incident
6:40 am, April 20, 2007. It’s the federal prison at Pollock, Louisiana. Cellblock B-2. The day is just beginning. Some are still sleeping. Others have gone to the chow hall for breakfast. Eddie Branch and Michael Henderson are watching an overhead TV directly in front of Eddie’s cell. Eddie has his coffee and Mike has his coffee and cereal bowl. Eddie is also listening to some music with ear-buds in his ears. They’re still just waking up.
6:42:00 am. Eddie’s cellmate, Derrick Sparks, a 25 year old fellow from Kansas, walks back to B-2 building. The sally port is an anteroom with an inner door that opens to the unit, while its outer door opens to the yard. The inner door swings into the sally port, and the outer door is a sliding door. Derrick goes through the sally port and enters the B-2 building where, unbeknownst to him, Tyrone Johnson is hiding in wait just inside the door. As Derrick crosses in front of him, Tyrone lashes out with a shiv and slits his throat.
6:42:45 am. As Derrick runs from Tyrone and toward the plastic chairs in front of the TV, Tyrone lunges forward and sticks the knife into Derrick’s lower right ribcage. Derrick crashes into the chairs which is the first time Eddie and Mike become aware of the incident, Mike just a moment before Eddie because of the ear-buds.
6:42:50 am. Mike Henderson testifies later that at this point he sees Tyrone pull the knife out of Derrick’s ribs. He says, “And Bubba Sparks [Derrick] was running straight at me, holding his neck, and it looked like blood was squirting out of it, and he was saying, ‘I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.’ At this point you don’t know what’s happening, but I seen a guy running right behind him pull a knife out of Bubba’s ribs.” The trial never disclosed what Tyrone Johnson had accused Bubba Sparks of doing, but we may never know since both of them are dead. [Trial Page 160: 5-16]
This is how the morning started, and you can find Mike’s testimony beginning on page 157 of the trial transcript.
Michael Henderson continues to testify. Bubba ran right into him, spilling blood onto his uniform. He saw Johnson swing the knife and hit Eddie before Eddie could even get out of the chair.
At this point Eddie started up, but Johnson got him to the floor and stabbed him a total of some 6 times. Mike threw a plastic trash can at Tyrone which startled him and distracted him from Eddie. Mike says he did not at that point if Eddie were alive or dead because he was just laying there. Another inmate, Victor Novene, showed up and told Michael to get the hell out of there, which he did.
It’s important to note here that Victor Novene was a witness for Eddie Branch. He is a black man who had not seen how the incident began, and did not come to Eddie’s aid, but he later reported accurately what he saw. It’s also important to note that Michael Henderson did not go outside, but went upstairs to his cell. There, Mike also armed himself with his belt and lock, an improvised weapon. [Trial Page 162: 1-3]
Race has become less and less important in daily life in the US. However, in its prisons it is a major factor if not THE factor in how smoothly the prison runs. Because the District of Columbia is not a state, the federal prison system is the equivalent of the state prisons for Washington, D.C. About 80% of the Pollock United States Prison (USP) is black, the other 20% being white and Hispanic. Tyrone Johnson was black, Eddie and Michael are white and Tyrone’s first victim, Derrick, was white.
Victor said that Eddie lay on the floor fighting off Tyrone while calling for help. [Trial Page 171: 3-4] No help arrived. The videos even show one guy getting ice while all this was going on, as if he knew that the subsequent lock-down was going to require that he stock up now. Violence in prisons is terrifying to all, but happens frequently enough that people know to stay out of other peoples’ business.
While all this was going on, Derrick Sparks made his way back to the sally port, bleeding profusely from his neck. A guard came through the outer sally port door at that moment, and Derrick slumped to the floor. The government’s forensic pathologist, Dr. Susan M. Garcia, testified that Derrick suffered two stab wounds to the head, one to the lower back region above his right hip, and had some abrasions on top of his left shoulder. [Trial Page 87: 22-25]
While there are 5 stationary cameras and one remotely-controlled camera in the B-2 unit, not one of them was capable of focusing on the area near Tyrone’s cell. This gave Tyrone a blind spot in which to operate.
Right before the two of them disappear from the videos, you can see Tyrone pull Eddie, who is still on the ground, into that blind spot. Whether it was the trash can that brought him back to his senses or just a sense of invincibility we will never know. But there is John Ward’s testimony that at this point Tyrone says to Eddie, “Nigger, get your shit Cowboy.” And at this point Tyrone lets Eddie up. [Trial Page 180: 18]
Victor Novene testified that Tyrone made the same or a similar statement, “In the course of me coming out of my cell, he told me to go get his – to go get his knife. In the course of my coming out of my cell, he told me to go get his knife, yes. [Trial Page 171: 8-10] Whether Tyrone was telling Eddie to get his ‘shit’ or whether his remark was intended for Victor Novene, the fact is that Tyrone backed off and allowed Eddie up off the floor. His actions would seem to indicate that Victor misunderstood. [In the days following the incident, Eddie told me that Tyrone looked him square in the eyes and asked, “You want to go at it?” which he followed with “Go get your shit.”]
We cannot see what Tyrone is doing. One report said that he returned to his cell [where he may have picked up a second shank – the one that was later found on the floor of the shower]. The remote controlled camera focused on Eddie who went to his own cell where he retrieved a plastic [later called Plexiglass™] shank.
Eddie said later he knew the plastic would not stand up against Tyrone’s metal weaponry, so he went two doors down to John Wayne “Cowboy” Hudson. Cowboy said that he gave him the knife that he carried in his right pocket. [Trial Page 111: 15-17] He also said that there was a guard standing just to his left. This also figures in. [Trial Page 112: 11-13]
Cowboy testified against Eddie, and his testimony begins on page 109 of the trial transcript.
As the videos show, Eddie, now armed with the two shanks, goes and stands in an area in front of his cell, an area his attorney likened to standing on his front porch. There was already testimony to the fact that an inmate could not lock themselves into their cell, so the cell itself offered no security. So Eddie stood on his front porch and waited.
The videos show that hardly a moment elapsed when Tyrone then advanced on Eddie. Remember that the entire incident took place in 1:48 minutes, but the fact borne out by the cameras is that Eddie was standing stock still immediately before Tyrone advanced on him. Tyrone is again the instigator and the aggressor. [See testimony of Lt. Anthony Garrow, Trial Page 66: 16-20.]
James A. McCullough, a senior corrections officer, testified that he saw Eddie stab Tyrone approximately 3 to 5 times in the head. And it’s true that Eddie stabbed his attacker in the head to stop him. But Victor Novene who was right there said that Eddie did not stab Tyrone once Tyrone was on the ground, meaning that the stabbings must have taken place inside the shower and out of view of the guards. Victor was immediately present – both men were right in front of him. McCullough was watching at an angle through the glass in the door. The door behind which 11 guards were standing and waiting, never venturing into the unit to stop the fight.
An ambulance came for both Derrick Sparks and Tyrone Johnson. Eddie was taken bleeding to an outdoor recreation cell and left there. It was 2 hours later that an Hispanic inmate ‘reminded’ the guards that he was out there and doing badly. The testimony of Physician Assistant Will Vasquez states that his treatment of Eddie was at 8:45 a.m. That was a full 2 hours after the incident. All that time he had been left unattended in the outdoor holding cell. [Trial Page 103: 7-13]
According to the Forensic Pathologist, Derrick had suffered sharp force injury to the base of his neck, and a second lethal injury to the common carotid artery. He had two additional stab wounds to his head, and one to the lower back region above his right hip. [Trial Page 87: 16-25]
Derrick passed away shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Tyrone died 3 days later.
Please see the layout of B-2 to visualize the distances involved. You have to look at the actual measurements because the diagram is not to scale.
