A former policewoman who served time in prison for her husband’s murder has criticized California’s incarceration laws for housing her with a transgender triple murderer accused of molesting female inmates.
Tomiekia Johnson, who shot her husband Marcus Lemons in February 2009, told DailyMail.com that during her years behind bars she was insulted and harassed by several transgender inmates, most recently by Dana Rivers – a former transgender activist who turned out to be a lesbian. couple and their adopted son in a 2016 hate crime.
“I feel betrayed,” Johnson told DailyMail.com. “I was very vocal about not being put in the same unit (as Rivers) — they did anyway.”
She claims that since California passed a controversial law in 2021 that would allow convicts to choose their prison based on their gender identity, female inmates at Central California Women’s Facility have been “afraid to speak out.” She said prison officials systematically punish those who question the “progressive” move.
After filing a report on Rivers in June, she claimed that not only was she fired from her job as an educator at the prison, but she was directly punished by prison officials who locked her in solitary confinement for eight hours after she filed the complaint. submitted.
Tomieka Johnson, a former police officer who claims she killed her husband in self-defense in 2009 after years of domestic violence, said she feels “betrayed” by prison
Transgender killer Dana Rivers, 68, reportedly terrorizes female inmates from behind bars at Central California Women’s Facility, where she is housed with Johnson
Her struggle was echoed by women’s prison reform activist Amie Ichikawa, who served five years in the same prison in Chowchilla, California for criminal threat with a weapon before being released in October 2013.
“It’s incredibly offensive to half the population,” she said, claiming to have heard of more than 100 individual cases of transgender inmates harassing female prisoners in the years since she founded her reform organization. Woman II Woman.
Rivers reportedly wreaked havoc at the California prison, which houses more than half of the state’s female prison population, after she was sentenced in June to life without the possibility of parole.
At her sentencing, Judge Scott Patton said the murders were “the most depraved crime I have ever dealt with in 33 years in the criminal justice system.”
While her crime shocked the nation after she slaughtered a lesbian family in revenge for being denied entry to a “female only” festival, Rivers has reportedly boasted of “special treatment” from prison officials.
The former teacher and activist reportedly terrorized inmates by stalking and lurking around the cell block. “It’s disgusting,” said Johnson, noting that in one incident, another inmate told her that Rivers was “staring at my ass.”
This has been shown by various studies up to 94 percent of female inmates reported a history of physical or sexual abuse. Johnson, a former police officer, said her struggle is particularly devastating because her previous experience of domestic violence is the reason she is behind bars.
Johnson was jailed in 2012, three years after shooting her husband in the head, which she says came after years of relentless abuse.
“That’s my complaint, it’s disrespectful to my past,” she said, noting that she had specifically requested through her lawyers that Rivers be housed in another part of the prison, which was ignored.
Ichikawa, pictured with her father on a 2011 prison visit, said when she first met transgender inmates she “couldn’t believe it was legal”
The Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla is the largest female prison in California, housing approximately half of the state’s female prison population
Tomieka Johnson was on the floor after being found guilty of murder on January 23, 2012
Johnson graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice for her career in law enforcement
Johnson’s crime made headlines in 2009, when a California Highway Patrol officer shot her husband after the couple went drinking at a TGI Fridays.
After getting into a heated argument in his car, prosecutors allege Johnson shot Lemons in the head with a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol. She then drove to her parents’ house and called 911 to report the murder.
Johnson claims she accidentally fired after Lemons tried to grab the gun, but her domestic violence claims weren’t enough to avoid a guilty verdict for murder in 2012. .
She has continued to protest her innocence in the years since, telling DailyMail.com that her ordeal behind bars is compounded by her insistence that she should not have been convicted of murder.
“It puts a sour taste in my mouth,” she said. “It was an accidental discharge, I shouldn’t have even been here.”
The Central California Women’s Facility has been contacted for comment on Johnson’s allegations.
Johnson was an award-winning agent with the California Highway Patrol, was married with two children before killing her husband in 2009
Amie Ichikawa said her organization would like to see a provision barring convicted sex offenders or those with a history of violence against women from taking advantage of the policy
When California passed controversial Senate Bill 132 in 2021, which allowed convicts to choose their prison based on their gender identity, there were 1,129 California inmates who identified as transgender, according to the state’s corrections department.
Women’s prison reform activist Amie Ichikawa told DailyMail.com that she has seen at least 100 individual cases of transgender inmates targeting female inmates since she founded her organization Woman II Woman.
She said she founded the company after leaving prison and discovered that there was “a lack of services available to women” after they were released. However, she said her work to help ex-convicts centered around gender after the passage of Senate Bill 132.
“I was getting hundreds of messages, from women I’d never met, but they were absolutely gutted about the people going in,” she said.
She said she knows the fear female inmates have when faced with an intimidating transgender inmate, recalling the “horrific” moment when serial rapist Richard Masbruch was transferred to her prison in 2011.
Although it took 10 years for the prison’s gender identification law to be passed, the inmate was moved after they ‘mutilated’ themselves and a committee decided they were better suited to a female prison.
“I was in a separate yard, but I was shocked,” she said. “I couldn’t believe this was legal… everyone was shocked.”
Ichikawa said she ran into the trouble caused by Rivers shortly after her June sentencing when she berated officials for their “offensive” attitudes toward women.
“(Transgender prisoners) are treated completely differently from the rest of the population,” she said. “There’s definitely special treatment for people who move and change gender.”
As several other states, including Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts, pass similar laws to Senate Bill 132, Ichikawa said her organization is not seeking to repeal the law. Instead, she would like to see a provision barring convicted sex offenders or those with a history of violence against women from benefiting from the policy.