The following is a transcript from a phone call to Alpha News journalist Liz Collin from Chaos Bell, an inmate at Minnesota’s Correctional Facility in Shakopee, the state’s only female prison.
Bell reached out after a longtime Department of Corrections employee first blew the whistle to Alpha News months ago and quit over the prison system’s new controversial transgender policy.
The recent developments at Shakopee stem from policy changes at the DOC, specifically a 10-page trans inmate policy issued in January 2023 and revised in April of this year.
Bell first wrote to us detailing what she says happened when Daniel, turned “Danielle Whitebird,” transferred to the Shakopee state prison. Bell was living in the same unit and serving as a maintenance worker when Whitebird arrived. Bell is serving time for promoting prostitution.
Transcript (the following text contains graphic allegations)
Liz Collin (LC): What’s it like now with them there?
Chaos Bell (CB): It’s scary. It’s unpredictable. It was frightening. It was sprung on us. We didn’t know there were men coming into the prison until we saw them. We’re all here to heal and take care of our past trauma and most of it has to do with being abused and being taken advantage of by men, so it was really terrifying when they started coming in knowing that they didn’t have the bottom surgery. That was scarier and not only that, they can overpower us. He came to our unit. He was a little too friendly with people. The way he would talk, he would comment on women’s bodies. He would always gravitate to the ones who looked younger. I was kind. I always try to be kind to everybody. He started saying things to me, showing me his thongs and stuff like that and I was like, ‘OK, this is getting really uncomfortable.’ I would avoid going into the shower when he was on the phone because the shower is unlocked and you can’t if hear anyone comes in … I was scared about that.
CB: One day, he was looking at some pictures on someone else’s tablet. I go downstairs to my room and Danny comes behind me. I’m already in my room. He said, ‘Can you come here real quick? Come here to my door,’ so I go to his door and he said, ‘Look what those pictures did to me,’ and he motions his hand and his head downward and here his penis was out of his pants. It freaked me out. I go to my room and sit there and I’m just thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, did he just really do that?’ I was so scared. I didn’t want to say anything to anybody because I was so scared. I confided in a couple of girls but I wanted to handle it myself so I asked the guard working that day ‘Hey, can I move out of my room?’
I’m the closest to the outside door and it’s cold in my room. So I moved the next day. Danny came up to me and said, ‘I hope you didn’t move because of me.’ Ever since then I was just avoiding him and avoiding him. Prior to my situation, I was hearing that Danny was showing his penis to women in the courtyard. There were allegations, he did go to seg (segregation) multiple times for these allegations but because there was no proof he was let out of seg every single time.
Whitebird was released from prison in September. His record includes sexually abusing a minor in the past.
LC: You’ve brought these concerns to light and they haven’t done anything?
CB: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Alpha News asked the Department of Corrections about Bell’s allegations. In a statement, a spokesperson said it “takes all allegations seriously, investigating complaints in accordance with policy and Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards.”
LC: How many men are in there now with you?
CB: I want to say six.
There’s this guy named Bradley here. He, I guess, threw a tantrum in his room and broke things. He broke glass, was sent to seg for it, but then he gets out of seg like three or five days later and still the women around him are terrified that he’s going to spazz out at them.
There’s also this person here named Nathan Johnson. He gets out in February. There’s like five stalls in this bathroom with no cameras. He was living in one of these pods so he was sharing bathrooms with women and there was an allegation that he was having sex with his girlfriend in one of the bathrooms.
LC: What would you say to the Biden administration and more specifically to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has allowed this?
CB: He should be held accountable. The Biden administration should be held accountable for putting us in danger, inflicting fear on us that isn’t necessary and they should take it back; they shouldn’t put biological men among the most vulnerable population at all. They should be held accountable for inflicting this fear on us, putting us in danger, and re-victimizing us when we are here to try to heal.
I was the victim of sex trafficking. I’m here for promoting prostitution as a result of that sex trafficking situation that I was in. It’s hard for me. I’m here to rehabilitate myself. I’ve never been in trouble here. I got my Associates Degree, I’m getting my paralegal certificate in May. I’m doing a lot of positive things, but when that happened to me with Danny doing that to me it set me back a lot. It revictimized me and it’s scary.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
