Rap video filmed inside Michigan prison cell, posted on YouTube prompts investigation
LANSING — State prison officials and the Michigan State Police are investigating after a rap video was shot inside a Michigan prison cell and posted on YouTube.
The video was shot inside Macomb Correctional Facility and two prisoners featured in it have been identified and placed in segregation, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz said Tuesday.
Cellphones and cameras are of course banned inside Michigan prisons.
"I've got a lot to say; I've got to get this off my chest," sings one of two prisoners featured in the video.
Neither prisoner attempts to disguise himself or hide his face in the video, which includes shots of corrections officers in the corridor, shot from the cell doorway without the officers' apparent knowledge.
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Part of the video shows a prisoner sitting on a bunk talking on a cellphone, which suggests there were at least two smuggled cellphones inside the cell.
Gautz said officials believe the video was shot in September, but just posted online in the last few weeks.
"It's incredibly dangerous," to have phones inside state prisons, "especially with capability of getting onto the internet," Gautz said, because they can be used to arrange escapes, harass witnesses, or place "hits" on people inside or outside the prison, he said.
The Free Press reported Oct. 24 that the then warden at Macomb, George Stephenson, had been placed on "stop order" and banned from prison property, pending an undisclosed investigation. Gautz said Tuesday the stop order was not related to the discovery of the rap video.
A state lawmaker questioned prison officials about the rap video during a Tuesday committee hearing, only minutes after learning about it through the Free Press.
"I hear it's not particularly good from a musical perspective," Kyle Kaminski, the department's legislative liaison, told Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, chairman of the Senate Oversight Committee, when McBroom asked him whether he was aware of the video.
"So these two that are put in segregation, are they likely to face (criminal) charges?" McBroom asked.
Kaminski said it is possible the prisoners, who are already facing internal discipline, will also be charged criminally. That will depend on the MSP investigation and what the county prosecutor decides, he said.
Kaminski and Gautz were appearing before the committee to discuss an audit related to another state prison, Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility near Ypsilanti.
In 2019, The Free Press reported that the Corrections Department and the Michigan State Police were investigating after a prisoner at Carson City Correctional Facility used a smuggled cellphone to create his own Facebook page, where he posted photos and videos from inside his cell, including ones of him getting a haircut and smoking an unknown substance in a hand-rolled cigarette with at least one other inmate.
It's a criminal offense to smuggle into a prison phones, cameras, tobacco, or drugs.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.