This is the second of two prison stabbing videos I’ve made available to the public as part of my re-launch of Chained Birds: A Crimemoir. Like the first one, it’s grainy and brutal, and the victim—federal inmate Kevin Sanders—survives … but just barely.
The 2013 footage from USP Florence in Colorado begins with an Aryan Brotherhood (AB) of Texas associate named “Tiny” walking into the frame on the right and passing directly in front of a correctional officer. His target is Kevin, my inside source for the federal prison exposé that became Chained Birds, because Kevin testified at trial about the AB. The prosecutor in Kevin’s assault charge case (stemming from the events in this posted video) made Kevin “name names” on the stand, despite knowing what that would mean for Kevin’s safety per the prison gang code of conduct.
Although it’s impossible to discern because the attack occurs mainly in the far upper left quadrant of the video frame, Tiny attacks Kevin with dual shanks, one in each hand. Kevin is able to ward off Tiny with just his fists until other correctional officers pepper-spray and subdue both inmates.
From Chapter 27, A Tiny Hit:
“This one’s bleeding all over the place!” said one of the three COs who tackled Kevin. With his eyes, nose, and throat searing, he was pushed inside a shower to rinse off the spray. He couldn’t see or breathe while an officer yelled, “Get him the fuck out of here now! Look at all that blood. Assess! Assess! Medical assess! This one has stab wounds!”
Kevin was rushed to a medical room, where they cut off his bloody T-shirt because he was handcuffed behind his back. A nurse who put three staples into his armpit slice and another one into a gash on his hand told Kevin he was lucky, that his worst wound could have been fatal if it had been an inch or two to the right.
Through watery, burning eyes, Kevin saw his unit manager arrive and look worried. “I fucking told you what would happen,” Kevin said. “Are you happy now?”
Right after getting his staples, he was interviewed by the SIS, and one had the audacity to ask him what had just happened. Kevin went on a rant about their stupidity and how he couldn’t trust them and said he would not take a cellie and allow another inmate a chance to stab him up. So, for protective custody, he was taken to the hole, a bare cell with nothing but a bed, a john, a shower, a sink, a desk, and a window with a view of a brick wall.
The officer who walked him there appeared again in his cell door window. “What do you want?” Kevin snapped, tears and snot still running down his face from the pepper spray.
“I thought you might need some of these,” he said, holding up some Sugar Twin sweetener packets.
“What the fuck do I need that shit for?”
“Look, asshole, I just thought you might want to rub some of this on your skin to help the burn of the mace,” the CO said and tossed the packets under his door.
No shit, Sugar Twin—who knew? Kevin opened some packets and rubbed the grainy substance over his face, but the second it touched his skin, it was like being sprayed all over again. And then washing it off in the sink further re-activated the oleoresin capsicum irritant. Kevin flipped off the CO, grinning at his window, and curled up on his bed on his right side. He ached all over and tried to drift off with thoughts about what he’d like to do to that officer if he ever managed to slip his cuffs in his presence.
Carla Conti is an award-winning true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A Crimemoir, won multiple 2025 national book awards, including 1st Place in True Crime from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Winner in True Crime from the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, Silver in True Crime from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), and a 1st Place Nellie Bly Journalism award from the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Carla lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, who tolerates her true crime habit.
