Corruption Officer

by Gary L. Heyward

  The female officer looked like she was fingering herself because she was so excited with what he was saying. The officer continued, “When I finished with him, they rushed his ass out of there pronto right to Elmhurst Hospital.” Back then officers didn’t have to worry about all the lawsuits and bullshit that are going on now.

  The female officer responded, “Shit, fuck them mates. If their families are so worried about their loved ones, they should make sure they don’t come to jail. Period.” They laughed.

  Then all of a sudden, BLLIIINNGLIINNG! A loud bell started sounding off. It was an alarm. This was my first one and I was stunned. I saw officers scrambling to put their food away. Some just left theirs right there. Some females with expensive hairstyles ran toward the bathroom to hide, while the rest of us burst into action. The alarm meant that some officer was in trouble, probably getting their ass kicked or about to be kicked. We had to hurry up and get down there, because we all knew that the ratio of inmate to officer was on the inmate side when things first jumped off. We knew that the officer, male or female, had to fend for themselves until help arrived.

  At first I never understood why there was only one officer per fifty inmates and how the system we ran allowed us to maintain control. I learned that an officer on the floor or patrolling the area where the inmates were is the sacrificial lamb, and the officer behind the protective bars or glass is the one that is being counted on to notify the supervisor of what’s happening to the lamb—I mean other officer.

  I rushed to the staging area, my heart pumping like crazy, my adrenaline flowing, along with a shitload of nervousness. This is it, big boy. Don’t get your ass beat up on your first alarm. I made it to the staging area in a hurry, only to be told by a captain to slow down and properly put on all the protective equipment that we are supposed to wear when we go into battle. I was stunned, because an officer could have been getting killed down there and this supervisor was worried about whether I was putting on shin guards to protect my legs. I looked over to another officer to see if he was just as disturbed as I was, and he said, “Ya better put on everything, because if you go down there and get seriously hurt and it’s because you did not have on the proper equipment, Corrections insurance is not going to cover you.” Oh, shit! Then I yelled to the fat officer that was conveniently stuck with passing out the equipment, “Give me a muthafuckin’ shin guard.” After putting on all the proper stuff, I ran down to the area with the first wave.

  We arrived at the area where the alarm was sounding and saw inmates yelling and begging to be let out of the housing area. The captain ordered them to back up so that he could locate the officers. Precaution was taken because we did not see the officers at first and this could have been a hostage situation. Then the officers appeared and they were just as frantic as the inmates were to get out of there. We unlocked the gate and the inmates all fled out, quickly hitting the floor with their hands behind their heads, letting us know that they were not a threat. Then the officers approached the captain and one of them, a female, said, “Ga-ga-gunshots!” Then she burst into tears and repeated, “I heard gunshots!”

  Have you ever seen the cartoon where there are a bunch of people in line and the first person stops, then the rest bump into him? Well, that was me bumping into the captain as he made a sudden stop. Oh, heeeell no! Benefits don’t cover this shit here. These riot suits are not bulletproof. I looked at the captain like, “These muthafuckas are shooting and you’re worried about shin guards?”

  We stood there dumbfounded, all of us looking at the captain for our next move. He hesitated, then took a deep breath and told us that we had to go in. We looked at one another, then we followed our fearful leader.

  We edged our way forward. Nobody wanted to be the first one inside. I was right next to the captain. Okay, okay, I was right behind the captain. We entered and saw one lone inmate lying on his back on his bed screaming that he had been shot. Of course we were all hoping that he was lying. But as we got closer we saw that he wasn’t. He had a gunshot wound to his leg. Oh, shit! The evidence was right there. Somehow an inmate had been able to get a gun inside this jail. I couldn’t believe it. I was working in this very housing area just a few days before and talking shit to these inmates like I was invincible, never thinking that one of these individuals had a firearm in his possession. A whirlwind of questions hit me all at once: How did he get it? Which one of them had it? Who shot the gun? And, most important, where was the weapon right now? Does one of the inmates that we let out have it? Did we just put the whole jail in danger by not assessing the situation correctly?

  I could tell that all of us were thinking the same thing. The captain went over to the inmate and asked him, “Where is the gun?” The inmate stated that he did not know. He said that somebody just shot him for nothing. The captain, now with composure regained but still realizing that we were not out of hot water, belted out orders. “Search those inmates out there! The weapon is still missing.” He continued, “Officers, spread out and search every inch of this place. I want it turned upside down. I want that weapon found.”

  Over the radio I heard the deputy warden on duty calling the captain to see what the situation was. This ought to be good. He stuttered and said, “Si . . . sir, it would appear that an inmate has been shot.” We all heard the radio drop, then a loud “WHAT?” The captain said, “Yes, sir, you heard me correctly, an inmate appears to have a single gunshot wound to his thigh.” The next transmission was “I am sending the second and third waves in.”

  They arrived and aided us with tearing the place apart. Then a female officer overturned a locker and gasped. When we came over to see what she had found, we were all stunned to see a .22-caliber gun lying on the floor. All of us new jacks looked like, “What the fuck is going on in here?” The senior officers all had a look that said they had been here before.

  “Nobody touch it!” the captain yelled.

  All the jail’s heavy hitters were now on deck. All sorts of chiefs and wardens and Investigation Department representatives were swarming in, each trying to look more important than the next. The rest of the day was total chaos. Who’s at fault? Did the officers do their job right? Whose head is going to roll? And so on. All I could think about was what the Academy taught us about officers bringing in things for inmates. I remembered the instructor saying, “If an officer will bring in a stick of bubblegum for an inmate, he will bring in a gun.” Those words kept ringing in my head. I wondered, could an officer really be capable of bringing in a gun for an inmate to use?

  Let’s take a quiz, shall we?

  An inmate is being supervised at all times by who? A CO.

  An inmate has to be thoroughly searched when he comes into the building by who? A CO.

  An inmate has to pass through metal detectors to get inside the jail and the detectors are manned by who? A CO.

  An inmate has to be searched again before entering and leaving the housing area by who? A CO.

  Final question: What mode of transport can bypass all these preventive measures and can circumvent all the COs who are placed in various security positions throughout the jail? The answer: a CO!

  CHAPTER 14

  STOOL PIGEON

  For the next couple of days things were on lockdown on some fake ass tight security and shit. All of a sudden, we were now doing our jobs the way we were supposed to be. We were enforcing the most trivial institutional rules. Where’s your ID? Clear the magnometer! A beep-beep from the machine indicating that the inmate had metal on him somewhere and you heard, “Strip! Take everything off and go through again!” Yeah, we were giving the inmates hell. A tactical search operation or TSO was in full effect. We had officers from the other jails visit and help search the place. Sometimes this was done to shake the inmates up, just to let them know that there were consequences to them acting up.

  After the hoopla died down I was assigned again to the same housing area a
s Biz. I was sitting in a chair in the dorm area where inmates were watching TV.

  “What did I tell you?” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know that an officer brought in that gun, right?”

  “Yeah, right?”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Some of us knew it was going to go down before it happened.”

  I just looked at him. I knew he was dead serious.

  “I know whoever did it got paid, because the inmate is going to sue the shit out of Corrections,” he said.

  I sat there listening to him and thinking, Damn, here I am bringing him cigarettes, feeling guilty and shit, and other officers are bringing in artillery! I shook my head at the thought, then I said to Biz, “By the way, your sister called me and said that you wanted some more cigarettes.”

  He smiled and said, “Yo, tell her I’m good. In fact, tell her I am good for the next three maybe four months.” Puzzled, I asked, “How is that? Just a minute ago your lungs were on the gate and you needed help and now you’re sitting here like you’re big OG and you run the joint.” He laughed and said, “That’s because I do, thanks to you.” I gave him the “huh?” face. He broke it down to me.

  “Ya see, those little packs of cigarettes that you bought me?” he said.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Well, I had my sister put a little somethin’ inside them to help my cause,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, a little too loudly, and he motioned for me to keep it down so the other inmates could not hear. “Like what?”

  “She put a little weed in the packs and sealed them back up,” he admitted.

  I was getting pissed. We just stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. This nigga played me. He could see the anger begin to grow, and before I could say anything he gave me a pleading look like, “Remember where we’re at.” I took heed his gesture and slowly calmed down. “Come on, Gee,” he said, “it wasn’t even a lot. It was just enough for me to get on my feet.”

  I sat there knowing that the only words that would come out my mouth if I did speak would be “Hee haw! Hee haw!”

  “You ain’t gonna blow a nigga up, are you?” he pleaded again. “Check it, you helped my family because you know they ain’t got no money to be sending me for commissary every two weeks.” He paused and looked at me thankfully. “Now they don’t have to worry about me for a while.”

  I just looked at him, trying to convince myself that we weren’t once close friends. As if I did not have to look at our families’ faces damn near every day. Just the other day his moms and my moms stood in the lobby of our building and talked for hours. I went past them and his moms asked me how he was doing.

  I considered beating Biz’s ass. But how could I? He was right about one thing: We are at my job and I am an officer and that means that not only can I not blow him up, I can’t blow myself up either. I shook my head, thinking that this was supposed to be a friend of mine and he used me. Just imagine if it was some smooth-talking hustling individual from the streets that conned me into doing this? If so, I would be fucked. I would really be at the inmate’s mercy. Thank God it was Biz or I would have put myself in a position to be pimped every muthafuckin’ day when I came to work.

  That was it for me. From that point on, it was “Don’t trust no fuckin’ inmate for shit! They gets nothing from me, not a goddamn thing.” That’s right, I transformed back to “scared nigga” mode.

  Just as I was finished with Biz the captain walked into the area and motioned for me to step outside with him. Then he handed me a piece of paper and said, “Take care of yourself.” Then he walked away. I looked at the paper. It stated that I was transferred to another jail. No formalities or I am sorry to see you go, just get the fuck out. I was just beginning to get adjusted but I was told that because I was new, a transfer was a possibility. C-76, the jail I was working now, was an alright jail and kind of laid-back, nothing like the stories that I’ve heard about the other jails on the Island. I stood there with this feeling of not knowing what was going to happen next. That was when the bubbleguts in my stomach started acting up and I ran to the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 15

  WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

  “CO, CO!” an inmate yelled out to me.

  I had just taken over post 2 top at the new jail, C-73. I was a little nervous, because when I got there and reported to Personnel, there were no formalities at all. The officer who handled my paperwork did not even look up to see my face or acknowledge me. He just asked me my name and then gave me my post assignment. Then he yelled out, “Next!” I felt like I was just thrown in there. No debriefing to let me know how to do anything on my new post. Nothing. I was just handed the keys and rushed to sign a count slip that I was supposed to verify. This is important, because your count is supposed to match the count of the officer that you’re relieving. If the count doesn’t match that means that there is an inmate missing and you’re not supposed to sign the count slip. If you sign the count slip you’re acknowledging that all the inmates are accounted for and now you’re liable if one them is missing. So, here I am trying to get my bearings and I am now hearing several inmates yell, “CO! CO!”

  I stood up and looked down a long tier that consisted of ­thirty-one cells. I see smoke coming from under one of the inmate’s doors and realize that an inmate has set his cell on fire. Oh, shit, this is the real deal! I remember other COs telling me that C-76, the jail that I came from, was nothing but a community center compared to this jail. I continued to brainstorm. Okay, muthafucka, this is what you signed on for, so what are you going to do first? Now, here come all the Academy nightmares. It could be a setup. The inmates could be using the fire as a diversion just to get me down there so they could jump me. Should I open his cell? Do I call the Fire Department? Do I call my area supervisor? All this shit is happening too fast. I had to think fast. If I call my supervisor, by the time he gets here, the inmate could be burned to a crisp. Fuck it. I call for my area supervisor. I was not running down there playing superhero.

  My conscience begins to talk to me: But ain’t that your job? Care, custody, and control of these inmates, remember? To hell with that shit. Fuck with me, they’re going to be sweeping up his ashes! I can always rely on being STD (Scared to Death).

  The captain arrived on my gate and I opened it and told him in a hyped tone that an inmate set his cell on fire. I was letting him know that there was a sense of urgency to handle the situation. He strolled in at a snail’s pace, looked at me like, “You fucking jack” and then calmly walked down to the inmate’s cell. When he got in front of the inmate’s cell I was right behind him with a fire extinguisher. He waved for me to stop and not to come any closer. So I stopped and stood there with the smoke coming from under the door. The captain proceeded to have a conversation with the inmate.

  “You’re pulling this bullshit now at the end of my fucking tour!” he said.

  The inmate spoke but I could not hear him, but I did hear another inmate from another cell say, “Ain’t nobody fucking with him, Cap.”

  “So you’re telling me that you waited till now to tell me that you’re having problems in this house and that you can’t live here?” the captain said sarcastically.

  The inmate responded again in a low voice, in between coughing. Again, I could not hear. Then the captain motioned for me to come closer and I did. Then he grabbed the fire extinguisher from me without the inmate knowing. He turned his face toward me and mouthed for me to go and crack open the inmate’s cell. I did as I was told. When the door was cracked, the captain let loose, spraying the inmate’s face. Then he kicked him to the floor inside the cell and continued putting out the fire, at the same time making sure the inmate got a mouthful. My dumb ass just stood there looking stupid. He soaked the inmate’s clothes, his bed, and anything he could reach with the extinguisher.

  “Mu
thafucka, you ain’t going nowhere!” he yelled. “You got problems in here? Huh, huh? Deal with them. Ya shouldn’t have brung yo ass to jail.”

  Then he dragged the inmate out of his cell and slammed him up against the wall outside his cell. I heard and saw the inmate’s head bounce off the wall. The inmate grabbed the back of his head as he slid to the ground and I could see blood begin to spew from his injury. Oh, shit! What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Am I in some sort of trouble? Is the inmate going to claim that I was in on this assault? Am I going to have to write reports on what just happened? If I do, do I snitch on the captain or do I lie about what happened so that we don’t get into trouble?

  I stood there pondering my next move. The captain knelt next to the now-semiconscious inmate and asked him if he needed medical attention. It was a rhetorical question, because the captain had this look on his face like, “Ya better not.” The captain then asked, “What happened to your head?” The inmate responded that he had slipped and fallen when he came out of the shower. The captain patted him softly on his face and said, “Okay then, you’ll be alright.” He then stood up and calmly walked by me toward the exit and, sensing that my eyes were on him, without turning around, said, “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  CHAPTER 16

  THE STOOL SOFTENER

  “Big Hey-woooood!”

  My name is being shouted out by a fellow officer when I enter the jail on my way to roll call.

  “Yooooooooo! What’s poppin’? What’s poppin’?” I respond.