Corruption Officer

by Gary L. Heyward

  I crank up my van and begin the drive over to the Bronx. I’m hoping I will come up with a reason, between now and the time that we reach our destination, for me to cop out and abandon the scheme. But on the real, I want my money back. I was not prepared to take a loss like I just did.

  We reach the building where the drug house was located pretty quickly. We go over the game plan several times en route. Trent had been inside it before, so he knows the layout, which is how he knew it was an easy target. I park about a block away. I get out and retrieve some items that I have in the back of the van, a couple of pairs of flex cuffs, two filter masks, and a baseball cap, which I put on. I already have on my uniform and windbreaker. We walk to the building. Lucky for us, nobody is outside. We enter the building and climb some steps. When we get to the floor where the spot is located we wait for a crackhead to go cop from the spot, then we jump out on him like the police when he comes out. Mind you, we have the filter masks over our faces and my badge is hanging from my neck. I put a black rubber band over my shield number. The crackhead doesn’t know any better. He is more terrified of being robbed of his crack than going to jail. We make him go back and knock on the door while we hide on the side. It’s not unusual for a customer to come right back to buy some more. When they open the door for him we rush in. My badge is dangling and my gun is drawn. Trent has everything that I have except a gun. I put my gun to the chest of the guy that opened the door and Trent goes into all the other rooms yelling out commands as if he’s a real cop. We keep everything happening so fast that the dealer doesn’t have time to notice we’re not cops. He’s with a girl high on drugs passed out on the couch. Everything is happening just like Trent said. I quickly flex-cuff the drug dealer and blindfold him. Then Trent comes out of the back with drugs and money and puts it in a plastic bag. I’m ready to go. The girl on the couch never wakes up. I make sure that the dealer is cuffed tight and we head for the door. I peek out into the hallway first and when I feel it is safe, we head toward the stairway. Then, POW! a round hits the wall over our heads. I spin around and crouch on the floor, landing in a kneeling position like I was taught in the military. It’s funny how shit comes back to you automatically when your adrenaline is flowing.

  POW!

  Another round hits the wall next to me but not even close. I see a figure holding a gun, peeking out of the door of the apartment next to the drug spot’s door. My reflexes kick in and I return fire, letting off two rounds that hit the door as it slams shut. Trent hits the stairs and I’m right on his heels. When we exit the building I can hear the sirens of approaching police cars, so we decide to walk, not run, up the block to my van. I start her up and we’re out. I drop Trent off after we split the loot. I got my money back and some product to make some more money.

  When I get home I do my usual, which includes going through the mail. I see that I was approved for an apartment, so that means that I will be moving. I go to my room, take off my coat, and clean my weapon so that there will be little trace of its being fired. Without any remorse for what just happened that night, I sleep like a newborn baby boy in a powder-blue room.

  CHAPTER 39

  COPSTITUTE

  Tink . . . tink . . . tink.

  That was the sound that was coming from the utility closet in my housing area. I was in the officers’ station watching over the inmates and watching out for Flocko and Officer Rains while they were gettin’ busy. Recently Rains had come to me worried and complaining that it was getting too risky for her to be running around servicing these inmates, and she wasn’t making enough money. I decided to help her out by implementing some of the ways that I made money in here. Her first customer was Flocko, due to the fact that he was being moved tomorrow to C-74, the adolescents’ jail, in preparation for him to go up north to start his sentence. It was a going-away present for his being so loyal to me and helping me make this money. Rains was my meal relief for the day and as soon as my B officer went to eat, she and Flocko got busy. I had the other inmates glued to the television on both sides because I had put a porno show on the tube. I had my housing area hooked up where the DVD player had wires running from it to both of the TVs.

  While they watched the DVD, I checked up on her and Flocko to make sure that he wasn’t killing her ass in there. I cracked the door open a little and saw that he had her bent over holding on to some dirty pipes while he was on his tippy toes hitting it. I chuckled as I heard her badge keep hitting the metal pipes. That was what was making the tink, tink, tink sound. I told him ten more minutes and then I closed the door, knowing that he wasn’t missing a beat. When they came out, I gave Flocko an inmate cup with some Hennessy in it and he went right to his cell and locked in. As a matter of fact, after the porno went off they all went to their cells and locked in, putting up the towels so they could make love to themselves in private.

  When CO Rains came out of the utility closet she went into the bathroom to wash the dirt off her hands. She then came and sat down in the officers’ station across from me and asked me how we were going to work this newfound business arrangement. I chuckled when she said, “Talk to me, daddy!” I was in the process of locking the remaining inmates in when I heard punches being thrown. I told Rains to buzz me inside on the floor because they were fighting. I went in on the A side, where I saw some inmates standing around and two other inmates rolling around on the ground. I grabbed the both of them and broke them up. They stopped immediately, so that’s how I knew that it wasn’t that serious. One inmate said, “Hey, I was walking to my cell and this lil nigga just clocked me, so I duffed him out.” I looked at him like I didn’t believe him and then he said, “On the real, Hey, I ain’t got no beef with him, so I don’t know why he clocked me.” Then another inmate joined in and said, “Word, shorty been bugging like that for a minute now like he ain’t got it all upstairs. So y’all better get him out of here before we kill him up in here.” I looked at the other inmate and he just stood there with his arms folded. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard of this particular inmate stirring up trouble. I figured that he was one of those “CO, I can’t live here” kind of inmates, who would do everything they could to get out of the housing area. I didn’t want to take a chance with him staying here and these fools doing something stupid to him, bringing heat to my housing area.

  While everybody went to their cells I told the troublemaker to pack up his stuff. He put his sneakers back on—they had come off during the scuffle—and said, “I’m packed.” I led him out of the housing area into the corridor next to the officers’ station. Then I made a phone call to the “Movement” office, which handles where inmates will be housed. I asked if they could switch my inmate for another inmate from another housing area. I made the troublemaker, whose name was Jerry Lawson, sit outside until they came with the new inmate and the swap was made. I gave the new inmate my speech: “I’m going to give you half an hour to inspect your new cell. In that time if you find anything in there that does not belong to you such as a weapon or drugs I will let you turn it in to me with no repercussions. After that half an hour is up, if a search comes in here and finds anything that you’re not supposed to have in there, it’s on you.” I then led him to his cell and locked him in.

  I then returned to Rains to let her know how we could both make money. I told her that I had a bunch of loyal workers in here that I trusted. I’d set it up so that she serviced them, because they had been cleared through me. I’d provide her with protection and she would get her money up front. I was happy when she said that she and her girls would try my way out temporarily to see if it would work out. I knew it would, because I already had inmates in line with money in hand waiting for a chance.

  —

  Before I left that day I went to the back of my housing area where I could get a signal to use my cell phone. I saw that I had a missed call from a friend of mine, so I returned his call. He answered my call crying and saying, “Yo, Gee, what’s good?
I need you, fam.” I asked, “What happened!?” Between sobs he said, “My Princess is gone, Gee. Them muthafuckas killed her!” I knew that he called his daughter Princess, so I asked, “What happened to her!?” He told me to get the newspaper, that there would be a story about a teenage girl being raped and killed by two men. I hadn’t seen him or his family in a while but I did hear about that story. I didn’t know that that was his daughter they were talking about. He said, “I need your help, Gee, because they caught them niggas and I heard that they are heading your way.” I was angry because I knew that she was a good kid that got all As in school and everything. I responded, “Say no more. I got you, fam.” When I got off the phone I went back to the officers’ station and I sat back to think, saddened by what I had just found out. I was thinking to myself that right now I wore many hats up in this joint—drug dealer, contraband smuggler, pimp, and occasionally corrections officer—and now I’m just going to add one more to my résumé—hired gun.

  CHAPTER 40

  HOW DO YOU KNOW?

  When I arrived the next day for work the jail was already on lockdown. All the chiefs and special investigative squads were swarming the joint. The upper brass personnel from all over the Island were there trying to organize the organizers. I fell in line, being the puny officer that I was. I just wanted to know what was the occasion for this much company in my jail so early in the morning. I stood against the wall in the corridor where we normally have roll call. I noticed the K-9 Unit coming through the gate accompanied by the Gang Intelligence Unit. I was standing there thinking that the last time I saw this much personnel all at once in the jail was when . . .

  An officer next to me, talking loud, interrupted my thoughts and said to some other officers who were waiting that another inmate was killed last night. I knew that it had to be something serious. I was told to take my assigned post but to keep the inmates locked in because my B officer would be utilized in searching the whole entire jail. I heard all the higher-ups saying stuff like we have to take the jail back, these inmates are out of control, these officers are getting soft, and so forth and so on. I just chuckled a little because it was just like Corrections to rally up the troops after the fact and think that the aftermath effort was going to in any way stop the inmates from doing the same thing again tomorrow.

  Here I was on my way to my post, which consisted of sixty inmates with no second officer. I went to my post and relieved the midnight officer, who was pissed because it was her kid’s birthday and she had already been told that she was stuck on overtime and was not going home. After she left, I let Moe out. He was my lieutenant now that Flocko had left. He came up to the officers’ station and we took care of business. He gave me the money he had made for me and the list of what my clients wanted. I had orders for coke, liquor, cell phones, and cooch. As I counted my money, Moe said, “That’s wild what happened to ya boy yesterday, right?” With half of my attention, because I was busy adding and subtracting, I asked, “Who are you talking about?” He said, “I am talking about that Tobias kid.” I looked up for a minute, trying to remember, Tobias, Tobias . . . Then I said, “Oh, yeah, you mean the kid from yesterday. What about him?” He said, “Hey, that’s the kid that got killed yesterday.” Damn, I was just talking to that dude. I could not believe that shit, I thought I was doing a good deed by getting him out of my unit before he got killed and he gets killed in the other housing area. Now I want to know how it happened. I wondered if he went over there doing the same shit that he was doing while he was over here.

  Officer Z. Jones was the steady officer at the housing area where I sent Tobias. It was kind of ironic that a similar thing happened to her best friend Officer Bryant’s watch just a while back. I had to find out what happened and I knew that when I went to meal I could get all the information I needed. If you want to know what’s going on in the jail, just sit in the mess hall and it will come to you. I went straight there when I got relieved for lunch. The mess hall was packed. There were officers from other jails mixed in with officers from my jail. Seating was tight but I managed to pull up a chair at a table with a few officers from my jail.

  It took 1.2 seconds for the officers to start gossiping about what happened, each one with his own theory. The first officer said, “I heard that they jumped him and killed him when he was trying to take over the phones. Ya know that was a blood house.” Another officer said, “I heard that Officer Z. Jones tried to stop them, then they turned on her.” And back and forth they went.

  “No, that was her steady house.”

  “I heard that they didn’t jump her, just held her back so that she could not help the mate that was getting jumped.”

  In unison officers responded with “Ooohhhh.”

  Another officer/slash investigator said, “Ya don’t want to know what I heard.”

  Then he just left that up in the air like he was dangling candy in front of a bunch of hungry kids, and like clockwork they bit, eagerly asking the attention seeker, “Yo, what did you hear? What did you hear?” Then he started talking like he was on prime-time television.

  “Well, I heard that one of them broads was fucking that inmate, the head leader that ran that house. The mate that got killed was wilding out and disrespecting her, so the gangbanger sicced his goons on him to give him a beatdown and they overdid it by killing him.”

  Dead silence followed that statement, each of them trying to fathom the reality of that. I spoke out in disbelief, “Nah, dogs, I know those officers up there. They’re not like that. All three of them are stand-up officers, and we all know that Officer Green don’t take any shit and she will knock an inmate on his ass all day.” They all looked at me, some in agreement, some just still in their own thoughts. Another officer gave his professional analysis: “I heard that he was MO. That’s why he was acting a fool and they jumped him.” Another officer asked, “How can you tell that an inmate is a mental observation inmate? All these fools have problems. Some fake it just to get a lesser sentence. Besides, it ain’t our job to diagnose whether a mate is sick in the head.” I responded, “Well, all I know is that inmates lie on their dick all the time talking about they screwed this female CO or that one. So if ya ask me that’s a lie.” Then another female officer asked me, “How do you know?”

  CHAPTER 41

  MOM DUKES

  “I’ll see you later,” said Officer Zepa. She was another copstitute who Officer Rains put on our team. The deputy warden had just pulled away and he and Zepa would be heading out to do their thing at a hotel in New Jersey.

  The routine was that she would travel to my neighborhood and park her car next to mine. She wanted a witness who she would leave with in the event something happened, and I could be that witness. Apparently, the deputy warden had just received some money from one of the pyramid schemes that had recently swamped the Corrections Department (illegal or not, officers were getting paid from these schemes).

  Officer Zepa and the deputy warden pulled off just as my friend Trina came and got into my van. She was my Western Union connect who would receive the money from an inmate’s family. She came to drop off some money that she had picked up for me earlier. I gave her her cut and as she was leaving she told me that she cooked and that I could come get a plate. I told her maybe later because I knew that I still had to go to LeFrak City in Queens and then to Brentwood, Long Island, to pick up money. I was about to pull off when my phone rang. It was Officer Bryant.

  “What’s good, sis?”

  “Yo, I heard what happened to my homie and I am on my way to her house right now.”

  “Yeah, that’s messed up.”

  Then she went on to say, “I knew that God put me through what I went through when this happened to me for a reason, so that I could be there for somebody else. I know she’s messed up right now because I was. You know they gave me three-quarters pay and disability, right? So I am no longer an officer.” “No, I didn’t know that,”
I answered. She continued, “Yeah, that inmate getting killed messed me up. I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing his face over and over again. It was crazy. The very thought of me having to go back into a jail again gave me anxiety attacks, but you know Corrections fought me on it tooth and nail. They tried to make me go back to work and all that but the minute I went inside the jail I was brought out by an ambulance stretcher.” I said, “Damn!” Then I asked, “What ever happened with your case?” She said, “When it came down to it, Corrections had to admit to making some mistakes and Fran lost his job but nothing happened to King.” I said, “That’s a messed-up situation.” Then she said, “I am on my way over to her house. So come through.” I said, “Okay, but I have to make a run first.”

  I was about to pull off when my phone rang again and it was my moms and she asked me, “Where are you?” I said, “I am in front of the projects. Why?” Then she said, “You need to come up here and talk to your son.” I responded, “I can’t right now. What happened?” She responded, with authority, “You need to come noooow!” I was quiet for a moment, then I said “Alright” before hanging up. Who does she think she’s talking to? Hollering at me to come upstairs like I’m a little kid asking her can I stay outside and play. Shoot, I’m a grown ass man and I’m going to take my time getting up there, too.

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