—
I get assigned to a jail called the Manhattan House of Detention, aka The Tombs. I feel relieved, like I just had a narrow escape. I feel energetic and alive, like I have a new start in life. I take my folder to the personnel office and that’s when the bullshit starts. My transfer states that I’m to be placed in the courts part of the jail, where inmates are housed who have an upcoming court date. The thing about the courts is that it’s unofficially reserved for officers with at least fifteen years’ experience. The personnel office was questioning how I got the post with only nine years on the job.
The officer calls my connect and gets verification that I should be in the court part of the jail and not where inmates are housed. This new jail is real laid-back, and as I adjust to my surroundings I learn that everyone in here is here by way of a hookup or has fifteen years on the job or better. I get assigned to the search post, which of course is the worst post in the jail. I receive some disapproving looks from the officers there. It is clear to me that many of them are wondering how I got into the courts, or thinking that I must know somebody, or better yet, that I was sent from the inspector general’s office as a spy.
At first I’m treated with a long stick and everyone is uncomfortable around me, until, of course, they need a person with my expertise. Several times out of spite I would be assigned a post on the jail side. I would be told that they were short staffed and with the least amount of time served, I was the right person for the job. It didn’t bother me because even the jail side of The Tombs was less chaotic than my former C-73 unit.
One day I’m sitting down having my meal when a captain approaches me and asks me, “Are you the new officer from the Island?” I answer, “Yes.” He says, “Come with me. We have a problem in the courts.” It’s been a long time since I was placed on the goon squad, but since I’m the new guy here, I should’ve seen this coming. We arrive at the staging area and I see some over-the-hill officers suiting up, getting ready to extract an irate inmate from a section in the courts. I chuckle to myself as I see the officers showing their age and how unfamiliar they are with the situation.
As they try and figure out how to put on the protective wear, some of them look up and see me approaching. I can see the relief in their faces as the captain tells them that I will be the lead man on this. I quickly suit up and stand by while the rest finally get it right. We go into the court side of the jail. As we get off the elevator, I hear an inmate screaming at the top of his lungs, “We reeeaaady! We reeaady! Let’s get it!” I stand at the front of a cell with a large Plexiglas-type shield that covers me from head to toe. Inside the cell the inmate continues to yell. The captain warns the inmate to stand down for the one hundredth time.
I can sense the captain is nervous. The over-the-hill mob behind me is scared and the camera girl designated to film everything can’t get the lens off the camcorder. I shake my head at the inexperience that they are showing. The inmate is watching all this and decides he wants to take advantage of the situation. I see the fierce look on the inmate’s face and then I decide to get serious because I’m the first one he will unleash on if we open the cell. While they figure out the camcorder, I see the inmate take off his belt, wrap it around his fist, and get into a fighting stance. I size him up and I know exactly what to do to end this whole ordeal. I tell the captain to open the gate. The inmate looks puzzled. I’m sure he’s wondering how it is that I’m telling the captain what to do and why I seem so confident.
The captain hesitates to open the cell. Everyone grows silent at my request. The captain looks at the inmate, who is ready for combat, then gives me a look like, “Are you sure?” I nod and he opens the gate.
The inmate steps back with his left leg and plants his foot so that he can get leverage when we rush in. This is exactly what I want him to do. We don’t rush in. Instead I walk in, which catches the inmate off guard. While he’s confused I slam the bottom of my shield down on his right foot. He yelps and drops to the floor, screaming and crying in pain. Situation resolved. Inmate is no longer a threat.
The captain and the rest of the officers stand there with their mouths open. I walk past them quietly and go to take off my extraction gear. That day helps me a little bit because I no longer get posts on the jail side of the Manhattan House. I now get the shittiest post on the court side of the Manhattan House. A few days go by. I get assigned to do meal relief. I’m working in an area called “the pens.” It’s where we place inmates who are awaiting their turn to see the judge. It’s a lengthy process, so the inmates that are placed in the pens are packed in there, some standing or sleeping on the floor, because there’s not enough space on the little bench that’s there. It is now feeding time and I order all the detainees to stand up. I was told that this was mandatory to ensure that they were all okay.
While I am conducting the feeding in my area, I hear a commotion coming from another area of the pens. I hear an inmate saying, “Oh, shit! Oh, shit,” as they are quickly being evacuated from a set of pens across from where I am working. The officer that I had relieved comes back and assumes his post, so I go to see what the commotion is about. When the relocation of the detainees is done, I take a look inside the pen. There is an officer kneeling beside a detainee. He is an old homeless-looking man. Then he rolls him over. His body is stiff and his face is a purplish blue. The old man is dead. Apparently, he had been there for a while. As soon as I see this, I know that it’s time for me to get out of the area because I don’t want to deal with any part of this situation. I just got here. I hurry up and leave the area to go to my next meal relief, which was the front gate. I am just in time to see the mass confusion unfold.
—
Captains are running back and forth panicking, telephones are ringing, with chiefs calling to get information on what happened. Officers are scattering like I did, so they won’t be involved. They know what I know, that someone has dropped the ball. The detainee who died should have been found sooner. I know that this is just another sad day of COs cutting corners just to make things run smoothly. The Manhattan House was no different from Rikers Island, because every CO knows that you can’t run a jail effectively by going by the book. Nothing would ever get done.
A week or two goes by and I’m finally getting used to my new jail. I’m feeling that I dodged a bullet by getting off the Island. I arrive for the three-to-eleven tour and the roll call captain asks me if I had gotten hurt. I told him no, then he orders me to go see Deputy Brian and straighten things out, because he’s short staffed and needs me to take my post ASAP. I say, “Okay,” and I go to the deputy warden’s office. I knock and he tells me to come on in and sit down. He holds a piece of paper in his hand and asks me, “Do you know what this is about?” I say, “No. What is this about?” He says, “You have been placed on modified duty.” I just look at him, shocked. He takes a deep breath and says, “You are to turn in your badge and gun immediately.” I’m unable to speak.
They have a captain escort me to my apartment, because I’d left the metal shield that was attached to my officer’s hat at home. When she’s about to leave, the captain just says, “I hope you get this straightened out.” She drives away and I’m standing in the street in a blue jacket, a blue shirt, and blue pants. Just like that, I was no longer in a corrections officer’s uniform.
CHAPTER 47
MODIFIED
It’s two days later and I’m on modified duty. I have to go to the courthouse in Queens. I wear civilian clothes and I have an ID that reads “Modified.” I’m still receiving my regular base pay minus any overtime. I report to the personnel office and I’m greeted by a female captain, who gives me the rundown on how things go in this jail. She explains that the part of the jail that once housed inmates is now closed and that I will be the elevator operator, taking officers from one floor to the next, because all the exits are locked and the only way to go from floor to floor was by elevator. After the rundown she a
sks me if I have any questions for her. I ask, “Do you know why I am here?” She tells me that she is never told why a person is sent here. She just supervises them while they are here. She then suggests that I try calling the union. I take my post and shortly after that I call the union. The only answer they could give me was that I was under investigation. What kind they did not know.
When I go home that night I try to figure out what they had on me that would make them modify me. I had escaped C-73 where everything happened. They never caught me with anything and all the drugs were used up and gone, so what could they possibly have? I wonder who could have snitched. The only inmates that I truly trusted were Flocko and later on Moe. I had been dealing with them for a long time, so if I was going to be busted dealing with them it would have happened a long time ago. It was nerve-racking day after day trying to figure this out. One time an officer who worked in the personnel office told me that officers come through here with a lot of problems. Some go back to work after being there for months and some lose their jobs. He also said that most of the time the officers who are sent there know why they’re there, they just refuse to say. When he said that, I gracefully removed myself from the office. Once again I found myself walking around outside in a trance trying to figure out what they were going to do, how long I was going to be modified, and what they actually had on me.
I started to focus on my movements in the jail and the precautions I took to make sure that nothing could come back to me. I never touched the products barehanded, so that means no prints. I never got stopped at the front entrance with anything on me. No money from Western Union could be traced back to me at all. If someone was snitching it would be my word against theirs because there was no physical evidence. I thought about Flocko telling me about other officers that were doing the same thing. So I tried calling the jail to ask to speak to the officer that he told me about. I was shook by what I found out. That officer had not been seen in the jail in a while. Maybe he had been modified; maybe they had something on him as well.
As the days go by I try to live a normal life but I can’t shake the nervousness that I have every time I go to work. When I would go see my mother she would ask questions like “Why don’t I ever see you in your uniform anymore?” I would lie and say that I just didn’t wear it today. I started praying to God every night to get me out of this situation. I even started hallucinating about the things that were around me. Like one time I go to the movies to see Big Momma’s House number two and at the end of the movie Martin Lawrence faces the screen and says, “Not guilty.” He was, of course, talking about the father in the movie, but my dumb ass thinks that it’s a sign from God. I even sought out an officer friend of mine who I knew from the streets who also worked in the Security Department of Corrections. I told him everything that was going on and he told me what I thought was some reassuring information. He told me that a lot of times the IGs will set up an officer and try to catch him by using fake cocaine. So if I knew for sure that what I was dealing was real shit, then they were not involved. I felt a little better after hearing that, knowing that because I only dealt with certain inmates and their families, my product was the real deal.
CHAPTER 48
SHOW ME SOMETHING
A few months have passed and I’m beginning to wonder if the department has forgotten about me. I’m anxious to get this over with. I want to find out what I’m up against. It’s about six-thirty in the morning and I’m already late for work when the door to my apartment is buzzed by someone downstairs in the lobby. Who would be ringing my bell at this time of morning? I press the intercom button.
“Who is it?”
“The police.”
I buzz them in and scratch my head as I walk toward the bathroom, not paying the police downstairs any mind, because in my neighborhood the police will buzz anybody just to gain entry into the building. I have nothing on but my pants when there is a knock at my door. Confused, I go to the door, thinking they must have the wrong apartment, and I know I don’t have any trouble in the streets. I open my door and six burly white detectives my size or better are standing there. One of them asks, “Are you Gary Heyward?” Still confused, I say, “Yes.” Then a Spanish woman comes from around the corner and flashes her badge. She says she’s from the inspector general’s office and that they are not here to arrest me. They just want me to come with them to answer some questions about an investigation that they’re conducting. I agree. When I go to close my door so that I can put on the rest of my clothes, one of the police officers puts his foot on the door so that I can’t close it. Another comes into my apartment and follows me to my bedroom, and watches me as I get dressed. I know then that this is more serious than what they are telling me, because they are treating me as if they heard that I was armed and dangerous. After I put on my shirt and shoes, one cop asks me if I have a weapon in the house. Before I can answer, the Spanish woman says, “No, we took that away from him already.” I then ask, “Am I going to need the union or a lawyer for this questioning?” Her response was “We just want to show you something.”
Show me something?
I leave with the officers and I get into an unmarked car. When we arrive downtown I’m asked to wait in a room while they prepare for me. As I sit there with four of the six officers right there with me one of them asks me, “You really don’t know what this is about?” Nervously, I say, “No.” Then the Spanish officer comes into the room and announces that they’re ready for me now. Inside the room there is a projector at one end and a screen mounted on the wall at the other end. I sit down on one side of the table and she, along with an older gentleman, sits across from me. Then the older gentleman gets right to the point. “We brought you down here to give you a chance to help yourself.” I look at him, confused. Then the Spanish officer says, “Take a look,” and clicks on the projector. I look up at the screen as the video comes into view. My heart sinks at what I see. I begin to break out in a cold sweat as the video plays. I notice their attention is on me and my reaction and nothing else. I’m speechless as I watch the video of my big black dumb ass getting out of my van and standing right in front of a car that clearly has a camera crew inside it. They were videotaping my whole conversation and drug transaction. They ask me repeatedly if it’s me in the video. All I can think about is fellow officers telling me that these inmates are not your friends; they will give you up in a heartbeat. I didn’t believe those officers. I trusted the inmates I was dealing with. When they didn’t get a response from me, they began to ask me, “Who else was doing it with you? You could not have run all of that by yourself.”
The one person that I least expected, the one person who had been there with me from the beginning, and who treated me like a brother in the streets and in jail, had set me up. I mumble to myself, “I knew his whole family.” Then I look up at the screen at me and Flocko’s sister as the officers continue to ask me if that’s me on the video, as if they really need confirmation, as if it isn’t obvious. My throat is completely dry and in a low voice I ask for my lawyer and union rep. They tell me that I can call both. But they ask me again if it’s me. I just ask for my lawyer, never admitting that it’s me, Dumb Donald, up there on that screen.
Little did I know at the time that they did not need me to admit that it was me, because there was a hidden video camera inside the room filming my reaction. They tell the police to come into the room and arrest me. I’m asked to stand. They search my pockets and place handcuffs on me. Then the Spanish officer says, “Well, we gave you a chance to help yourself. If you had told us who else was doing it with you then we could have helped you.” My street sense takes over and I feel deep down she is lying. They were going to arrest me no matter what. The truth is, even if I was being helped I would not have said a word.
For the very first time in my life I feel the cold steel of handcuffs on my wrists. A chill comes over my body and a million thoughts run through my head.
What’s going to happen to me?
CHAPTER 49
HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?
When they first put the cuffs on me I was inside a room but now I am being escorted out of the building like a common criminal. I can hear people talking about me. I see them staring at me as my head is being ducked down into an unmarked car. They are taking me to the Bronx Criminal Courthouse on the Grand Concourse. It’s a silent ride.
At the courts, I get fingerprinted and they take my mug shot. It seems surreal having the arresting officer take my picture, telling me to face left so that they can get my side profile. Then they place me in a small holding pen and handcuff me to a pole that lines a wall. There are other detainees in the pen, too. They have no clue who I am.
After I’m processed, I’m taken upstairs and turned over to the corrections officers that run the pens there. I am greeted by an officer that I know. He tells me to have a seat on a couch that is placed in front of a desk. He asks me if I am alright and tells me that they were told that there are more officers who will be arrested. He felt that what was happening with me and the other officers was some bullshit political move that the department was on. I’m sitting there and one by one others arrive. Among them is the other officer I had been searching for earlier to find out what they had on me. He comes in and sits down. Our eye contact says it all. We both know that we we’re up shit creek.
The corrections officer lets me use the phone to make as many calls as I want. I call my best friend and tell him what happened. I tell him not to tell my moms because I didn’t want her to know anything. I could always make up a story to her if it was just about me losing my job. I want to wait until after I see the judge to do anything. I didn’t think I was going to get locked up. And I didn’t want my mom worrying about me.
Corruption Officer Page 19
