Lockdown on Rikers

by Ms. Mary E. Buser

  “The guy broke his neck!” Dayrit replied.

  “Yes—but it was just a little bone—not an important bone.”

  What I remember most in that moment was the sound of the clipboard clattering to the floor. Then Dayrit stepped back and eyed me as if I was a monster. He turned and walked out. I retreated to my office and broke into sobs. I kept seeing his face and the look that mirrored back to me just how desensitized I’d become.

  After I’d composed myself, I dried my eyes and finished out the day as best I could.

  That evening, I called my father. He seemed to be the only person who could handle what this job was really about. With friends I was quiet and withdrawn. No longer did I feel the need to educate people about life behind bars, not only because they wouldn’t understand or believe it, but because talking about it meant reliving it, and I needed every moment that I was away from Rikers to forget about it so I could go back in.

  My father listened quietly as I told him about what happened. “I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth,” I said. “I was just trying to do my job.”

  “Mary,” he said. “This job is destroying you.”

  I couldn’t disagree.

  “And this could get worse,” he continued. “Much worse. Have you thought about what happens if someone steps into a noose and really dies? It takes seconds. You have people stepping into nooses every day. You’re so immersed in this, you don’t even see how perilous this situation is. If someone hangs for real, fingers will be pointed. Guess who’ll be blamed?”

  The thought of someone actually dying was a dark cloud that accompanied me into the cells and followed me home at night. It was my worst fear. But I hadn’t been overly concerned for myself. After all, Central Office was always thanking me for the great job I was doing. Would they really turn on me?

  “You bet they will!” my father insisted. “Someone will have to take the rap. Everyone will run for cover, and you’ll be the one left standing. Now listen to me. You’ve done everything you can for these inmates. The person you have to worry about now is yourself. I want to put these people on notice. I’m dictating a memo outlining their failure to provide adequate administrative coverage. If somebody dies in there, they’re going to have a tough time pinning it on you. Do you have a pen?”

  I hesitated. To send a memo like this would likely seal my fate with St. Barnabas.

  “Mary, listen to me . . . you can’t change the world!”

  Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I thought I detected a quiver in my father’s voice as he said, “But I will say this to you, my dear girl: God bless you for trying.”

  We sat in silence for a while, and then he said, “Do you have a pen?”

  Somewhere deep within, I knew my father was right. Another silence followed. And then I said yes.

  The memo was sent. Needless to say, it was not well received by Central Office, but the following morning another administrator arrived at OBCC to assist me until Kelly’s return.

  * * *

  The memo to Central Office went out not a moment too soon. A couple of days later, my worst fear was almost realized. “Mental Health!” shouted Pepitone. “Somebody’s getting cut down in the Bing!”

  I met up with Grant and the two of us headed up. Just outside the Bing’s mini-clinic, a CO briefed us. “His name’s Luis Morales. He’d just stepped into a noose when an officer was walking by. He was swinging. They were able to get in and cut him down fast. Medical says he’s okay, but if the CO hadn’t passed by, he’d have been a goner.”

  “Did an inmate tip off the CO?” I asked. “Tell him what Morales was up to?”

  “No, that’s just it. The officer happened to be walking by. He didn’t tip off anybody. This was for real.”

  Inside the mini-clinic, Luis Morales, in an orange jumpsuit and his hair in a ponytail, was slumped over the countertop.

  “Mr. Morales,” said Grant.

  Luis Morales looked up, his tear-stained face devoid of expression.

  “Why did you do this?” she asked.

  “I don’t give a shit anymore,” he said flatly. “I’m a loser. I’ve been in and out of jail my whole life. The only good thing I had going for me was my wife. She said she’d always stick by me, but now I’m going upstate for a long stretch and she’s had enough. I can’t live without her and my kids. Without them, there’s nothing. Nothing.” With that, he buried his face in his hands and convulsed into sobs.

  Even the CO was touched by his despair. “Hey, you don’t want to kill yourself—it’s not that bad.”

  But it was that bad, and Grant and I both knew it. There were no silver linings here. We tried to comfort him as best we could.

  I was so engrossed that I didn’t hear the phone ring. “Miss Buser,” whispered the officer. “It’s for you. Pepitone in the clinic—he says it’s important.”

  I took the phone and stepped outside. “Yeah, Pep?”

  “Listen, Mary, they’re getting ready to tow your car. I got a buddy in security and I was able to buy you ten minutes, but you better get down here before they come back.”

  They were getting ready to tow my car! Caught in the crosshairs of the tragic and the absurd, I asked Grant to step out for a moment and explained the situation.

  “Un-believable!” she said.

  Although torn, we both agreed that Luis Morales was stable for the moment and that she would stay with him while I moved the car.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told her.

  I bolted out of the Bing and ran through the halls, wriggling through gates one after the next just before they slammed shut. Outside the jail, I raced across the sunbaked lot, my sandals sinking into the mushy tar. I jumped into my car and backed out of somebody else’s designated spot that I’d grabbed in desperation. Driving up and down the rows, I scanned the cars for an empty spot. Nothing. I drove around again, hoping I’d missed something. I hadn’t. At the jail’s main entrance, I waited for someone to come out. Nobody did. Finally, I turned onto the perimeter road, drove down a hill and rounded a bend that put me at the water’s edge, where there were always a few spots. The problem was that I now had to wait for the route bus to get me back up to the jail. I looked helplessly up at the Bing. It would have been such an easy walk back, but I dared not risk it. Anxiously I waited, willing a route bus to appear. But none came, and I realized that I wouldn’t be rejoining my colleague any time soon. Grant would have to handle the situation alone and get Morales to MHAUII or the hospital.

  I sat down on a wooden mooring and lit up a cigarette. Across the way in a field of reeds, a rusted-out paddy wagon that looked like a leftover from the Eliot Ness days lay on its side. It was a hazy, sunny morning, and I leaned down to dip my hand in the East River’s cold water. In the distance was the bridge, where a parade of buses rumbled across the span, shuttling the detainees to court. And just around the river’s bend was the big city. From the glitter of Broadway to the corporate hustle of Midtown, careers were launched and fortunes made. That energy and promise might as well have been on another planet. Shortly, a car came around the bend, its three occupants studying me. It was Suzanne Harris, Hugh Kemper, and Frank Nelson headed down the road to Central Office. The car slowed, and the three of them looked at me curiously, undoubtedly trying to figure out what OBCC’s Mental Health chief was doing sitting at the river’s edge. And I would have gladly told them, had they stopped. But they didn’t, and I can’t say I was surprised. They knew that whatever the problem was, they didn’t have an answer. In some ways I actually felt bad for them. The bravado of their early days was long gone. Between the demands of their own superiors, being bullied by DOC and the city, and trying to manage an angry staff, their jobs were unenviable. But while the Central Office team might have been having a tough go of it, St. Barnabas Hospital itself was doing quite nicely.
Newspaper reports estimated that profits from the Rikers contract were already well into the millions.

  37

  A couple of days later I was at my desk working on OBCC’s daily statistics, my cynicism growing. Although the form was never without incidents of arm cutting, head banging, and attempted hangings, once I faxed it to Central Office, most of this data would disappear. Self-injurious behavior was considered strictly in terms of suicide attempts. If it was deemed that the motivation for self-harm was “goal-directed”—as opposed to a bona fide wish to die—then it would simply be deleted. In the case of Leonard Putansk, despite the fact that he was taken to the hospital for an attempted hanging, because the gesture came on the heels of his demand to be released from solitary, it was not considered a true suicide attempt. Using this formula, the big numbers of clawing, cutting, and attempted hangings that were so pervasive among the detainees were whittled down to a mere one or two a month, serving as the island’s official numbers—the numbers that were served up to the public. I never trust statistics.

  I was just finalizing the form when Theresa Alvarez burst into my office. “Mary! They’re ransacking the MO! They think somebody’s got a razor! I was in the middle of running the community group when the squad came in with nightsticks, helmets, riot gear . . . and everything!”

  “Wait here,” I instructed her and dashed across the hall to the MO. I don’t know why I went over—a sense of protectiveness, a reflex, I guess. But when I got to the door, I could go no farther. Mental frailties notwithstanding, a razor blade was a security matter, and I had no business being here; if spotted, I would be solidly reprimanded. But no one had seen me just yet. The door was slightly ajar and I edged in closer, just close enough to see the helmets and to hear a nightstick crack against a metal cot. An angry voice yelled, “Listen up, ya motherfuckers! You’re nothing but sorry pieces of shit—not one of you should have even been born! Maybe you think you’re fooling the doctors with all this mental illness crap, but you’re not”—crack!—“fooling”—crack!—“me! Now I want my razor back—and I want it back now!”

  Heavy boots were pounding down the hallway. It was the Emergency Response Services Unit—the Ninja Turtles. I didn’t dare stay a moment longer and darted back across the hall, but not before I caught sight of an oversized angular chair being rushed toward the MO. It always reminded me of an electric chair on wheels. One of DOC’s most favored security apparatus, it detects weapons stored within the body. This was going to be bad.

  Back at the clinic, we all buried ourselves in paperwork; no one talked about what was happening across the hall. I looked up at the clock—three-quarters of an hour had ticked by. Ten minutes later, Pepitone stuck his head in and told us the search team had just left.

  We ran over to the MO. It looked like a bomb had been dropped. Lockers lay on their sides, family pictures were strewn about, the bookcase that Theresa had set up was on its side, books scattered on the floor. Mattresses were everywhere. The patients were rocking on their mattressless cots, too devastated to start the cleanup. A few sobbed. Victor, the mentally retarded inmate, sat on the edge of his cot; at his feet were his big eyeglasses, the frames twisted and the lenses nothing more than shards of glass.

  At the bubble, the usually good-natured Officer Hartman was dazed. Hovering over him, arms flailing, was Burns, who alternated between berating Hartman and then trying to prop up his flagging spirits.

  “What were you thinking?” asked Burns. “Mary, he calls security and tells them a blade’s missing. Why’d you tell them it was gone? All you did was get yourself in hot water. What are you? Stupid?”

  “Well, what was I supposed to do?” Hartman said glumly. “I was just following procedure.”

  Every morning disposable razors for shaving are dispensed from the bubble. In exchange for the razor, the inmate must turn in his all-important ID card. To get the card back, the blade must be returned.

  Apparently, Hartman sent the inmates out to rec without checking IDs and without realizing he was still holding one ID card in the bubble, meaning that someone had walked out of the house with a razor blade. Only after the inmates were gone did Hartman notice the remaining ID. Following protocol, he called security and the squad arrived to search the inmate who’d left the ID behind. A strip search revealed no blade. He claimed he’d dropped it in the house and had simply forgotten about his ID. He was hauled off to the receiving room, and that’s when the search team swarmed in.

  In the meantime, a grim-looking Captain Catalano, the MO captain, told me the culprit was still in the receiving room and advised me to transfer him to an MO in another jail. Since he’d brought this upon the house, he was in danger of being soundly beaten if returned to the dorm. I filled out the paperwork promptly.

  The following day, the blade had not yet turned up and the house was still “on the burn.” Once again, the dorm was ransacked.

  Afterward, we decided to gather the inmates in the dayroom and try to comfort them. At first, only a few would get up, but once we got the group going, they started trickling in. They were initially reluctant to talk, but once they started, the floodgates opened. They repeated the speech I’d heard at the door. Then they said they were ordered to strip, lined up against the wall with legs outstretched and palms against the wall, and warned not to make a sound while the team ransacked their belongings and inspected their rectums. They told us their arms were aching, but they all knew the officers were waiting for one of them to flinch—so someone could be made an example of. They said one of them looked at Victor and said, “Hey, Goofy,” pulled off his glasses, and stomped on them.

  Back in our office, Dr. Ketchum was beside herself. “For God’s sake, why are they doing this? They’re torturing these fragile people! The razor’s gone—that guy got rid of it in the hallway. Don’t they realize that?”

  Even Catalano thought the searches were going too far but told me it was out of his hands. But he did have an interesting take on the whole thing. “The problem here is that it was our mistake. Nobody should have left that dorm without an ID. Now if somebody gets cut up with that razor, especially in an MO house, it would look very bad for the department. That’s why they’re pushing so hard to find it.”

  Buzzie Taylor, an older inmate with a long history of drug and alcohol addiction, was a permanent resident on the MO who suffered from major depression. After the third search, we had to console a shaken Buzzie, but not because of the search. He told us he was heading into the bathroom: “I was just going to take a pee and try to forget about everything. I went around a corner and a pair of sneakers banged into my head, and I said, ‘What?’ and then I look up and it’s Teddy—hanging!”

  Teddy Gibson, the patient with the crisscross scars who’d been sexually abused as a child, was barely clinging to life. He was already being intubated when the gurney was rushed through the clinic. The ambulance arrived quickly. It was only after a week that we got word that Teddy had survived. I told a much-relieved staff, and they in turn shared the news with the patients. However, there were murmurings that there’d been brain damage. We would never know for sure, as he never returned to OBCC, but after Teddy Gibson’s attempted suicide, the searches ended.

  38

  After I had spent eight weeks running OBCC alone, the heat let up, the summer vacations ended, and the audit was history. Even the calls from the Bing had fallen off. But best of all, Kelly returned. The long nightmare was over. As soon as Kelly got settled, I took a badly needed vacation and did my best to forget all about Rikers Island. While I was out, I saw a doctor about my abdominal pain. After a series of tests came the diagnosis: duodenal ulcer. He told me that most ulcers are caused by a virus, but further tests ruled out any virus. He said that some ulcers are, indeed, caused by “good old-fashioned stress.” I didn’t doubt it for a second.

  When I returned to work, Kelly’s presence felt luxurious.
Together, we oversaw the unit, compiled statistics, traded off on meetings, and handled the daily crises. In short, the place became manageable. And then, an exciting development: we got a clinical supervisor! The enthused psychologist set up shop at the third desk, and our office was complete. Everything was finally coming together. I was well rested and should have felt great—but strangely, I did not.

  About two weeks into Kelly’s return, we were catching up on paperwork when the phone rang and Kelly answered it. I wasn’t paying attention to her conversation, but when she got off she softly said, “Mary.”

  I was distracted and didn’t respond.

  “Mary!”

  I swiveled around in my chair, but by now she was busy reading something.

  I turned back and resumed assigning referrals. A few minutes passed before she said, “I have an interview.”

  I took a deep breath and said nothing.

  “Well, it’s just one interview.” But there was a sparkle in her eye, and I knew the interview would fall into place and that she, too, would be gone.

  Sure enough, one week and two interviews later, Kelly had a job offer. “I’d have to be crazy not to take it,” she said. “Things here are too ridiculous.”

  “I know, Kelly. I wish it wasn’t so, but I understand.”

  “You’ll be taking over here at OBCC, Mary. You’ll be the new chief.”

  I wished I could have been excited at the prospect, but I wasn’t sure about it at all. But I needn’t have worried about any agonizing decision.

  When Kelly returned after tendering her resignation, she said that Suzanne Harris asked her who she thought should take over. “I was a little surprised,” said Kelly. “After all, it’s obvious you’d be the next chief. But she said they’d have to think about it, maybe consider candidates from outside.”

  I couldn’t have been more stunned if Kelly had slapped me across the face.