Corruption Officer (19 page)

The next day I arrived to my facility carrying my first
shipment of coke.
 
As usual, in the morning
there was a line to check weapons before we go through the metal detector.
 
As I stood there awaiting my turn, I noticed
a White Officer, who graduated with me, casually standing on the other side of
the metal detector.
 
My antenna goes up that
something is not right.
 
As I recall, he
graduated with me but as soon as we were assigned to our prospective jails, he
disappeared and was nowhere to be found until-Oh shit it came to me!
 
He went straight to the K-9 unit to train drug
sniffing dogs and if I was a betting man he had his sniffer lay right there
under the desk by the entrance out of sight so no one could see it but it could
smell everyone coming into the building.
 
Damn, I thought about what I was going to do now with a half ounce of
coke on me.
 
I had to think fast and luckily
for me there were some lockers by the front door for visiting lawyers to put
their cell phones and other equipment in that’s not allowed inside the jail.
 
I move quickly while the hustle and bustle of Officers
going through the detector is going on, and put the coke, that is in a brown
bag, into one of the lockers.
 
I then
turn in my firearm and proceed through the detector.
 
It beeps, but only because I am in full
uniform shield and all.
 
As soon as I am
through it, I say what’s up to the Officer that I knew and look down to see old
Smokey
, a large German Shepherd, just
laying under the desk in the cut with his tongue hanging out just a waiting to
catch someone.
 
I breeze through and go
to the locker room to wait until he and his dog leaves.
 

Down there, they’re having another
Norman Seabrook is robbing everybody blind ceremony
while everyone
is getting dressed.
 
I think to myself, ‘Why
bother?
 
Everyone who has come up against
him thus
far,
has lost, and nothing has ever been proven
but if they want to sit there and hoop and holla - be my guest.
 
I am just here going through the motions
waiting for roll call to start so that I can retrieve my package.’
 
I went back upstairs after a few minutes and
Rin Tin Tin
, the K-9 dog, was gone so I
walked back out, got the coke and walked back in.
 
The whole time the front entrance Officer only
glanced up from reading the paper long enough to see that it was someone in
uniform going back and forth.
 
I made it
to my post and made the drop to Flocko.
 
He
assured me that as soon as movement is allowed this morning that it would be
out of my housing area.
 

So, I sat back on my post in the “A” station and breathed a
little easier.
 
I had some time to relax
a minute before the chaos began of letting the inmates out.
 
I began to think about my mother and how hard
she took it when I told her last night about Ms. Daniels’ death.
 
I just shook my head at the fact that my own
mother was getting up in age and that one more of her friends had passed away.
 
Then I thought about Biz’s C.O. hit list.
 
I questioned myself, ‘Should I take his threat
seriously?
 
What are the chances of him
being able to carry them out?
 
I mean he
did just smoke crack in front of me so I would say that it was a slim chance,
but he did have a list of addresses that would make one wonder how he got it.’
 

I then let the inmates out to start my day.
 
One by one I clicked open the cells and
received the normal rush of inmates all wanting something at the same time.
 

C.O., open the shower!
 

C.O., I need this I need that!
 

It becomes like Grand Central Station in a matter of
minutes.
 
After I wrote out the passes, Flocko
comes up to the Officers’ station and tells me that the bird has flown the coop,
meaning the coke was out of the housing area via his personal mule.
 
Then he says that he needs to holla at me.
 
So, we go into our office where we conduct
business, which is him inside the utility closet, and me pretending that I am
telling him what to do in there.
 
He then
tells me how much I could get by letting inmates use my phone to make calls
that they can’t make on the City inmate monitored phones.
 
I told him that I would think about it.
 
I already knew off-the-back that they weren’t
going to be using
my
phone but that
a
phone could be possible.
 

Then I hear an Officer yell on the gate.
 
I turn to see that I am receiving a new inmate
into my housing area.
 
I crack the gate
open and they both walk in.
 
The Officer
gives me the inmate’s locator card and because we don’t know each other, there
is no conversation just a nod and then he leaves.
 
The inmate is a young slim dude with braids
and already I see that he is going to be a problem on account of him ice
grilling me from the start.
 
I pay it no
mind because a lot of times it’s just a front to intimidate other inmates that
may or may not be one of his enemies.
 
I
do the usual orientation then I tell him what cell to go to.
 
I buzz him in and he goes to his cell.
 
Then he steps right back out with his shirt
off and starts asking who runs the phones and about slot time.
 
I tell him I run the phones and he grills me
through the protective gate and starts going off disrespecting me talking about
how he don’t trust
Po-Po
and how they
shouldn’t either.
 
How every chance that
he gets he tries to put a shank in a C.O.’s neck!
 

I just stood there and watched him talk.
 
Then Flocko came up to the front and we made
eye contact and I shook my head laughing as the inmate continued mouthing off
trying to recruit other inmates to join his act.
 
None of them budged.
 
In fact, I could see Flocko sending out orders
with just his eye movement.
 

My “B” Officer went to the other side to give them an option
of letting the inmates go to their cell to retrieve stuff.
 
Now the inmate was openly challenging me
saying that he was about to turn it up and make it hot in here.
 
I sat back in my seat and just watched him run
his mouth.
 
Then Flocko asks if he can
talk to him.
 
I figure Flocko was going
to relax him and let him know how things are run around here.
 
I see Flocko put his arm around the dude’s
shoulders and tell him to chill-out.
 
Then one of Flocko’s soldiers comes up and
hands the guy a girlie magazine.
 
In my
mind there is nothing that calms a situation down better than cooch.
 
Flocko has his arm around the inmate’s
shoulders and is talking to him while he points out something in the magazine.
 
I look down at my log book for a split second
and when I look up I see Flocko spit something out of his mouth, across the
inmates face, into his own hand and then, jerk his hand back real fast!
 

The move was so smooth and swift that if you had to blink
you would have missed it!
 
I hear the
inmate yelp then grab his face.
 
It was
already too late because the blood was already squirting out and I could see
the slit opening wider as he grabbed his jaw and began to yell uncontrollably.
 
I jumped up in shock and yelled for everyone
to lock in!
 
I saw Flocko and his goons
do as I said real-quick.
 
I called for
the “B” Officer to lock in the side that he was on as well then come over to
the side that the inmate got cut on.

I immediately pressed my body alarm and called the clinic to
inform them.
 
Then I rushed on the floor
to attend to the inmate who was now squirming around on the floor in pain
holding the flesh that was hanging off of his face.
 
The Captain and the medical team arrived at
the same time along with several Officers who I knew were going to perform an
immediate search of the area.
 
The Captain
ordered me to accompany the inmate to the clinic along with the staff to insure
that he would not act up along the way.
 
It
was a short trip to the clinic and the inmate laid still the whole way now
quietly staring up at the ceiling with makeshift bloody bandages wrapped around
his head holding his jaw together.
 

When we got there they rushed him to the back to begin to
work on him.
 
I was told by the clinic Officer
that my Captain called and said that he would
be needing
a report as to what happened.
 
I thought
to myself, ‘I knew that was coming.’
 
It
would be real simple, all the “B” Officer had to say was that he was on the
other side and did not see anything and all I had to say is that it happened in
the back of the housing area so I did not see who did it either.
 
The fact is that, there are only two Officers
watching 60 to 100 inmates at any given time.
 
So there is no way humanly possible for an Officer
to see everything that goes on.
 
This is
why it’s always easy for an Officer not to assume any liability for what
happens to an inmate.
 
Then the Captain
arrived just as a nurse came running to the front frantically asking for
assistance restraining the inmate.
 
I
followed the Captain to the back into the room where we found the inmate
sitting up on the edge of the table.
 
The
nurse was trying to apply some more gauze to his face to temporarily stop the
bleeding until they could get him to a hospital to get stitched up.
 
The more she tried, the more he moved his face
not wanting her to touch him.
 
The Captain
then said “Nojockal Turner,” calling him by his government name, “Who did this
to you?”
 
The inmate looked at me, the Captain
and the nurse real hard before he tore off the gauze and exposed his wound.
 
We all jumped back because blood began to come
out as he ran his tongue back and forth into the cut on his face that was so
big now that we could see his teeth and gums through it.
 

“My name is
No-joke
,”
he said, “I ain’t
no
snitch and those motherfuckers
should have killed me….”

During the next couple of weeks, my game was elevated.
 
I was now making a substantial amount of money
every day to offset my paycheck.
 
I still
brought pouches in on occasion but it was mostly coke.
 
I had steady trusted people that I would meet
on the streets and they would pay me right then and there for me to deliver the
product inside for them.
 
A lot of
inmates did not have that ride-or-die female that would take the risk of bringing
something in on the visits, so I arranged for them to have their peeps Western Union
the money to someone and once I got the okay that the money was there, I would
deliver the item.
 
I would still hear
about other C.O.s and what they were doing from time to time, but it did not
matter because I had a close knit organization that ran like clock-work.
 

Since my housing area was a high classification area, I had
no problem finding loyal street gang members to hustle with.
 
Most of their charges were attempted murder,
murder, or some form of drug king pin charge.
 
No slouches here.
 
I treated them fairly and with respect
because no matter what crime they committed, they were still men.
 
Plus, they were already incarcerated and going
through trial and foremost, they might never see the light of day again so
there was no need for me to stress them over petty jail shit.
 
I did a lot of business with a lot of them mainly
because Flocko had gotten sentenced to a ten to twenty for his attempted murder
charge and was waiting to go up north.
 
A
lot of my other hustles were fail proof such as the cell phone service.
 
I brought the smallest compact pre-paid cell
phone that I could buy and would bring it in just as I would my own cell phone.
 
Then after receiving $500 from the
inmate I would lock him in his cell and let him rock out until the minutes ran
out.
 
I didn’t care who they called
because most of the time it was either their lawyer or some girl to discuss
things that they could not say over the inmate monitored phones.
 

These smaller hustles were not every day because the coke
and the tobacco were mandatory.
 
I even had
the mess hall workers come pick up in the morning so that they could make sales
at the lunch time feeding.
 
Then I had
the inmates that either went to recreation or the law library making
transactions for me throughout the jail.
 
And to increase my revenue, I even started
making house calls all over the City.
 

I would travel all over the City after work collecting
payments from family members and friends.
 
Then I’d deliver the goods.
 
Some
of these cats made so much money that they were supporting their families from
inside jail.
 
Things ran smooth too, but
occasionally I had to issue an ass whipping to a nondescript who I thought was
too nosey or who might jeopardize my operation.
 
If my employee’s did well I would reward them with something like a
drink of liquor or maybe some food from outside.
 
For the most part the actual duties of being a
Corrections Officer are repetitious and you don’t need a High School Diploma to
do it, so for me hustling became my primary source of income.
 
Every now and then I would attend a C.O. function
or attempt to play on the jail basket ball team with my co-workers but for the
most part, I stayed in the streets in between my hustles and the gambling
spot.
 

Right now I had gotten off work and was on my way to Queens
to meet with an inmate’s grandmother to collect $500.
 
It was his birthday and he wanted a half a
pint of liquor and some red velvet cake.
 
I followed her directions and pulled up over by Forty Projects.
 
I spotted her standing on the corner in front
of a grocery store in the clothes that she said that she’d be wearing.
 
I pulled up in my van and rolled down the
window.
 
She came up to my van and asked,
“Gee?”
 
I responded with a nod then she
smiled and got in.
 
I checked her out for
a moment.
 
She had salt and pepper hair
and her age showed on her face, but still good looking for a woman roughly in
her fifties.
 
She had on a short jacket
and jeans that displayed the fact that she kept in shape or at least it
appeared that the clothes held it all together.
 
She started talking to me and asking about her grandson as to if he’s
okay where he is, are we treating him right and so on.
 
I answered with, “I wouldn’t be here if he
wasn’t being treated right.”
 
She smiled
and began to thank me as we pulled away from the curb to go somewhere secluded
to finish our transaction.
 
She started
talking to me about her grandson going in and out of jail and reassuring me
that I am safe with her because this is not the first time she has met up with
a C.O. or used Western Union to pay for something to help her grandson.
 
She stated that the way she looks at it, I am
for the people.
 
She said only real
c.o.
s never forget where they come from
and recognize how hard it is to maintain out here.
 
She went on to say that I provide a service
that allows families who can’t afford taking care of their loved ones with
commissary money every two weeks to do something to help them.
 
I acknowledged that when someone pays me a
$100 for two or three pouches of tobacco, their loved one can juggle them and
trade them for commissary.
 
That could
last him for months thus taking some of the burden off of the family.
 
I parked a few blocks down from where I
picked her up so that I could get this over with and be on my way.
 
She handed me the liquor and the cake and
before she handed me the money she said, “Um, the money is a little
short.”
 
I gave her a look like ‘I don’t
want to hear that shit’ then, I ask with one eyebrow up, “How short!?”
 
She said, “Only fifty dollars.
 
It’s because they cut my food stamps this
week and I did not have that many of them to sell to get all the money
up.”
 
I counted the money and it was four
hundred fifty dollars.
 
I was about to
say that it was cool when she leaned over into my ear and said, “There’s other
ways to get paid, baby.”
 
Then she licked
my ear.
 

I looked at her like ‘you’re this dude’s grandmother’ and
what I look like doing something like that.
 
She sat back in her seat and said, “I’ll do anything to make sure my
baby is alright.”
 
Then she put her thumb
in her mouth.
 
I was stuck just sitting
there with the money, the liquor and the cake in my hands.
 
She looked around to see who was around then
leaned over into my lap and started unbuckling my belt and guess what? ….I did
not stop her!
 
I leaned my seat back and
closed my eyes thinking damn I made some good money in the jail today and this
is an extra
coupla
dollars
to throw in with it (not to mention that she is serious with what she was doing).
 
It felt eerie seeing her salt and pepper hair
go up and down, eerie and good, real good, so good that it took me two seconds
to upchuck and release my tadpoles.
 
When
it was over she rose up and just smiled, didn’t say a word all the way back to
where I picked her up from.
 
I pulled
over, she got out and waved.
 
I was
sitting there for a minute putting the stuff away when she came back and
knocked on the window.
 
I gave her a
confused look as I rolled the window down.
 
Then she pointed to my dashboard and my eyes widened as I saw why her
performance was so good.
 
Sitting up
there near my window was a full set of dentures!
 
She had gummed me.
 
She reached in and grabbed them then smiled
wide and it was nothing there.
 
I shook
my head then pulled off thinking about my whole day.

My money was right and I had that itch to shake them up!
 
Dice that is.
 
I am off work and heading over to the G-spot
to try my luck.
 
First, I have to apply
rule number one, never go into the gambling spot with all of your money.
 
This way if
you,
lose
you still have something stashed.
 
I
arrive home with a pocket full so I make an attempt to check up on my kids.
 
I knock on the door several times but there is
no answer.
 
Then while I am standing
there, as if I could not hear or see what was going on, the peep hole cover
moves to the side and then slides back.
 
Still
no one answers.
 
I just laugh it off
because I am done getting heated over the dumb shit.

I go around the corner to my apartment and go inside.
 
Aaahhh, I take a deep whiff of what’s in my
momma’s cooking pots.
 
I could tell that
there is real fatback in them greens.
 
I
go into the living room to find my mother sitting there with this sad look on
her face so I question her as to what’s the matter.
 
She just starts crying.
 
Now I am really concerned and I sit down
beside her and ask her again.
 
She says that
they found a body in the back of the building today and it was Brain, known to
me as “Biz.”