Corruption Officer (26 page)

I sat there being harassed for the rest of the night until
they moved me and the other male Corrections Officer to a jail called the “Boat,”
also located in the Bronx.
 
It was called
the boat because it was actually a large floating barge.
 
We were placed in a cell in the intake area
until they found out where they were going to house us.
 
We sat in that cell for hours rarely speaking
and into our own thoughts.
 
What little
that was said between us, I got the notion that his wife was going to bail him
out.
 
I had no wife.
 
I had no people to bail me out with all the
hustling I had done.
 
I had no stash and
nothing to show for it.
 
All of the things
I did
was
for nothing.
 
I overheard the Officers that were working there say that the other male
Officer’s bail had been made.
 
They were
having a problem figuring out where to put me.
 
I was labeled as high classified due to the fact that the inmates on the
island were threatening to riot on my behalf.
 
Plus, they wanted to kill whoever they felt
had snitched on me and set me up.
 
While
we were there, more embarrassing moments occurred as we were visited throughout
the night by Officers we knew.
 
The Officers
consulted us and really thought that what the department was doing to us was
wrong.
 
They gave us the benefit of the
doubt that we were innocent.
 
They
believed that when we got exonerated we could sue the Corrections Department.
 
I shook their hands but I couldn’t look them
in their faces.
 
How could I?
 
Here were Officers that I considered my
friends, that I, on occasion, went into battle with, that taught me on the job,
and who had my back no matter what.
 
Here
I was disrespecting everything that they stood for, good or bad.
 
They did their job and did not crumble like I
did.
 
When they left, I was moved.
 

They decided that I would be housed in the Nassau County Jail.
 
When I get there they allowed me an Officer
courtesy and let me make a phone call to let my family know where I was and
that I was okay.
 
The Officers were under
the impression that I was going to bail out and fight this from the streets.
 

I prepared myself to do the hardest thing that I ever had to
do in my life.
 
I called my mother.
 
I had not talked to her since all of this
started.
 
I saw the look on her face in
the courtroom and I knew that I had cut her deep, especially the backlash that she
and my family were going through because of what I did.
 
I took a deep breath and dialed the number.
 
The phone did a half a ring and I heard a hello.
 
I could tell she was up waiting to hear
from me, to hear anything that would tell her that I was okay.
 
I said, “It’s me.”
 
She was quiet then she asked me if I was ok I
said, “Yes,” then she went right into talking about getting my bail money up.
 
She was filling out the paperwork and would
take out a pension loan from her job, and she also contacted my aunt in Alabama
about putting her house up.
 

Hearing her going so hard for me made what I was about to
say to her even harder.
 
I had to say it
and I had to hold my head and not let her hear my voice crack.
 
I did not want her to know that I was
stressing or that something was wrong with me.
 
The same way she was being strong for me, I had to be strong for her.
 
So that she would not worry anymore than what
she was already doing.
 
I stopped her by
saying, “Ma.”
 
She paused to listen because
I hadn’t said a word since she started going on with what she was going to do.
 
I then said, “Ma, I did it.”
 

Dead silence.

 
I just kept saying in
my mind, ‘Don’t crack.
 
Don’t breakdown
on this phone.’
 
I told her that I did
not want her to take out any loan for anything and not to do anything with
anybody’s house for me.
 
I told her
everything about the child support being the reason and that I had made my bed
and that I would deal with everything myself.
 
She was quiet.
 
I could feel the added pain that I was sending
her way but I had to say these things because I knew that my mother will do
anything to fight for me until the very end.
 
I broke the silence by telling her when my
next court date was and that I would be okay here where I was.
 
I then told her that I had to get off of the
phone and that I would call her as soon as possible.
 
Then I said the stupidest thing that I could
say to her.
 
I told her not to worry
about me, that I would be okay.
 
I got
off the phone.
 
Then I am processed into
jail.
 

I give up the clothes that I had on, in exchange for an
orange shirt and pants that now read, “Inmate.”
 
The transformation is quiet.
 
It’s routine for them but devastating for me.
 
I keep my head down and my words are few,
just one word answers when I am spoken to or asked a question.
 
Now I am being searched and instructed to strip.
 
Then I go through the motions of opening my
mouth, lifting my arms and lastly squatting and bending over, spreading my ass
so that they can see that I have no weapons. I am given an orange pair of
sneakers because I came in with a pair of Timberland boots which are not
authorized for inmates to have in jail.
 
I
am then escorted to a cell and inside there is a bed, a sink, and a toilet I’m
unfazed by my surroundings because I’ve checked these things for weapons over a
million times.
 
I am tired because I’ve
been up all day I try and sleep.
 

The next couple of days I am kept in my cell for 22 hours
out of the day and only allowed to shower and use the telephone.
 
I don’t mind being away from the other inmates
because most of the
time
I try to sleep because if I’m
awake all I think and stress about is how much time are they going to give me.
 
The next morning a C.O. comes to my cell and
lets me know that I have a visitor.
 
I
already know who it is.
 
I wash my face
brush my teeth and prepare to see my mother face to face.
 
As I am escorted to the visitor’s floor, I
keep saying to myself, ‘Stay strong.
 
Don’t
break down.
 
She doesn’t need to see you
like that.’
 
We see each other and I go
over to her and give her a hearty hug.
 
Then
we sit and begin to talk.
 
She tells me
that she’s holding up okay and is more concerned about me in here. I look at
her and say, “This is a fine mess that I have gotten myself into, huh?”
 
She answers, “Yeah.”
 
Then she tells me how my son took the news
and that as usual she hasn’t seen my daughter to know how she is taking my
incarceration.
 
Then she puts her head
down.
 
I try and tell her not to worry
about me but nothing I said seemed to be registering with her.
 
She then looked up at me and said that it’s
all in the papers and on T.V.
 
I said I
know and that I heard.
 
Then I asked her,
“What were they saying?”
 
She said, “They
just be going on and on about the things that you did, the charges that they
have on you and the fact that you’re facing life if convicted.”

That last one kind of hung out there.
 
I knew that she really didn’t like that one so
I tried again to lessen the impact and said, “Ma, you know the papers make
things up to hype up a story.”
 
She
answered, “Yeah, I know.”
 
I could tell
that she wasn’t swayed in any way about how she felt.
 
My hour was up and my visit was over so we
hugged again and she stood there looking at me until the door opened for me to
go back and I disappeared into the jail.
 

When I got back to my cell I was wide awake and as usual
thinking about things.
 
I started
thinking back to when I got the letter to be a C.O. and how happy she was and
the way we danced around the living room that day.
 
I thought about what it was supposed to mean
and what I was supposed to have done with the Corrections job.
 
Then I thought about what she is going
through.
 
What my kids may be going through
and the fact that I am not there to do anything about it.
 
I thought about what if something happened to
my family.
 
What could I do for them now?
 
I thought about all of the things that I
was trying to fix by hustling.
 
I had
just made things worse in my life and their lives too, with my actions.
 
I then did something that I had not done in
over twenty years.
 
I didn’t do it when
my brother died or when my father died.
 
I never really felt a need to do it.
 
That day I sat in that cell and broke down and
cried.
 
It seemed like my body had wanted
to for a long time because I just released everything.
 
Tears came down my face as if I had opened
the flood gates.
 
For the first time in
my life my big 290lb ass was laying on the bed provided for me, in a fetal
position, whimpering to myself like a little bitch.

I was still going through it.
 
I couldn’t sleep.
 
I was now staring at my reflection in the dull
piece of plastic that was supposed to be a mirror that they had on the wall.
 
I thought to myself, ‘Look at Gary Gee from
the Pologrounds Projects, look at Big Gee the Marine, look at Nutmo the Corrections
Officer and now look at Gary L. Heyward, Nassau Correction Facility Inmate.’
 
I started thinking about everything again and
stressing about how much time they were going to give me.
 
The word
life
just started echoing through my head over and over again.
 
I was about to go through it again when I
heard banging coming from the cell across from mine.
 
I look up and see another inmate trying to get
my attention.
 
He pointed to his head
indicating for me to “hold my head” and that everything will be okay.
 
He mouths to me that he was a Rikers Island C.O.
and that he was going to ask the C.O. to put us together for our one hour
recreation time.
 
I nodded okay.
 

When recreation comes, they let me spend it with him and a
few other inmates.
 
He tells me that his
name is “CC” and that he was a C.O. on the Island who got caught up in a messed
up situation that landed him here.
 
He
said that he had been here a minute but had a court date coming up and hoped
that he would be released.
 
We talked for
a minute and he let me know how it was in here.
 
For the most part, the Officers were okay as
long as you did what they told you to do.
 
Then he told me how they knew who I was from
the newspapers and that he knew that they were trying to railroad me by trying
to give me life for what I had done.
 
I
told him that I was trying not to focus on that, that I was just going to see
what happens when I go to court tomorrow.
 

Our hour was up and I went back to my cell.
 
Then the C.O. came and told me that I have a
“legal visit.”
 
I was then escorted to an
office where a representative from the law firm that represents the Department
of Corrections met me.
 
He spoke to me
with
an
it
’s simple
attitude saying a jury already
indicted me.
 
So if I try to fight the
evidence, they have - the undercover (which I thought was Flocko’s sister), the
video tape, and recordings, along with the inmate who is coming to testify that
I was running a major organization.
 
The
way he spoke just added more pressure to the situation and he really had me
shook.
 
Then he said, “If you take the
deal that I am about to offer, you I can make it a little less painful for you.”
 
My heart was pounding because here was
the moment of truth.
 
Was he going to say
25, 15 10 years!?
 
I took a deep breath
and asked, “What is the offer?”
 
He said,
“I know the D.A. on your case and not to make light of your actions, my office
still tries to give the best representation that we can.
 
So I pleaded with her saying that your job
record was real good until now.
 
I asked
if she could go a little easier on you.
 
As
a favor to me, she said that she’s offering two years.
 
It’s only on the table today if you don’t take
it now we are going to start picking a jury for trial.”
 

I kept quiet waiting for what else he was offering and
nothing came.
 
He just sat there waiting
for my response.
 
My mind begins to work -
two years!?
 
Two years?
 
Maybe they don’t have what they say they have?
 
Then I thought, ‘Fool, yo’ black ass is on
that tape.
 
You saw that yourself and if
a jury sees that, how would you explain your actions!?’
 
He sat there waiting for an answer and after a
moment I said that I would take it.
 

When I get back from my visit I am moved into a cell with
“CC.”
 
I tell him that I am going to take
the two years and he’s more relieved about it then I am.
 
He feels that it’s a great deal under the
circumstances and tells me the options or possibilities of what can happen next.
 
He tells me that since this is my first
offence that it’s possible that I could get into an early release program such
as “Shock” (a military style program that lasts for six months and then you go
home) or Work Release (a program where an inmate can go out into the City and
get a job by day and come to jail at night).
 
Either one of these would be better than going
upstate to serve time.
 
They decide whether
you qualify by a points system.
 
You get
points according to what kind of citizen you were, whether you’ve been in and
out of jail, if you’ve held down a job and if your crime is a violent one or
not.
 
You have to have more than 32
points and after tallying up my score I had 45 already.
 
I was feeling good knowing that I had a chance
to get back out there.
 

I called my mother to tell her the news.
 
She wasn’t too thrilled that I had agreed to
take the two years.
 
She felt that if
they came down from life to two years then maybe there was still a chance to
fight this.
 
Her spunk made getting this
situation over with hard for me because in my mind two years for all the things
that I had done that she didn’t know about, was good.
 
I told her about the possibilities of me
getting different programs that would grant me an early release and she felt
that there was hope to hurry and get me out and put this behind us.
 
Right before I got off the phone she said, “Don’t
worry about me you just do what you have to do in there to get out of there.”
 
I said, “Okay.”
 

I got back to my cell just in time for chow and was greeted
by yet another Corrections Officer who wanted to see the Corrections Officer who
was locked up.
 
It was like I was on
display sometimes.
 
They’d come, look,
and just stare, then make a comment.
 
This
time my food tray was kind of thrown down on the table and the comment behind
it was, “Heyward, tell me how does this food taste?”
 
I didn’t respond because I knew that this was
the beginning of what was to come and I had made my bed and now I had to deal
with it.
 

The next day I’m driven down to the City to go to court and
get sentenced.
 
As I am sitting in a
holding pen waiting for my case to be called, I see several Officers I knew
that I worked with at one time or another just stopping by to either just look
at me in disgust or give me a few words of encouragement.
 
Some of them I was real close to and I can’t
describe the feeling of embarrassment and humiliation that came over me after
seeing them.
 
All I could do was turn my
head away so that I could fight away the shame that I had brought to myself.
 
I just wanted to get sentenced so that I would
not have to make this trip down here again.
 

After about an hour the Judge called me and I walked out
there to face him.
 
As I’m being led over
to my lawyer, I see my sister and my uncle sitting there and not my mother.
 
I see Officer Rains and Zepa my ‘copstitutes’
on the other side of the court room they were crying.
 
I was instructed to face forward and at this
time I noticed four Officers, two Corrections, and two Court Officers standing
behind me, which gave the appearance that I was the type of dangerous person
that garners this type of attention.
 
I
just shook my head at this presentation.
 
I lean over and talk to my lawyer and he nods that he understands.
 
Then we both turn to pay attention to my
sentencing.

The Judge announced my name and asked if I understood the
terms of the plea bargain deal that was in front of me and I answered, “Yes.”
 
Then he asks if I had been threatened or
coerced
into taking this deal and I said, “No.”
 

“I am sentencing you to two years incarceration and one year
post release supervision,” he said.
 

Then before he could hit his gavel, my lawyer said, “Your Honor,
my client qualifies for the Shock Incarceration Program and was wondering if we
could get that for him?”
 
The judge said,
“Give him Shock if it’s available for him.”
 
My heart jumped because to me that meant that
I could finish that program and be home in six months!
 
I felt good and I knew my family did too hearing
this news.
 
I knew that I just had to
stay focused and I could make it through this.