Corruption Officer (6 page)

They finished getting dressed and
left.
 
I sat there in the dirty locker
room soaking up all the stuff that I just heard.
 
As I looked around I noticed that I was
sitting in the cemetery, a row of beat up lockers that were sealed with tape with
the words
Rest in Peace
written on
them.
 
I found out later that when Officers
pass away on the job, their lockers are taped up with all their belongings inside.
 
To me it was a bullshit jail house
ritual because I also heard about Officers acting like scavengers and breaking
into these so called sacred lockers and stealing its contents.
 
So it’s safe to assume that there are a bunch
of Officers walking around here with a dead man’s uniform on and with no guilt
whatsoever.
 

I was about to leave when another
Officer came into the row I was sitting in and asked if he could sit down and
talk to me.
 
He was a tall slender built Officer
with a bald head.
 
Well, I thought he was
bald until I noticed that he had one long braid attached to the back of his
head.
 
It looked like the barber shaved
everything but that one braid.
 
My
thoughts, ‘Somebody needs to beat that barber’s ass.’
 
He sat down and began to talk.
 

“I overheard ya’lls conversation,”
he said.
 

Then he looked at me with a
raised eyebrow and said, “Yo’ don’t listen to those mothafuckas.
 
A lot of them nigga’s are bruised, bitter, and
just plain ol’ beat up.
 
Sure, they will
sit here and talk all the shit in the world about the females around here but
nothing about their trifling asses.
 
A
lot of them just walk around here mad because they fucked their lives up.
 
You see, Rufis…” he rhetorically asked, “…he’s
what you a call a B.A.N.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A
Bitchassnigga.
 
The type of C.O.
that never was
nobody
before this job, got bullied in
high school, and never got no chicks.
 
You
know,
the type of nigga who always wound up sitting in
the living room or in the car while you’re in the room fuck’n.
 
The mothafucka never could fight until he took
up martial arts, and now he comes on this job to get vengeance on all these
cuffed dudes in here who remind him of who and what he really is deep
down.
 
Then you have, Kev,” he went on
not realizing that I don’t know these guys by their first names, “He is what
you call a S.A.N.”

“What’s that?” again, I asked.

“A
Stupidassnigga.
 
He diddybopping around here still trying to live out his heyday.
 
The nigga damn near fifty and he’s still
dying his hair, buying gold chains and rings and shit.
 
Mothafucka been on the job over ten years and
don’t own nothing, no property, no bonds, no CD’s - nothing.
 
He just buys mink coats and gator shoes and
hits every C.O. party hemming up these new naive broads that come through here.
 
The nigga ain’t even smart enough to go
to the dentist.
 
All this nigga’s teeth
are just rotten and missing on one side.
 
He can only chew on the left side of his
mouth.”

We both laughed out loud.

“Watch ‘em the next time he’s
trying to eat a piece of rib or something.
 
It’s like torture to his ass!
 
Chris
and Paul are F.A.N.s.”
 

You know I followed suit and
asked his ass what that was.
 

“They’re Faggotassnigga’s.
 
These red, white and blue bleeding
mothafucka’s will do anything for this job.
 
This job is their life!
 
If you ever looking for them, you will find
them standing on top of Corrections’ mountain with the C.O. flag wrapped around
them blowing in the wind!
 
Do me a favor
and don’t ever talk disrespectfully about this job to those “George Washingtons”
because they will be ready to fight.
 
This job is their reason for living.
 
Everything they do revolves around this job
in one way or another.
 
This piece of
dirt we standing on is their reason for living.
 
They go to every C.O. party, every cookout,
every sports event and
allat
.
 
They give their kids names after the jails
like Rosy for Rose M. Singer and Benny for the Bing and allat!
 
The shit is crazy, man,” he said chuckling to
himself. “To them, in their world, if you ain’t a C.O. you’re an inmate - point
blank.”

Then he looked at me and said, “All
of them mothafucka’s got caught up in here chasing pussy.
 
How do you think that they can tell you all so
well about what’s going to happen to you?
 
It’s because they have been through it and
still going through it.
 
Divorce and child
support ruined them.
 
They can’t get
through the day without a drink and a lot of times they take their frustrations
out on these inmates because they have the power to do so.
 
All because they wanted to fuck everything
that moved up in this bitch,” he paused, and said, “Just-like-you.”

As he got up to leave he said,
“Tell me something.”

I gave him a look like ‘what?’
 

“Which one are you going to be?” he
asked me while walking out.

“Johnson! Johnson!” C.O. Spiff yelled in the face of an
inmate that was on the serving line in the Officer’s kitchen.
 

“What!” yelled C.O. Johnson from the back
kitchen.

Then C.O. Johnson walked out front where the trays of food
for Officers were all lined up.
 

“Tell this stupid ‘mate to give me two pieces of chicken!”
yelled C.O. Spiff at the top of his lungs.

Spiff was standing there with his own large Tupperware bowl
that he brought from home, not with the little orange trays that they use to
feed the Officers.
 
I sat there observing
the festivities after returning from ‘school’ in the locker room.
 
I wondered to myself, how is it that we go to
these inmates’ cells or dorms where they sleep and toss their belongings all on
the floor, rip up their pictures from home and sometimes unnecessarily destroy
sacred personal items during our random searches that we conduct, then expect
that same inmate not to piss or spit or worse bust a nut in the food that they
serve us?
 
A lot of the times they are unsupervised.
 
So, that is a lot of time for them to
get revenge in their own little way.
 

As C.O. Johnson ordered the inmate to give C.O. Spiffy Spiff
another piece of chicken (I called him this because that’s what he had marked
on his inmate issue green cup), Spiff reached over and took the inmate’s
identification card off his shirt.
 
He put
it in his pocket, knowing that every Officer this inmate encountered for the remainder
of the day was going to give him hell for not having his I.D. card.
 
My thoughts were plain, ‘Stupid shit.’
 

Then I sat there thinking about all the things that were
said in the locker room while watching all the other Officers around me.
 
Some were asleep, some were watching
television and a couple of female Officers were bringing male Officers their
lunch which the female either brought from home or store bought.
 
I learned that that’s the first tell-tell sign
that they’re fucking.
 
I laughed to
myself because in here trying to be low key is impossible.
 
Then I hear the usual C.O. conversation from a
table full Officers who reeked of liquor and cigarettes.

“So the ‘mate kept talking shit going on about how he was
going to fuck my mother when he gets out, how he was going to have my sister
sucking dick for a living and allat!” said one male C.O. to a female C.O.
 

Her response was sucking her teeth and saying, “Sheeeiit!”

She was making a face like it couldn’t have been me.
 

“I just let him talk.
 
I didn’t say a word.
 
Since we were in the intake area, I just
processed him and let him go to court,” the male C.O. said. “Then about 6:00
p.m. that night, that mothafucka came back from court and I was waiting.
 
I hurried up and processed all the other
inmates and left his Black ass for last.”
 

The female was now in his face drooling.
 
He had her full undivided attention, like she
gets off on these stories.
 

“After everybody was gone, I had Officer Smith hand-cuff the
mate to the bars of the cell.
 
You should
have heard that nigga complaining.
 
What
is this?
 
I am tired.
 
I just came from court!
 
Why am I still here?’
 
Then his face turned pale white when he saw me
walk into that cell and lock it behind me.
 
You should have seen him squirming trying to
get loose from them cuffs!
 
He was a big
nigga too.
 
I slowly put on my straightiners,
you know, my black leather gloves with the metal inserts.
 
Then proceeded to whip his ass!
 
Piyow, right to his jaw! Then I repeated to
him all the shit that he said to me that morning with every punch.
 
Piyow, you’re gonna fuck my
moms
right?
 
Pow
,
that’s for my sister!
 
You remember her
right!”

At this time the female Officer looked like she was fingering
herself because she was so excited with what he was saying.
 
The Officer continued, “When I finished with
him, they rushed his ass out of there pronto right to Elmhurst hospital!”
 

You see back then we ain’t
have
to
worry about all the law suits and bullshit that is going on now.
 
The female Officer responded, “Shit, fuck
them
mates.
 
If their
families are so worried about their loved ones, they should make sure they
don’t come to jail period!”
 
They laughed.

Then all of a sudden, “BLLIIINNGLIINNG!”
A loud bell started sounding off. It was an alarm. This was my first one and I
was stunned.
 
I saw Officers scrambling
to put their food away.
 
Some just left
theirs right there.
 
Some females with
expensive hair styles ran toward the bathroom to hide, while the rest of us
burst into action.
 
The alarm meant that
some Officer was in trouble probably getting their ass kicked or about to be
kicked.
 
We had to hurry up and get down
there because we all knew that the ratio of inmate to Officer was on the inmate
side when things first jumped off.
 
We knew
that the Officer male or female had to fend for
themselves
until help arrived.
 

At first I never understood why there was only one Officer per
fifty inmates and how the system we ran allowed us to maintain control.
 
Truth is the Officer on the floor or
patrolling the area where the inmates were is the
sacrificial lamb
and the Officer behind the protective bars or
glass is the one that is being counted on to notify the Supervisor of what’s
happening to the lam-I mean other Officer.
 

I rushed to the staging area, my heart pumping like crazy,
my adrenaline flowing, along with a shit load of nervousness.
 
All kinds of thoughts ran through my mind, ‘
This
is it big boy. Don’t get your ass beat up on your first
alarm.’
 
I made it to the staging area in
a hurry only to be told by a Captain to slow down and properly put on all of
the protective equipment that we are supposed to wear when we go into battle.
 
I was stunned because here it is that an Officer
could be getting killed down there and this Supervisor is worried about whether
I am putting on shin guards to protect my legs.
 
I looked over to another Officer to see if he
was just as disturbed as I was and he said, “Ya’ better put on everything
because if you go down there and get seriously hurt and it’s because you did
not have on the proper equipment, Corrections insurance is not going to cover
you.”
 
I thought, ‘Oh shit!’
 
Then I yelled to the fat Officer that was
conveniently stuck with passing out the equipment, “Give me a motha fuck’n shin
guard!”
 
After putting on all of the
proper stuff, I ran down to the area with the first wave.
 

As we arrived at the area where the alarm was sounding and saw
inmates yelling and begging to be let out of the housing area, the Captain
ordered them to back up so that he could locate the Officers.
 
Precaution was taken because we did not see
the Officers at first and this could have been a hostage situation.
 
Then, the Officers appeared and they were just
as frantic as the inmates were to get out of there.
 
We unlocked the gate and the inmates all fled
out, quickly hitting the floor with their hands behind their heads, letting us
know that they were not a threat.
 
Then
the Officers approached the Captain and one of them, a female, said, “Ga ga gun
shots!”
 
Then she burst into tears and
repeated herself, “I heard gunshots!”
 

Have you ever seen the cartoon when the first person stops
and the rest bump into him? Well, that was me.
 
I thought, ‘Oh, Heeeell no!
 
Benefits
don’t cover this shit here!
 
These riot
suits are not bullet proof!’
 
I looked at
the Captain like, these mothafucka’s are shooting and you’re worried about shin
guards?
 

We stood there dumbfounded, all of us looking at the Captain
for our next move.
 
He hesitated, then
took a deep breath and told us that we had to go in.
 
We looked at one another, then we followed our
full of fear leader.
 

We edged our way forward, all of us not wanting to be the
first one to go in and get shot.
 
I was
right next to the Captain, okay,
okay,
I was right
behind
the Captain.
 
When we entered, we saw one lone inmate lying
on his back on his bed screaming that he had been shot.
 
Of course we were all thinking, no hoping, that
he was lying but as we got closer we saw that he wasn’t.
 
He had a gunshot wound to his leg.
 
‘Ohhh, shit,’ I thought to myself.
 
The truth was right there, somehow, some way
an inmate had been able to get a gun inside this jail.
 
I couldn’t believe it.
 
I was working in this very housing area just a
few days before and talking shit to these inmates like I was invincible, never
thinking that one of these individuals had a firearm in his possession.
  
So many questions went through my head.
 
How did
he get it?
 
Which one of them had it?
 
Who shot the gun?
 
And, most importantly where was the weapon right
now?
 
Does one of the inmates that we let
out have it?
 
Did we just put the whole
jail in danger by not assessing the situation correctly?
 

A whirlwind of thoughts hit me all at once and I could tell
that all of us were thinking the same thing.
 
The Captain went over to the inmate and asked him, “Where is the gun?”
 
The inmate stated that he did not know.
 
He said that somebody just shot him for
nothing.
 
The Captain, now with composure
regained but still realizing that we were not out of hot water, belted out
orders, “Search those inmates out there!
 
The weapon is still missing!”
 
To us he said, “Officers, spread out and search
every inch of this place.
 
I want it
turned upside down.
 
I want that weapon
found!”

Over the radio I heard the Deputy Warden on duty calling the
Captain to see what the situation was.
 
As
the Captain was about to give his diagnosis, I thought to myself ‘This ought to
be good.’
 
He stuttered and said, “Si…sir,
it would appear that an inmate has been shot.”
 
We all heard the radio drop then a loud, “WHAT!?”
 
The Captain said, “Yes sir, you heard me
correctly, an inmate appears to have a single gunshot wound to his thigh.”
 
The next transmission was, “I am sending the
second and third wave in.”

They arrived and aided us with tearing the place apart.
 
Then a female Officer over turned a locker and
gasped.
 
When we came over to see what
she had found, we were all stunned to see a 22-caliber gun lying on the floor.
 
All of us new jacks looked like, ‘What the
fuck is going on in here?’
 
Yet, the Senior
Officers all had a look that said they had been here before.
 

“Nobody
touch
it!” the Captain
yelled.
 

At this time the heavy hitters were on deck, all sorts of Chiefs
and Wardens and Investigation Department Representatives, all swarming in, each
trying to look more important than the next. The rest of the day was total
chaos.
 
Who’s at fault?
 
Did the Officers do their job right? Whose head
is going to roll and so-on?
 
All I
thought about was the stuff in the Academy that was said about Officers
bringing in things for inmates.
 
I
remembered the instructor saying, “If an Officer will bring in a stick of
bubble gum for an inmate, they will bring in a gun.”
 
Those words kept ringing in my head.
 
I wondered, ‘Could an Officer really be
capable of bringing in a gun for an inmate to use?’
 
Let’s do the math shall we?
 
An inmate is being supervised at all times by
who
?
 
A C.O.
 
An inmate has
to be thoroughly searched when they come into the building by
who
?
 
A C.O.
 
An inmate has
to pass through metal detectors to get inside the jail and the detectors are
manned by
who
?
 
A C.O.
 
An inmate has
to be searched again before entering and leaving their housing area by
who
?
 
A C.O.