Corruption Officer (8 page)

Roll call was over and we were
dismissed.
 
So we went to our assigned
posts.
 
The Officers who worked the
previous tour eagerly awaited our arrival.
 
They had already put in their eight hours.
 
They had performed the three C’s, they had
taken “Care” of the inmates by tending to all their needs such as feeding them,
getting them their medication and occasionally, if the Officer felt generous,
allowed them to take a decent shit by giving them toilet paper.
 
They had kept them in “Custody” by escorting
them where they had to go at times, by getting up and down from their
comfortable seats to lock and unlock gates and cells, hand-cuffing and
shackling them for various reasons and occasionally, if the Officer was
generous, allowing the inmates the option every hour on the hour to go into
their cells for various reasons.
 
‘Tah!
 
Try that shit
for eight hours, talking about a motherfucker running back and forth.’
 
Last but not least, they had maintained
“Control” by making sure their inmate count was correct, by checking inmates’
passes as they walked the hall so that, for example, inmate Abdul, from area “1
main” could not sneak around the jail to go to area “Sprung 4” to see his man,
Ice.
 
This did prevent the occasional
juggling of goods, gang communication such as kites, and inmate assaults such
as face cuts or stabbings.
 

Aaaaaand, if the
Officer is generous, they would maintain control by issuing an occasional ass
whipping (smile).
 
Officers did
all this and so much more during their eight hours.
 
And, I didn’t even mention the consoling
they’d do by listening to an inmate talk about his case, his family and how
he’s either going to
beat that body
in trial or how he’ll finish his sentence when the sun burns out.
 

Let’s not forget the arguing, yes,
the arguing with your spouse over the phone about why you ain’t home, how come
you had to do overtime again, and who is going to pick up the kids from the
babysitter.
 
Not to mention the fact that
you missed another birthday, and another holiday.
 
The most important thing that stresses
Officers out about their spouses while they are working is the question, ‘Why
aren’t you answering your phone at night when I call you from work where you
know that I can’t just leave and go find your ass?”
 
And the significant other’s response is, “Why
you always wait ‘til the last minute to say you’re working overtime and when I
call the jail they can’t find you and you know that there is no way that I can
come over there and find yo’ blackaaassss?”
 

Yeah, this job brings a lot of
outside stress with it.
 
So, knowing all
of this, when I am leaving roll call, I do what any red blooded C.O. would do
with their anxious and deserving co-workers waiting to be relieved of duty -
IIIII ranmyasstothestaffkitchen!
 
Yeah baby!
 
You know, I needed to talk some more shit to that dude who thought that
I did not hit.
 

I enter the staff kitchen and the
usual is going on.
 
One Officer is over
by the serving station asking an inmate for more grits on his plate and the
inmate justa smiling while giving her an extra scoop.
 
I shake my head.
 
Another Officer is yelling, “Got dammit!
 
Somebody ate my food that I bought from home
out of the refrigerator!”
 
A fat Officer
nearby is just sitting there whistling while cleaning out his finger
nails.
 
I chuckle.
 
Then I see my favorite three Officers,
Bryant, K. Johnson, and Z. Jones.
 
These
three female Officers, along with a few inmates who I have gotten to know
,
were responsible for everything that I knew at this job up
to this point.
 
So, I
goes
over to sit down and chat with them.

A mental note:
 
The Officers were supposed to be on their way
home by 7:30 p.m.
 
The time that I
sits
my Black ass down is 7:28 p.m.

So, it’s safe to say that the
Officers were now –

A.
 
Calling the control room to see if I came to
work;

B.
 
Waiting impatiently in the hallway for me to
enter my post, or;

C.
 
Keeping it gangsta and coming down to the
staff kitchen to meet me, leaving their inmates unguarded and handing me the
keys to my post.

YEEAH, I AM A PIEECE OF SHEEIIITTT!

Then, all of a sudden BLLIIINNG!
BLIIIING!
 
A mother fuckn alarm!
 
I get up and run for the door passing the
smiling inmate staff kitchen workers.
 
They’re smiling because they know that the Officers who had food from
home or the store have to leave it right there for them to clean up.
 
To them, someone’s half eaten fast food from
outside is like hitting the Lotto.
 
So I
am running toward the staging area when the Captain yells, “10-13!
 
Come with me now there’s no time for
that!”
 
He means that an Officer is in need
of immediate assistance.
 
So, four other
burly Officers and I run down the corridor towards the area where the Officer
is being assaulted.
 
As we’re running, I
hear the hard breathing and panting along with the smell of last night’s
drinking from all of us and at that time I have a flashback about my
training.
 
I remember my training on how
to control my breathing when running, how to not let the excitement and
adrenaline control my actions and how to assess the situation in seconds and
take the best course of action.
 
Most of
all, I recall how to pace myself because getting tired was not an option while
running into battle.
 
That training
didn’t come from the Corrections Academy, it came from me being the true marine
that I am on the inside and will always be (Simper Fi).
 

We were a few yards away from the
area when we saw two Officers struggling with an inmate.
 
There was one female and one male and both of
them were relatively small.
 
The inmate was
really giving them a tough time and the female had pulled his hoodie over his
face so he could not see.
 
As we got
closer we noticed that her nose was bleeding.
 
That was it!
 
If there is anything
that would send the pack into
a frenzy
it would be the
opportunity to avenge the damsel in distress.
 
We converge on that inmate like an army of ants on the discovery
channel.
 
I strike first and you hear a
loud thud when I land a hard left to his ribs.
 
The female Officer then falls back into, “I am a women and he hit me”
mode.
 
Then the other Officers and I
begin to pound and stomp the inmate.
 
Our
attack was so fierce that I felt the wind on my face from the blows the other
Officers were giving him.
 
The inmate was
now down on the ground in a fetal position trying to fight back.
 
The stomping continued and he was receiving
scuff marks from Timberland, Mountain Gear, Bates and Sketchers - who the fuck
was wearing Sketchers?
 
As the rest of
the probe team arrived to join in on the onslaught, I backed up to take a
breather and that is when the inmates hood came off and I could see the damage
that I had done to his face.

My heart sunk and my whole body
got numb.
 
As I stood there, the Officers
continued to stomp on him.
 
It was like I
was watching it in slow motion.
 
I saw a
boot repeatedly come down on the left side of his face and the delayed reaction
of the right side of his face hitting the floor.
 
Blood began to spew everywhere.
 
That is when my eyes and the inmate’s eyes
locked.
 
He looked at me and just stopped
fighting back even though the Officers continued the “rehabilitation
process.”
 
I stood there in shock not
knowing what to do next.
 
My mouth opened
but no words came out and I could not move out of being undecided.
 
The inmate just stared at me with this not
believing this shit is happening expression on his face.
 
I wanted to say something.
 
I wanted to do something.
 
I wanted anything to happen that would make
them stop.
 
Instead, I did nothing.
 
I asked myself, ‘What am I supposed to do,
jeopardize my job?’
 
I mean how would it
look if I jumped in there on this inmate’s behalf and pushed and shoved
Officers telling them to stop this excessive beating?
 
I know what would happen if I did that, I
would be crucified throughout my entire career - that’s what.
  
My mind, my heart, my soul said that this
was wrong and that I should do something.
 
Yet, I still stood there with my eyes about to tear up knowing, deep
down, that I had started this and that they were finishing it.
 
I did nothing to help this person, this human
being, this now in life inmate.
 
I did
nothing to help my friend.
 
I just sat
there and watched them fuck Biz up.
 

After target practice was over,
the Captain told me and the other Officers who first arrived on the scene to
leave and that the probe team would fill out the reports of the incident.
 
This way we would not be involved in what
just happened what-so-ever.
 
As we walked
away down the corridor the other Senior Officers gave me a pat on the back and
applauded my actions in what we had just done.
 
It was like now they could trust me, now I was official, now I had
proven myself and now I was one of them.
 
Then the day went on, and the word had traveled throughout the jail that
Big Heyward had put that work in.
 
I was
getting nods of approval by male Officers and stares from some female
Officers.
 
Then bits and pieces of the
incident started to surface and it came out that the female Officer got into it
with Biz because he didn’t have an I.D. card and that he didn’t assault the
female Officer, after all.
 
In turns out
that she just gets nose bleeds every time she gets excited.
 
I know that it really doesn’t matter to the
other Officers why Biz got such an ass whipping because all they thought was
here’s an inmate who not only fought back but had the nerve to bust an Officers
nose - a female at that!
 
I knew that any
inmate who does stuff like this is going to be made an example of so that when
word gets around the jail, the other inmates will think twice before pulling
such a stunt.
 
When I received this news
it just made matters worse because I was still feeling like shit and wondering
how I was going to explain this.
 
Plus, I
wondered what was going to be the consequences of my actions.
 
I wasn’t worried about the fact that I along
with my co-workers had just violated an inmate’s rights because I knew that
that would be handled in-house.
 
I wasn’t
worried about how Biz was going to answer the questions from the hospital staff
of how this happened either because he’s a jailer.
 
He’s someone who has been coming back and
forth through the system for a minute so he knows the “I slipped and fell in
the shower” routine.
 
What I was worried
about was what was going to happen when he gets out or when he recovers and
calls home to the hood to tell them what I had just did.
 
The word was going to spread faster than a
crack dealer giving out free samples to attract new customers on the first of
the month.
 
It’s always a risk to run
into inmates that you know for every C.O. who can’t afford to move out of the
hood.
 
Now imagine having beef with one
who lives in your building and knows your whole circle of friends that you deal
with.
 
If my chips were up, I could have
been moved out of this neighborhood like a lot of C.O.s
do
to eliminate or lessen the chances of such encounters.
 
Do I think this move is a high-sodity
one?
 
No.
 
It just makes common sense.
 

When I arrived at the staff
kitchen to have lunch, I saw Bryant and the other amigos at one table and at
another table I see three new jack Officers filling out reports on the incident
I just had.
 
Mind you, they had nothing
to do with it, but by writing those reports they were admitting that they were
there and that in some way they were responsible for that inmate ending up in
the hospital.
 
Bryant gestured for me to
come over and sit with them so I did.
 
The first thing that comes out her mouth was, “How does it feel to be
the talk of the jail right now?”
 
I asked
her what she meant.
 

“Come on now, you know everybody
heard about the smack down!” she says.
 

 
“Oh,” I say, and shrug my shoulders as if it
was nothing.
 

“Ya know now that they know that
you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty…” she starts in on me, “…they are
going to be calling you for shit like this all the time.”

“Yep, they’re gonna use you big
man, you and aaaall yoouur muskels!” C.O. Z .Jones chimed in.

They laugh.

“Seriously you better be careful
because you may be getting props right now but when shit hits the fan a lot of
the times you’re gonna find yourself by yourself,” Bryant says.

I ask her what she means and she
says that now that they see that I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, they’re
going to be calling on me to handle inmate problems without it being an
alarm.
 

“Watch and see,” she says,
“…every time they want to handle an inmate and keep it on the low, these Supervisors
are going to be asking you to take a walk with them.”
 

I just looked at her and said,
“Hmm,” as if I was listening to her.
 
Truthfully, my mind was still on what just happened with Biz.
 
She went on not realizing that I was half-ass
listening to her and said, “I am telling you…” with her eyebrows raised,
“…these mothafucka’s be running around here smacking these ‘mates up until they
run into one that’s a scrapper and fights their ass’s back.
 
Then they really put the beats on them and
the ‘mate winds up in the clinic with one of the staff that ain’t apart of the
team and ain’t just gonna put down in their report that the inmate quote
unquote,” she made the gesture with her fingers, “…slipped in the shower.
  
Then at the hospital all kinds of questions
start to pop up like how his jaw, ribs, and arm got broken from one fall?
 
Then investigations are launched.
 
And don’t let the inmate be smart enough to
remember one of yawl’s badge numbers and name.
 
You know some of yall ain’t smart enough to take your shield off or at
least cover it up before ya’ll get into some shit.
 
You’re going to find yourself sitting down
with the rest of the so called goon squad trying to get the story together so
that everybody is saying the same thing.
 
A lot of times it’s nothing and ya’ll get away with it because an
inmate’s family may not have money for a lawyer, but the few times that they do
and can follow up with a law suit…” she pauses, then says, “…it becomes every man
for himself and you’ll find yourself by yourself standing in front of a judge
fighting for your job or worse, jail time.”
 

At this point, she saw that she
had my full attention.
 
She saw the
seriousness on my face, I mean the scared seriousness.
 
My face went from, ‘Big Hey putting in that
work’ to ‘Uh-uh wasn’t me.
 
I wasn’t
there.’
 

“Don’t get shook nooooow niggy!”
she said.

They laugh again.

“I really don’t think that you
have anything to worry about because how many of these dumb mothafucka’s
actually smart enough to put that lawyer and bail money away ahead of the
jewelry, the cars, and the bitches?” she said.

I look at her like ‘I don’t know.’

“Besides…” she continues,
“…everyone knows that as a C.O. in here, we’re like God.”

I look at her with one eyebrow up
questioning what she just said and she explains.
 

“Listen, if you get into some
shit and you got a real motha fuckn’ Supervisor, I mean one that came up
through the ranks, that didn’t get put into position by way of a family member
that has pull, that is an Officer’s Supervisor, your ass is good.
 
That kind of Supervisor will know what to
tell you to write in your report.
 
That
kind will know who to get to sign off on anything that we say happened in an
incident, use of force or whatever.
 
We
have the power to manipulate the system and can get away with just about
anything up in here.”

I look at her while she’s sitting
there with a smirk on her face and say, “God, huh?”
 

“Yep.
 
We control these inmate’s lives,” she says,
“They can’t eat, shit, or wipe their ass without us giving them permission.”

Then she looks at me with one
eyebrow up and says, “Me, in particular, I like the fact that as a woman I get
to tell a Black man what to do and if he doesn’t do it I can get his ass kicked
at will!”

They laugh and smack hands.
 
Then Jones says, “Once they come through
those doors we decide whether they’re going to live in this bitch or whether
they are going to fuck around with one of us and die up in this piece.
 
Now, if that don’t make me God up in here,
then I am one of his cousins!”