Corruption Officer (14 page)

“Five, six, seven, eight, and pivot and half
step and half step!
 
Come on girl,
you have to move your hips!” says one inmate to another.
 

The jail was on lock down for a couple of days after the
killing and there was little to no movement throughout the jail that made it
hard for me and Flocko to get money.
 
So
I decided to stay for overtime which landed me in homosexual housing.
 
I am sitting there as the “B” Officer being
forced to watch a jail rendition of “Rip the Runway.”
 
These inmates are placed in here for their
own safety and for the jail’s safety for; 1) So that these particular inmates
will not be abused and raped repeatedly and for; 2) So that the
in the closet homo thugs
won’t be
fighting each other over who is going to wife one of them.
 
It helps to keep the jail calm so to speak.
 
So I am sitting there while Gerald Davis aka
Geraldine and Sam Brown aka Shelly practice for a show that they are going to
perform for who and where, I have no idea and nor do I give a damn.
 
Gay or not they’re just inmates to me.
 

While I was sitting there, an inmate by the name of Briggs
approached me.
 
He stood across from me
and began talking more like pleading his case telling me that just because he’s
in this housing area doesn’t mean he’s gay.
 
I just nodded like, ‘Ooookay.’
 
Then he continues to explain that he signed in here just to stay in the
building and not to be transferred again.
 
I nod, not really giving a fuck.
 
Then another inmate, seeing that I was approachable to talk to, joined
the conversation to give his resume.
 
His
approach to homosexual housing was totally opposite.
 
He said, “Heyward, I just got sentenced to
double life for a body and I ain’t never gonna see the streets again.
 
My gun game in the streets is no joke and I
suck a mean dick!”
 

My thoughts were, ‘Check please.’
 

He continues while looking into the T.V. room at the other
inmates, “I
gives
a fuck about what somebody in the
streets think of me?
 
If any of these youngins’
come in here, I am taking it.
 
Sheeit, I
got a ripe one already.
 
He fought it
when he first got here but I broke him and now we’re in love.”
 
I just gave him a look like, ‘Oh, yeah’ and
at that moment the “A” Officer yelled out for me to take a count.
 
My thoughts were, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’
 
I yelled out for all of the inmates to stand
still where they were so I can get an accurate count without doing it the right
way and have them go stand by their cells.
 
I counted all of the ones in the dayroom then proceeded to walk down the
tier looking inside each cell to count the inmates inside.
 
I made a round and came back to the window of
the A station and told her my count and she shook her head saying that I was
off by one.
 
I took another count of the
inmates in the dayroom then went back down the tier to count again but this
time slowly.
 
I was half way done when I
looked inside this one particular cell and saw a bed empty but little drops of
what appeared to be blood on the floor.
 
I yelled for the Officer to electronically open the cell and she
did.
 

When I went inside I noticed a trickle of blood coming from
under the bed to where I saw the drops.
 
I went to the bed and lifted the blanket up and was stunned at what I
saw!
 
There was an inmate under the bed
wrapped from head to toe in a sheet with nothing exposed but his buttocks that
had blood dripping from it!
 
I also saw
that something was lightly cut into his skin but I could not make out what it
was.
 
I panicked and franticly dragged
him from under the bed hoping that he wasn’t dead!
 
I heard him moan which was a relief for me
then I rolled him over and noticed that his whole head was wrapped with just
his mouth exposed.
 
I could see dried up
semen all around his mouth and I could only imagine what they used him
for.
 
I knew also the amount of trouble
that I along with the other Officer were going to be in if we could not come up
with some answers of how we allowed this to happen.
 

I slowly
unwrapped
his head so I
could get a look at his face and he started trembling and sobbing at the same
time.
 
I think that he thought that I was
one of his attackers coming back to do him more harm.
 
When I finally finished unwrapping his head
he looked at me and I just turned away and shook my head I could not look him
in the face because it was the loud mouth kid that invited the female C.O. to
his private parts the other day.
 
He
began to loosen his arms so that he could finish unwrapping himself.
 
I walked out into the hall and leaned against
the wall while he got himself together.
 

The “A” Officer yelled out to me, “What’s up?
 
Is there something wrong?”
 
I told her I found the one on the count that
I had missed and she said, “Okay.”
 
I
stood there contemplating my next move trying to figure out how I the “B” Officer
allowed this to happen when I am supposed to make a tour of the area every hour
so things like this wouldn’t happen.
 
I
didn’t know what to feel right then because I was not directly responsible for
him being here but I did nothing to stop it either.
 
I wondered was he a kid that a couple of
months ago was out in the City running around disrespecting his moms by not
going to school, by not working, smoking blunts all day being with the wrong
crowd and dealing drugs?
 
Or was he just
an innocent good kid with good parents raised in a good home that just got caught
up at the wrong place and in the wrong time due to peer pressure from his
friends?
 
I felt that a lot of these
young men that come through here really think that jail is some kind of badge
of honor and really don’t realize that they are in here with people that have
been transformed to individuals that no longer live by society’s rules.
 
I know that whatever the case was with him, he
never thought that he would end up like this.
 

“Heyward,” he calls my name and I come to the front of his
cell.

Now he is dressed and laying on his bed in a fetal position
facing the wall so that I could not see his face.
 
I tell him that I am going to call the clinic
and get him some medical attention.

“No, please just get me out of here I don’t want to go to
the clinic because then everybody will know what happened to me and I can’t be
in here with that out around the jail,” he says.
 

“Okay,” I said and went to the Officers’ station to fill out
a sign out form for him stating that he was no longer gay and does not want to
stay in this housing area.

I explained briefly what happened to the “A” Officer and she
was more than happy to get him the hell up out of her area, wanting no parts of
his situation to fall on her.
 

Moments later, the Captain arrived and I personally escorted
the inmate out of his cell and out of the area.
 
He had his head down and his belongings in a bag draped over his shoulders.
 
Gone was the young vibrant loud mouth
gangster from the other day.
 
Gone was
the disrespectful penis flashing individual and gone all together was the gang
banging, I can live anywhere thug known as J murder.
 
In his place was a different person, someone
who will probably have mental problems and nightmares for years to come about
the physical abuse he had just suffered.
 
Yes from now on J murder aka Jamal Thomas would
assume a new name.
 
He will be called
“Juicy Fruits” by certain individuals.
 
The reason I know this is because it was carved in his back for bend
over purposes…..right above his butt cheeks.

After leaving
the little
shop of horrors
- a Negro was tired.
 
I felt that they had gotten their $5.00’s
worth of work out of me that day.
 
So, I
made a b-line to the liquor store then to Bryant’s house.
 
When I got there, Officer Z. Jones was there -
one of the three amigos.
 
She opened the
door for me and gave me a look like, ‘she’s in bad shape’ referring to Bryant.
 
When I went inside I saw Bryant sitting on a
couch located in her kitchen, clutching a bottle of vodka.
 
She looked up at me and I could tell that she
had been crying.
 

“Get a cup mother fucker,” she says.

“I already do,” I tell her and opens the bottle of Hennessey
that I bought and was about to drink when Jones yells at me.

“
Neanderthal
,
get a cup with some ice.
 
Nobody’s
going to be drinking behind you!” she explains.

Then she climbs over the couch, which actually separates the
kitchen from the living room, and goes into the fridge.
 
She yells, “Girl, you don’t have any more ice?”
 
Bryant gets up, opens her hall closet that
has a deep freezer and an illegal clothes dryer in it, the ones you’re not
supposed to have in the Projects.
 
She
grabs two metal ice trays by their handles and slams them onto the table, then she
grabs my Hennessy bottle right out of my hand and takes it to the head while
she looks over at Jones as if to say, ‘You the only bitch worrying about ice.’
 
Then she flops down on the couch and starts
crying.
 
While sobbing she says, “Them
mother-fuckas trying to take my job!
 
I
got kids.
 
How are they going to put this
shit all on me?”

“What are you talking about?
 
What happened?” Jones asked.
 

“Check it, I come to the post and the gate was opened with
inmates leaving out going to different services.
 
I walk into the bubble where King and Fran are
both sitting in there talking.
 
King was
supposed to be on the floor watching the inmates.
 
They know that I am the meal relief so I ask
them which one of them is going to meal first.
 
Then I hear an inmate yelling, “C.O.!
 
C.O.!
 
Open the gate!”
 
I look up and I see some inmates scrambling to
their cells and some others standing there staring at this inmate on the door
who is trying to get out.
 
I buzz the
door so he can get out and he stumbles out and collapses, holding his stomach
with blood all over him!
 
I run to his
side while Fran called the clinic, and far as I know, King is locking the
inmates down so that no one goes any place.
 
I am on my knees next to the inmate and…”
Bryant pauses weeping uncontrollably with tears coming down heavily on her face.
 

When she finally looks up at us, it’s as if she doesn’t remember
we’re there.
 
Then she quickly gathers
herself together and continues.
 

“I am kneeling there…” she says, “…and the inmate is looking
at me and breathing heavy.
 
He’s holding
his stomach and,
Heyward,
you could just see the blood
gushing out all over the floor from his wound.”
 

She begins to weep again but still continues to talk, “He
reached up and I grabbed his hand and that was the first time I saw that he had
a big hole in his stomach, and the blood.
 
Heyward, the blood just kept pouring out of
him!
 
I grabbed his T-shirt that was
almost ripped off of him and tried to put it over his wound.
 
I took his hand and put it over his wound and
told him to hold it there.
 
He did it but
you could tell that he did not have the strength to apply any pressure.
 
So I did it for him.
 
We were there with the inmate waiting for the
clinic staff to arrive.
 
I mean seconds
seemed like minutes and minutes seemed like hours before they came.
 
So I am holding his hand and as I look around
I see that now he and I are in a puddle of his blood. His breathing is slowing
down and he’s looking at me then he whispered to me because he could not talk
and said, “C.O., please don’t let me die,” then his eyes rolled up, his grip
loosens on my hand, and I knew that he was gone.”
 

Now she’s all-out-balling and Jones goes over and puts
Bryant’s head on her shoulder and hugs her.
 
My stupid ass was sitting there dumbfounded and not knowing what I could
do to comfort her so I lifted the bottle up and drank some more.
 
She stops crying, wipes her face and grabs
her bottle of vodka.
 
Before she can drink
it, Jones tries to take it from her saying that she doesn’t need any more.
 
Ya’ know she gave her the ‘if you don’t let go
of this bottle’ look.
 
Bryant took a
drink and then said, “Now these mother fuckers are asking me questions like ‘Why
I let the inmate in?
 
How did I let him
out of the area without Fran and King seeing him?’
 
I told them that they’re crazy!
 
That I did not see an inmate come or go!
 
Shit, I didn’t even know that they caught him
until they told me later.
 
I thought that
the inmate that did it was from the same housing area!
 
They telling me shit like I am going to lose
my job, that I could face criminal charges and all that!”
 
She breaks down again and starts whining, “What
am I going to do?
 
I had nothing to do
with this shit.
 
Why are they trying to
pin it all on me?”
 
Jones and I just
looked at each other because we had no answers for her.
 

When I went home it was hard to find parking so I put my
Rikers Island parking permit on my dash and parked next to a fire hydrant.
 
As I was walking to my building I was running
everything that Bryant said tonight through my head.
 
There were so many questions and scenarios
that were going on with this situation like why are they trying to blame her
only?
 
There were three Officers on that
post, so could one of them have let the inmate in the area unauthorized?
 
Or worst, did they know that he was going to
attack another inmate and allowed it to happen?
 
I shook my head and thought to myself, people are getting killed because
of Officers doing illegal shit but I am not the one to throw stones because as
it is my Black-ass is bringing in pouches of tobacco.
 

Just then I hear, POW! POW!
 
A gun was going off and the rounds were
hitting the wall by me just above my head!
 
Oh shit, someone is shooting at me!
 
I pull out my gun then drop and crawl behind a
near-by car.
 
I wait a second and look up
just in time to see a figure running away and guess what, he had a Hoodie on.
 
I recognize the Hoodie because the last time I
saw it was when I broke his face.
 
I am
stunned and outraged because I can’t believe what just happened!
 
After growing up together and all the shit we
went through together as kids - that tonight Biz just tried to kill me…