Corruption Officer (24 page)

As the weeks pass, I am stressing out as things get worse.
 
I have shut down all of my hustles and I am
now trying to be a model Corrections Officer but the inmates keep trying to
pull me back in.
 
I am now being openly
approached every time an inmate who thinks I am cool sees me alone.
 
I feel that I am handcuffed and can’t bark on
them like I want to for fear that an incident may occur that will bring
attention to me and that’s the last thing that I need right now.
 
I am seeing how inadvertently inmates will
make your name hot and not know it.
 
I
now have inmates committing offenses in the jail in hopes that the jail will
raise their classification on a chance that they might get housed in my
area.
 
My area is notorious and nobody in
their right mind would want to be housed here.
 
I am walking around petrified every time I see
an unfamiliar face at our roll call in the morning.
 
I’m nervous because I feel that everybody now
knows what I’ve been doing and that it’s just a matter of time before I am
arrested at roll call in front of everybody.
 
My thoughts were that if that happens, ‘what
will my co-workers think’ and ‘how crazy would that be.’
 
Then I calm myself somewhat by rationalizing
that they need a lot of proof to just come and get me like that and I feel that
I covered my ass well by only dealing with certain individuals.
 
Most of the primary inmates that I dealt with
are gone upstate and whatever I brought in has already been used so there is no
evidence to be found.
 
I feel that the
only way for me to feel safe is for me to get out of this jail.
 
So I make a phone call to a friend who can
help me do just that.
 

After I talk to him, he tells me that he can help me but doesn’t
know how soon it will happen.
 
I feel a
little relieved because if I can make this move I can put all of this stuff
behind me.
 
A week or two goes by and I
get the notice that I am transferred.
 
I
clean out my locker and say my farewells to my friends and on the way out the
door I see an invite to the jail to attend Officer Patterson’s baby shower.
 
I think that I am going to put that behind me
as well.
 

I arrive at my new jail which is called the Manhattan House
of Detention aka “The Tombs” feeling relieved like I just made a narrow escape.
 
I feel energetic and revived like I have
a new start in life.
 
I take my folder to
the personnel office and that’s where part of the b. s. starts.
 
My transfer states that I am to be placed in
the courts part of the jail, but according to the personnel office only the
privilege get to go into the
courts
with such a short time as mine.
 
Mind you,
at the time, I had almost nine years.

The Officer calls
my connect
and
gets verification that I am supposed to be in the court part of the jail and
not the part of the jail where inmates are housed.
 
My new jail is real laid back and as I adjust
to my surroundings I learn that everyone in there is by way of a hook-up or have
fifteen years on the job or better.
 
As I
get assigned my post, which of course is the worst post in the jail, the search
post, I receive a lot of looks from the Officers working there.
 
The disapproving looks from them are clear –
‘How did this rookie get into the courts?
 
He must know somebody or better yet he must
work for the Inspector General’s office and has been sent here to spy on us.’
 

At first I am treated with a long stick and everyone is
uncomfortable around me until of course they need a person with my expertise.
 
Several times out of spite I would be assigned
a post on the jail side of Manhattan House with the excuse that they were short
staffed and that I had the least amount of time.
 
So, I had to go over there to work.
 
It didn’t bother me because even the jail side
of the tombs was more lax than C-73 where I came from.
 

On this particular day I am sitting down having my meal when
a Captain approaches me and asks me, “Are you the new Officer from the Island?”
 
And I answer, “Yes.”
 
He then says, “Come with me.
 
We have a problem in the courts.”
 
As I walk with him I am thinking to myself
that it’s been a long time since I was placed on the goon squad, but seeing
that I am a rookie here all over again due to the amount of time that I have
versus anybody else, I should have seen this coming.
 
We arrive to the staging area and I see some
over the hill Officers trying to suit up to get ready to extract an irate
inmate from a section in the courts.
 
I
chuckle as their age shows and at how I could tell that this situation was rare
for them like as in - never!

As they try and figure out how to put on the protective wear,
some of them look up and see me and a sigh of relief comes over their faces as
the Captain tells them that I will be the lead man on this.
 
I quickly suit up because it was second nature
for me and stand by while the rest finally get it right.
 
We go onto the court side of the jail and as
we get off of the elevator I hear an inmate screaming at the top of his lungs,
“We reeeaaady!
 
We reeaady!
 
Let’s get it!”
 
I am now standing at the front of a cell with
a large Plexiglas type shield that covers me from head to toe.
 
The cell is occupied by the yelling
inmate.
 
I have a circus behind me.
 
The Captain is giving the one-hundredth warning
almost pleading with the inmate to stand down so we don’t have to go inside the
cell and deal with him.
 

The Captain is nervous.
 
The over the hill mob behind me is scared and the camera girl designated
to film everything can’t get the lens off the camcorder.
 
I shake my head because of the inexperience
that they are showing and it’s not just me.
 
The inmate sees all of this and has strategies already on how he is going
to deal with this motley crew of Officers.
 
I see the look on the inmate’s face and then I
decide to get serious because I am the first one he’s going to unleash on.
 
While they figure out the camcorder, I see the
inmate take off his belt, wrap it around his fist and get into a fighting
stance.
 
I size him up and I know exactly
what to do to end this whole ordeal.
 
I tell
the Captain to open the gate.
 
He looks
at me puzzled, one because I am telling him what to do and, two because he
doesn’t know what I am going to do.
 
He
hesitates.
 
Then he rationalizes to
himself the fact that he got me in on this because I was fresh from Rikers
Island and that I know more about these situations than he does due to the fact
that they all have not done it in a long time.
 
As everyone grows silent at my request, he looks at the inmate who is
ready for combat then gives me a look like ‘are you sure?’
 
I nod and he opens the gate.
 

The inmate steps back with his left leg and plants his foot
so that he can get leverage when we rush in.
 
This is just what I wanted him to do.
 
Well “we” didn’t rush in, “I” walked in which
caught him off guard and while he was confused by my actions.
 
I slammed the bottom of my shield down on his
right foot that was exposed due to his stance!
 
He yelped and dropped to the floor and started
screaming and crying in pain.
 
Situation
resolved.
 
Inmate is no longer a threat.

The Captain along with the rest of the Officers just stood
there, mouths opened as I walked past them quietly and went to take my
extraction gear off.
 
That day helped me
a little bit because I no longer got those posts on the jail side of Manhattan house.
 
I now got the shittiest post on the
court side of Manhattan House.
 
A few
days went by and I was assigned to do meal reliefs.
 
I was working in the area called “The Pens.”
 
It was where the inmates were placed while
they await their turn to be called up to see the judge.
 
It’s a lengthy process so the inmates that are
placed in these pens are packed in there, some standing, some sleeping on the
floor due to lack of space on the little bench that’s provided.
 
It was now feeding time and I had ordered all
the detainees to stand up to be fed.
 
I
was told that this was mandatory to insure that they were all okay.
 

While I was conducting my feeding in my area, I heard a
commotion coming from another area in the same pens.
 
I heard inmates saying, “Oh shit!
 
Oh Shit,” as they were
quickly being evacuated from a set of pens that were across from where I was
working.
 
The Officer that I had
relieved came back and assumed his post, so I went to see what the commotion
was about.
 
When the relocation of the
detainees was finished, I took a look inside the pen to see what was going on.
 
There was an Officer kneeling down beside a
detainee that was an old homeless looking man.
 
Then he rolled him over and his body was stiff
and his face a purplish blue.
 
The old man
had died in the pens and had been there a while!
 
As soon as I saw this, I knew that it was time
for me to get out of the area because I wanted no parts of any report writing
or liability what-so-ever.
 
I had just
got to this jail.
 
I was starting over and
did not need to be involved with any negative situation.
 
I hurried up and left the area going on to my
next meal relief which was the front gate.
 
I was just in time to see the mass confusion
unfold.
 

Captains were running back and forth panicking, telephones
ringing with Chiefs calling to get information on what happened, and other Officers
were scattering like I did, so they wouldn’t be involved either.
 
They knew like I knew that someone had dropped
the ball, that the detainee that died should have been found sooner if they had
followed procedure and made him stand up to get his meal.
 
I knew that it was another sad day of C.O.s
cutting corners just to make things run smoothly.
 
I guessed that over here was no different than
Rikers Island because every C.O. knows that you can’t run a jail effectively by
going by the book.
 
Nothing would ever
get done.
 

A week or two went by and I was finally getting used to my
new jail and shaking that feeling that I had dodged a bullet by getting off the
island.
 
I had arrived for the three to
eleven
tour
when the roll call Captain asked me if I
had gotten hurt.
 
I told him no then he
told me to go see Deputy Brian and straighten things out because he was short
staffed and needed me to take my post A.S.A.P.
 
I said, “Okay” and went to the Deputy Warden’s office.
 
I knocked and he said, “Come on in and sit
down.”
 
I did.
 
He held a piece of paper in his hand and asked
me, “Do you know what this is about?”
 
I
said, “No.
 
What is this about?”
 
He then said, “You have been placed on
modified duty.”
 
I just looked at him
shocked.
 
He saw my face took a deep
breath and said, “You are to turn in your badge and gun immediately.”
 
I was still caught off guard and still did not
speak.
 
I was then escorted by another Captain
to my apartment where I also had to give up my hat piece.
 
The Captain just said, “I hope you get this
straightened out,” and then she left.
 
As
she drove away I stood there in the street in a blue jacket with a blue shirt
and blue pants and just like that I was no longer in a Corrections Officer’s
uniform.

It’s
two days later when I am
getting off the “E” train and walking down by the Queens Courthouse.
 
I am in my civilian clothes and my I.D. now
reads, “Modified.”
 
That’s all I have
plus I am still receiving my regular base pay minus any overtime.
 
I report to the personnel office and am
greeted by a female Captain who gives me the run down on how things go in this
jail.
 
I was told that the part of the
jail that housed inmates had been closed down and that the post that I would be
on would be elevator operator taking Officers from one floor to the next
because all of the exits stayed locked and only the control room has the
key.
 
After she finished she asked me if
I had any questions for her and I asked, “Do you know why I am here?”
 
She tells me that she is never informed of why
a person is sent here.
 
She just
supervises them while they are here.
 
She
then suggested that I try calling the Union.
 
I went and took my post and called the Union
and the only answer they could give me was that I was under an investigation.
 
What kind they did not know.
 
Again, I am still in the dark.
 

When I went home that night I had to try and figure this
out.
 
I had to back track my steps
throughout this whole thing to try and figure out what they had on me that made
them decide to modify me.
 
For one, I
felt that I had escaped C-73 and everything that happened there.
 
Then I started wondering who could have snitched.
 
They didn’t have any evidence that I had
done anything because they never caught me with anything and all of the drugs were
used up and gone, so what could they possibly have?
 
The only inmate that I truly trusted was
Flocko and later on Moe.
 
I had been
dealing with them for a long time so if I was going to be busted dealing with
them it would have happened a long time ago.
 
It was nerve racking day after day trying to
figure this out.
 
One time while I was in
the personnel office talking to one of the Officers, who worked there, he said
that he had seen Officers come through here with a lot of problems.
 
Some go back to work after being there for
months and then some lose their jobs.
 
He
also said that most of the time many Officers who are sent here know why they’re
here, they just refuse to say.
 
When he
said that, I gracefully removed myself from the office.
 
Once again I found myself walking around
outside in a trance trying to figure out what they were going to do, how long
am I going to be modified, and again what could they really have on me with no
physical evidence of any kind.
 
Finally I
rationalized that they had to have something that me being transferred to Manhattan
House had triggered them to modify me.
 

I then started focusing on my actions in the jail and the
precautions I took to make sure that nothing could come back to me.
 
I never touched the products bare handed so
that means no prints.
 
I never got
stopped at the front entrance with anything on me.
 
No money from Western Union could be traced
back to me at all.
 
If someone was snitching
it would be my word against theirs because there was no physical evidence.
 
I then thought about Flocko telling me about
other Officers that were doing the same thing.
 
So I tried calling the jail to ask to speak to the Officer that he told
me about.
 
The result of my questioning
shook me.
 

The Officer that Flocko told me about had not been seen in
the jail in a while.
 
Since no one had
seen him this meant that it was a possibility that he was modified which meant
that they had something on him as well.
 
As
time wore on, I would try to live a normal life but I could never shake the
nervousness that I had every time I went to work.
 
When I would go see my mother she would ask
questions like, “Why don’t I ever see you in your uniform anymore?”
 
And I would lie and say that I just didn’t
wear it today.
 
I started praying to God
every night to get me out of this situation.
 
I even started hallucinating about the things
that were around me like one time I went to the movies to see “Big Momma’s House”
number two and at the end of the movie Martin Lawrence faced the screen and
said the words, “Not guilty.”
 
Of course
he was talking about the father in the movie but my dumbass thought that it was
a sign from God saying that I would be okay.
 
I even sought out an Officer friend of mine
that I knew from the streets and that also worked in the Security Department of
Corrections and told him everything that was going on and he told me what I
thought was some re-assuring information.
 
He told me that a lot of times the I.G.s would
set Officers up and try to catch them by using fake cocaine and if I knew for
sure that what I was dealing was real shit then they were not involved.
 
I felt a little better knowing that I dealt
with certain inmates, that I knew their families, and grew up with them.
 
So I knew that I was safe as far as the stuff
I was bringing in being real.
 
Days went
by with me fronting to the other Officers, who were also placed on modified
duty, like I didn’t do anything.

They had other Officers there for various reasons.
 
One was there because he was accused of raping
a little boy or so I was told.
 
Had me
wondering if they told me why he was there then they probably told him or the
others why I was there. It didn’t matter to me because I am denying everything.
 
Like a true street hustler I am taking
everything I did to the grave.