Corruption Officer (7 page)

So the real question is, what mode of transport can bypass
all these preventative measures and can circumvent all of the C.O.s who
are
placed in various security positions throughout the
jail?
 
Ya’ll know the answer……A C.O!

For the next couple of days things were on lockdown with
fake tight security and shit.
 
All of a
sudden, we were doing our jobs.
 
We were
enforcing the most trivial institutional rules.
 
Where’s your I. D?
 
Clear the magnometer!
 
A beep-beep from the machine indicating that
the inmate had metal on him somewhere and you heard, “Strip!
 
Take everything off and go through again!”
 
Yeah we were giving the inmates hell.
 
A T.S.O was in full effect.
 
We had Officers from all the other jails come
in and help search the place.
 
Sometimes
this was done to shake the inmates up just to let them know that there were
consequences to them acting up.
 

Then after the hoopla died down I was working in the same
housing area with Biz again.
 
I was
sitting back when he came to talk to me.
 
He said to me, “What did I tell you?”
 

“What?”
 
I asked.

“You know that an Officer brought in that gun right?” he
said.
 

“Yeah, right?”
I said.

“I am serious,” he said. “Some of us knew it was going to go
down before it happened.”

I just looked at him and could tell that he was dead
serious.
 

 
“I know who ever did
it, got paid because the inmate is going to sue the shit out of Corrections,”
he said.

I sat there listening to him and thinking, ‘Damn, here I am
bringing him cigarettes feeling guilty and shit, and other Officers are
bringing in artillery!’
 
I shook my head
at the thought then I said to Biz, “By the way, your sister called me and said
that you wanted some more cigarettes.”
 
He
smiled and said, “Yo’ tell them I am good.
 
In fact tell her I am good for the next three
maybe four months.”
 
Puzzled, I asked, “How
is that?
 
Just a minute ago your lungs
were on the gate and you needed help and now you’re sitting here like you’re big
Oggie and you run the joint.
 
He laughed
and said, “That’s because I do, thanks to you.”
 
I gave him the ‘huh’ face.
 
He broke it down to me.
 

“Ya
see,
those little packs of
cigarettes that you bought me?” he said.

“Yeah?”
I asked.

“Well I had my sister put a little somethin’ somthin’ inside
them to help my cause,” he said.
 

“What?” I asked, a little too loudly and he motioned for me
to keep it down so the other inmates could not hear.
 

I repeated, “Like what?”

“She put a little weed in the packs and sealed them back
up,” he said.
 

At that moment he saw I was pissed and we just stared at
each other for what seemed like an eternity.
 
I thought to myself, ‘This nigga played me.’
 
He could see the anger begin to grow and
before I could say anything he gave me a pleading look like ‘remember where we’re
at.’
 
I took heed to his gesture and
slowly calmed down.
 
He then said, “Come
on,
Gee
…” he said, “…it wasn’t even a lot.
 
It was just enough for me to get on my feet.”

I sat there knowing that the only words that would come out
my mouth if I did speak would be, ‘Hee Haw!
Hee Haw!’

 
“You ain’t gonna blow
a nigga up are you?” he pleaded again, “Check it, you helped my family because
you know they ain’t got no money to be sending me for commissary every two
weeks,” he paused, and looked at me thankfully, “Now they don’t have to worry
about me for a while.”

I just looked at him as if we weren’t as close as we were,
and as if I did not have to look at our families’ faces damn near every day.
 
Just the other day his moms and my moms stood
in the lobby of our building and talked for hours.
 
As I went pass, his moms asked me how he was
doing.
 
I would definitely wild out on
him.
 
Then I thought, but how could I?
 
He was right about one thing, we are at my job
and I am an Officer and that meant that not only can I not blow him up, I can’t
blow myself up either.
 
I shook my head
thinking that this was supposed to be a friend of mine and he did this to me.
 
Just imagine if it was some smooth talking
hustling individual from the streets that conned me into doing this?
 
If so, I would be fucked.
 
I would really be at the inmate’s mercy.
 
Thank God it was Biz that I went through this
with or I would have put myself in a position to be pimped every mother fuckn
day when I came to work.
 

That was it for me.
 
From
that point on, it was, don’t trust no fuckn inmate for shit!
 
They
gets
nothing
from me, not a god damn thing!
 
That’s
right, I transformed back to “scared nigga mode.”
 

At that moment, the Captain walked into the area and
motioned for me to step outside with him.
 
Then he handed me a piece of paper and said, “Take care of
yourself
.”
 
Then he walked
away.
 
I looked at the paper and it
stated that I was transferred to another jail.
 
No formalities or I am sorry to see you go,
just get the fuck out.
 
I was just beginning
to get adjusted but I was told that because I was new that a transfer was a
possibility.
 
C-76 was an alright jail
and kind of
laid
back, nothing like the stories that
I’ve heard about the other jails on the Island.
 
I stood there with this feeling of not knowing
what was going to happen next.
 
That is
when the
bubbleguts
in my stomach
started acting up and I ran to the bathroom.

THE NEW JAIL

“C.O., C.O.!” an inmate yelled out to me.

I had just taken over post 2 Top at the new jail C-73.
 
I was a little nervous because as soon as I
got there and reported to personnel, there were no formalities at all.
 
The Officer, doing my paper work did not even
look up to see my face or acknowledge me.
 
He just asked me my name and then gave me to my post, then yelled out,
“Next!”
 
I felt like I was just thrown in
here, no debriefing to let me know how to do anything on my new post -
nothing.
 
I was just handed the keys and
rushed to sign a count slip that I was supposed to verify first.
 
When verifying the count, an on-coming
Officer counts the inmates that he/she is supposed to take charge of to make
sure that they have the right amount.
 
This is supposed to be real important but if the Officer that you’re
relieving has other priorities, like not wanting to miss a hair appointment, or
not wanting the liquor store to close on them, then they will insist that you
just over look the minor details and sign your job away.
 
So, here I am trying to get my bearings and I
am now hearing several inmates yell, “C.O., C.O.!”
 

As I stood up and looked down a long tier that consisted of
31 cells, I see smoke coming from under one of the inmate’s doors and realize
that an inmate has set his cell on fire.
 
I thought to myself, ‘Oh shit, ‘this is the real deal!’
 
I remember other C.O.s telling me that C-76,
the jail that I came from, was nothing but a community center compared to this
jail.
 
I continued to brainstorm, ‘Okay
mother fucka…’ talking to myself, ‘…this is what you signed on for so what are
you going to do first?’
 
I questioned
myself, ‘Should I open his cell?’
 
Now,
here come all the Academy nightmares.
 
It could be a set-up.
 
The inmates could be using the fire as a
diversion just to get me down there so they can jump me.
 
Do I call the fire department?
 
Do I call my area supervisor?
 
All this shit is happening too fast so I had
to think fast.
 
If I called my
Supervisor, by the time he gets here, the inmate could be burned to a
crisp.
 
I said, “Fuck it,” and called for
my area Supervisor.
 
In my mind I decided
that I was not running down there playing super hero.

My conscience begins to talk to me, ‘But ain’t that your
job?
 
Care, custody, and control of these
inmates remember?’
 
I thought, ‘To hell
with that shit.
 
Fuck with me, they’re
going to be sweeping up his ashes!’
 
I
can always rely on being S.T.D (Scared to Death).
 

The Captain arrived on my gate and I opened it and told him
in a hyped tone that an inmate set his cell on fire.
 
I was letting him know that there was a sense
of urgency to handle the situation.
 
He
strolled in at a snail’s pace, looked at me like ‘you fucking jack’ and then
calmly walked down to the inmate’s cell.
 
When he got in front of the inmate’s cell I was right behind him with a
fire extinguisher.
 
He waved for me to
stop and not to come any closer.
 
So, I
stopped and stood there with the smoke coming from under the door.
 
The Captain proceeded to have a conversation
with the inmate.
 

“You’re pulling this bullshit now at the end of my fucking
tour!” he said.

The inmate spoke but I could not hear him, but I heard
another inmate from another cell say, “Ain’t nobody fucking with him,
Cap.”
 

“So you’re telling me that you waited ‘till now to tell me
that you’re having problems in this house and that you can’t live here?” the
Captain said sarcastically.
 

The inmate responded again in a low voice in between
coughing. Again, I could not hear.
 
Then
the Captain motioned for me to come closer and I did.
 
Then he grabbed the fire extinguisher from me
without the inmate knowing, all the while listening to what the inmate had to
say through the cell door.
 
He then
turned his face toward me and mouthed for me to go and crack open the inmate’s
cell.
  
I did as I was told.
  
When the door was cracked, the Captain let
loose with the spray in the inmate’s face.
 
Then he kicked him to the floor inside the cell and continued putting
out the fire at the same time making sure the inmate got a mouth full.
  
My dumb ass just stood there looking
stupid.
 
He soaked the inmate’s clothes,
his bed, and anything he could reach with the extinguisher.
 
 

“Mother fucker, you ain’t going nowhere!” he yelled.
 
“You got problems in here?
 
Huh, huh?
 
Deal with them.
 
Ya’ shouldn’t have brung yo’ ass to jail!”
 

The he dragged the inmate out of his cell and slammed him up
against the wall outside of his cell.
 
I
heard and saw the inmate’s head bounce off the wall.
 
The inmate grabbed the back of his head as he
slid to the ground and I could see blood begin to spew from his injury.
 
‘Oh shit!’ I thought to myself, ‘What the
fuck am I suppose to do now?
 
Am I in
some sort of trouble?
 
Is the inmate
going to claim that I was in on this assault?
 
Am I going to have to write reports on what just happened?
 
If I do, do I snitch on the Captain or do I
lie about what happened so that we don’t get into trouble?’
 
As I stood there pondering my next move, the
Captain kneeled down to the now semi conscious inmate and asked him if he
needed medical attention.
 
It was a
rhetorical question because the Captain had this look on his face like, “Ya
better not.”
 
The Captain then asked,
“What happened to your head?”
 
The inmate
responded that he had slipped and fell when he came out of the shower.
 
The Captain patted him softly on his face and
said, “Okay then you’ll be alright.”
 
He
then stood up and calmly walked by me toward the exit and sensing that my eyes
were on him, without turning around, looked at me and said, “Welcome to the
neighborhood.”

“Big Hey-woooood!” my name is being shouted out by a fellow
Officer when I enter the jail on my way to roll call.
 

“Yooooooooo!
 
What’s poppn?
 
What’s poppn?” I respond.

“I saw you last night at the party nigga.
 
Did you hit?” he asked.
 

I give him a look of disappointment because I noticed that
the other male Officers, who were standing in the line-up against the wall, all
stopped talking to hear my answer.
 
I
sarcastically said to him, “Yo, who does that?”
 
He gives me a puzzled look like he doesn’t understand the question.
 
I say loudly, “I mean really, who’s the only
kid you know that not only tells his boys what females he’s going to hit, but
also gives you the time and date of when it’s going down?
 
Huh?
 
Huh?”
 
I asked him.
 
“IIIIIIIcant hear youuu!” I sing out.

They laugh.
 

“I told ya’ll he was going to front.
 
This nigga ain’t hit.” he says to the other
Officers.
 

I shake my head calmly and say, “Another non-believer,”
then, “Bet I did.”

“Whooooooo?” everybody croons on this high school shit.
 

“Bet a buck,” he says.

“Ya know he’s still a jack that might be a little too steep
for him,” another Officer says.

“Bet,” I say.

Then he pulls out a hundred dollar bill.
 
He asked out loud, looking at the rest of the
fellas, “What you do bring in ya momma’s panties or something as proof?”
 
They laugh.
 
I steps up to all of them as they quiet down and pull out my cell phone
(yeah the ones we are not supposed to have inside the jail).
 
As they look at me, I am busy into my phone
scrolling down pressing buttons whistling to myself.
 
Then I calmly gestured for the group of tenth
graders, pathological, non-pussy getting liars to come closer.
 
I then proceed to show them not the Officer
betting me, some pictures I took last night.
 

“Daaammmm!” they all responded simultaneously.

The non-believing Officer grabs my phone so he can get a closer
look for verification.
 
He looks at the
picture I have of the female Officer in question, on her knees with my dick in
her mouth.
 

“How I know that that’s you?
 
I don’t see your face nowhere on that picture,” he says, making a last
ditched effort not to pay up.

The others give me a look like he’s right, siding with his
frivolous attempt to avoid paying me.
 

“I knew that you were going to say that,” I say while taking
my phone back from him.

Then I push the button on my phone to move to the next picture
and show him and only him the shot.
 

“Daaaaam!” he shouts out.

Then he gives me my phone and my money and starts bowing
down like I am a king or something.
 
They
all rush to see what he saw on my phone.
 
They burst out laughing when they saw that I took a picture in the
mirror of me hitting her from the back in the bathroom.
 

Yeeeeeah man, time has blown by and I’ve become that
bitchass / faggotass / stupidass C.O. that other Officers were talking
about.
 
I mean I jumped right into the
swing of things from the parties, the basketball team, the going to Joey’s (a
local bar where a lot of C.O.s hang out) to the drinking on post, and the
shitting on inmates every chance I got - thanks to Biz playing me. All the
inmates should have said, ‘Thank you, Biz!’
 
Yessir!
 
Yessir!
 
I am a full fledge backstabbing, pussy
tapping, robbing the City by going to sleep on the midnight tour, C.O.!
 
Even though I still live with my moms, I
stepped my game up immensely.
 
I’ve acquired
a green Dodge Caravan from Major World Auto - where everybody goes with fucked
up credit.
 
Don’t act like it’s just
me.
 
I no longer have just one pair of
black pants to go partying in.
 
I now
have two pairs, one of them leather.
 
I
bought my first pair of gators and allat.
 
Yeah baby, I am ball’n!
 
I am a
crowd favorite when it comes to snapping and joking around the jail and guess
what?
 
These fools done fucked around and
let a nigga purchase a firearm!
 
It’s a
gat, a ratchet, a biscuit, a burner to all my inner-city home boys and
a
ooohhwop to anybody over fifty.
 
Ha, ha I am on top of the wooorrrld!

Mental note:
 
Negro ain’t say shit about taking his kids
nowhere, spending time with them or buying them anything.
 
Well, I guess I can always blame it on all of
the overtime I am doing.
 
Yeah that’s the
ticket.
 

Now the white shirts come down the hall to address us at
roll call.
 
We all stand in line formation
on some paramilitary shit for morning inspection.
 
We are required to have a memo book that we
keep our daily activities logged in, a 911 knife, which is a switchblade that
curves, and is used when an Officer on the midnight tour wakes up to find an
inmate dangling from an attempt to hang themselves somewhere in his/her cell
and has to be cut down, a flashlight, and O.C. spray, which is a form of pepper
spray.
 

While we were being inspected, two Officers from our
security department roll out a wooden cabinet with two doors on it.
 
They position it in front of our line,
upright, so that everyone can see its contents.
 
Then they open the doors and reveal to us all sorts of weapons that they
have confiscated from inmates at some time in the past.
 
They had all kinds of shanks in there made up
from inmates’ imaginations.
 
One Captain
starts to point to some of them and tell us where they were found.
 

“This one was found under the radiator, this one on top of a
light fixture,” he said.
 

It was a sharpened piece of plastic.
 
He stated that the inmates got smart and
started using them to pass through the metal detectors.
 
With a serious look on his face he said
truthfully while holding up the plastic shank wrapped in rubber bands, “This
can and will go right through that stab proof vest that yall be wearing if the
right amount of force is applied.
 
This
one’s my favorite,” he says while taking a seven inch sharpened pipe out of the
display case.
 
“I call it the stool
softener because it was removed from an inmate’s anus!”
 

All of us relatively new Officers looked in shock.
 
A Senior Officers belted out, “Goddam, Cap’
how many times are you going to show us these old shits?”
 
The Captain gives a look like okay smartass
and then says, “You’re right, C.O. Chase, so now let’s take a look at some
other items that we found on inmates recently.”
 

He then pulls out a small box from the bottom of the display
case.
 
Then he takes out of the box some Gemstar
razors and about fifteen surgical scaffolds.
 
We all stand there stunned.
 
Then
the Captain says, “And these are no makeshift bangers or shanks.
 
Sheeeit, some of them still have the price
tag on them from the store.”
 
Then he
looks at big mouth, Chase, and says, “Maybe we need to dust them for your
finger prints.”
 
Chase responds, “Stop
playing, Cap, that ain’t funny!”
 

“No, it ain’t funny,” the Captain says while walking down
the formation with the items held up in his hands and says, “These items were
not made up by inmates, these items were brought in here!”
 
He pauses to let his words sink in then
continues, “Either by way of counselor, or inmate visitor or ultimately an
Officer.”

Dead silence no one said a word.
  

He then continues, announcing some
more good news stating that our fearless Mayor has decided to add to our
already dangerous and tough job by putting into law a no smoking rule for all
City owned buildings.
 

The complaining starts.
 

“That’s that bullshit!” from the
Officers, “That don’t includes us, right, Cap?
 
He always starting some shit and we got to clean it up!”
 

“Calm down, calm down!” the
Captain said.
 

Everybody got quiet so he could
speak.
 
Then he said, “We still have a
job to do.
 
We still have to maintain
Care, Custody and Control of these inmates!”
 
Then he dismisses roll call and we look at each other for a moment
letting all the risk sink in of what’s about to trigger a lot of uses of force
against the inmates.
 
Then simultaneously
we hit him again with a barrage of complaints and questions.

“Why we always gotta’ get hit with
the bullshit!
 
What’s going to happen
with these inmates that have been smoking all their lives?
 
Is the mayor bringing his ass down here to
help us out!?”
 

Then Officer Swartz, who always
has a sick sense of humor, blurts out, “Gon’ now, gon’ now!
 
Ya’ll keep yo’ trap shut and do what ya’lls
told!
 
Now git!
 
Ya’ hear me?
 
Git back to them fields and get Massa’s
cotton!”