Shanks, shivs etc..

Shanks and shivs, knives if you will. This I promise will be a bit shorter. I already mentioned a stabbing I had responded too and the Inmate had been stabbed 19 times. I only saw one of the wounds and it looked like he had been stabbed with a table candle. Nasty wound right in the forearm. So I was talking to the family last night about the blog. And it occurred to me to try and write about the various homemade weapons I have seen. Now I spent most of my career at a Minimum security jail. So it should be a shorter blog post. But I do have a few stories to share. While working the 8-4 shift at GH I would often get assigned to the Industrial work area. The jobs would be completed before 4 O'clock and I would finish up and walk on up front to see the Sgt. for something else to do. I was trying to be a good employee. Inevitably he would assign me to help with the Inmates leaving visits. It only took a couple times to realize that that was what I would get if I did the right thing and walked up front. Nuts and Butts (you can figure out that if you think a bit)is no fun at all, most of the time. So I learned to make a job for myself after say the auto shop Inmates all left for the day. I would frisk the area. The first weapon I found was in the laundry. I was climbing up on one of the huge machines they have there and found razor blades setting way up on top. You had to climb up a bit to get at them. They were the kind used in your father's or grandfathers razors for shaving. These were pretty common. Also in the laundry hidden in pipe insulation I found what looked like a wood working tool. Like a lathe tool. Wooden handled but this one had been taken to a grinder and or filed to a sharp point. I remember being a bit nervous just taking it up to the arsenal. Not sure why but I was. Another time I was assigned to the biggest auto body shop I have ever seen. Located in the back of GH the Inmates at the time did a lot of vehicles that the DPW in the city had wrecked. Real quickly a little background, an Inmate had beaten another Inmates head in with a 3 lb hammer and the CO that had the bid job there took a couple of weeks off to get his thoughts back together. So I was assigned that job for a couple of weeks. All the big wig's in the place were coming down and they were trying to get shadow boards made up so we could keep track of all the tools. Not sure how that would have prevented the Inmate from taking the hammer and bashing the other Inmates head in but. So it was the same thing I needed to kill about 45 minutes and would frisk the shop. Well I found in one of the open lockers a nasty shank made from what appeared to be a spackling knife that was approx. 5 inches across the top but it had been cut by a pair of tin snips to a point. It was roughly in the shape of a diamond and left all jagged. Man if someone was stuck with that thing it would be hell to sew you up. It also came with a nice case to cover the blade which was a nice touch to the project. That's a few from GH now just a list of some other types I have found without the story. Frisked a guys coat once and found a 10 inch folding hunting knife. Frisked the outside rec. building and found a metal spatula up in the rafters which had been sharpened a little on one side. It had not been finished yet. Since it was a work camp CO's regularly found pieces of "bow" saw blades. Some I have not found but have seen other find were made from melted tooth brush handles, melted cigarette cellophane wrapper, Of course the tooth brush with a razor inserted in the bristles is quite common. I saw one once that looked like a Bowie knife made from a piece of plexi-glass. I guess what I finish saying is this. If it can be made into a shank, shiv, banger, etc.. they will do it. The Inmates can stick a razor in their mouths and spit one right out without cutting the insides. They will secret them wherever they can.. What you see in the movies for the most part is correct. Never saw anyone find one but have seen the collection they use for training purposes and yes even homemade (zip)guns. Not much of a point to make about this other than it is all over the place and the Department's. drug sniffing dogs seem to find at least one shank on every visit at GT. So weapons in jail is now of the way. On to something else. Not sure what yet.

GH war stories.

If I would have to say of all the "war" stories that stick in my mind there about three short ones I always tell people if they want to hear one. Some people love to hear stories of jail work. But there are a few that stick out above the others. One time I was running to a RED alert and thinking I hope none of the CO's were hurt and I hope it isn't too bad. That sort of thing. I show up at this junctions point where they have three gates in the joining hallways so we can stop the spread of riots, that sort of thing. When I get there things have already come to conclusion as far as the fighting goes. None of the Staff had been hurt. So your heart goes at ease. I was one of the first to arrive and the Sgt. says take this guy to the infirmary. He was stabbed but able to walk. So I assumed that some one previously there had frisked him. Bad idea. I guess the Sgt. should have told me to do so but also I should have asked but here's this fairly small inmate bleeding all over himself. So I hustled him down to the infirmary. There were Officers there so when I got there I turned him over and went back to my bid job which at the time was the package room. I know it doesn't sound like much of a story. But one of the CO's in the infirmary told me later that when they took his jacket off they found 19 total stab wounds!! They had also found a razor in his jacket concealed somewhere. What always struck me odd was that this inmate had thought he could throw his jacket on to cover the stab wounds and go back in the block like nothing happened. Now I had seen one stab wound on his arm. It looked like someone had taken a candle stick and was able to stab him quite deeply with it. A nasty wound for sure. What I hadn't seen were the 18 other shots! And this guy actually was trying to avoid getting medical help. Luckily he hadn't pulled the razor on anyone. I felt sick in my stomach when I found out he had a razor somewhere on him. Lesson learned was any time something like that happened for the rest of my career I made sure the inmate was frisked.
Another one I remember was responding to "A" block one day for some big fight taking place. When I get there two of the biggest inmates in the place were having a big dispute. The only issue was the bigger heavy set one was trying to get through the bars to kick this muscle bound inmates ass.. He was totally out of control and would not listen to directions from the Officers. He was a fairly well known inmate in the block and usually was a well mannered inmate. So what I found funny was this guy is refusing to let the CO's cuff him and struggling like crazy totally had lost it, and there were two Officers on each arm and they were having difficulty getting his arm close enough so the cuffs could be used. I remember saying to the one female Officer on one of his arms. Let me take your spot due to she was about 115 soaking wet.. Not that she wasn't giving it her all, but his one arm was about as big as her whole upper body!! We finally did get him cuffed and I remember the normal sized cuffs were tight with just one click. Things calmed down and I guess the whole fight was over the one muscle bound inmate had thrown his oatmeal into the other guys face. I think if the gate hadn't been there someone may have died over throwing oatmeal.
The last one I'll bring up is the story if an old black inmate who was known around the jail for knowing karate. Some of the CO's who had been around a while tell the story of seeing him kick a ceiling pipe in the hall leading to sick call. Now that is really up there so I always wondered if that story was true. But if was a long day at jail and stories always helped. I'll stick with not telling names but we'll call him "M". So "M" had been in a big altercation at some point in a the furthest north Max jail in the state. He hurt some CO's and ended up getting hurt quite badly himself. Serves him right I'd say. You want to act like an idiot you get what you got coming to you. But for the last few years I guess this inmate "M" was going about jail life without issues. You see the story goes he had shaved all his hair off his body and used Vaseline everywhere on him so no one could get a good hold on him. And totally naked, no hair, greased up, and he decides to do some fighting. So this old story floated around the jail. But for while now "M" was acting like he should so life in jail goes on. Until one day I am heading to the block to do the count. The CO controlling the gate, I can't remember his name but did know it then, says "Hey "H" go check the yard there's still an Inmate sitting out by the TV". So I go out and here's this "M" sitting there. I went up to him and asked him why he was still out. He said he didn't want to go back in. And it was going to take a lot of you to make me. So I'm not a lot of you, so I go back in and tell the CO's running the gate better get a Sgt. here. It was the notorious "M". So I had never been up close to "M" prior to that day. He wasn't very big or in very good shape. I was like this guy doesn't look like much. But whatever, the Sgt. will no how to take care of it better than I. I had given him an order to leave the yard I'd given it a shot. So I'm hanging out there waiting for the Sgt. to show and when he gets there we go out in the yard again and the Sgt. tells this guy he has to leave the yard. I can't remember who was all there but it was about 4-5 Officers and the Sgt. I remember "M" looking at us and he starts sizing us up. He's pretty big, He looks fast, That sort of thing. The Sgt. makes a decision to let him sit there a while., No one was getting hurt so no since pushing it I guess he figured. I thought at the time we should have dragged him out of the yard, he shouldn't be allowed to do what he like whenever he wants. Plus I thought we could have easily done it. But now after all the years under my belt, I think the Sgt. made the right choice. Let him sit there a while and maybe he'd decide, once he figured the TV wasn't coming on any time soon, that he should come inside by himself with no force needed. Well it was count time and as any CO knows it's what we get paid for doing. "The Count" So I have a company to count and take to chow. So the Sgt. orders all of us out of the yard and tells some of us to go do our counts. I was really curios about how it all ended so I'd ask whoever if they had heard anything. I guess they got as many CO's they could and surrounded him. They had given him a lot of time and he kept acting like he was going to fight. He hadn't greased himself up but apparently his rep had followed him. Enough was enough and they closed in on him and as the first one was close enough to touch him he gave up completely. Off to the box he went!! An odd event to say the least. Maybe he owed a gambling debt or just want to spend some alone time in the box. Who knew.. More "war" stories for another time.

Animals and jobs.

I touched on it a bit in the last days blog. But one thing for sure about corrections work is the diversity of the jobs in a jail like GH. You can go from the wicked busy to the help me stay awake!! I've had both type of jobs over the years and I'd have to say the extremes in both area are hard to take. Barely having anything to do jobs are created just in case something goes down. Like I said before about the tower job. Boring until the sh** hits the fan. Then you go from bored to possibly shooting someone. Thank god they are mostly boring. The wicked busy jobs leave a lot of opportunities for you to mess up. Your days go by very fast but it is easy to get burned out. I'd have to say there are fewer of these wicked busy jobs compared to the bored out of my skull jobs. Most fall somewhere in between. One thing I liked about GH was someone would almost always be available to relieve you for a break. We didn't get normal breaks like most workers. We worked a straight 8 hours day along with 15 minutes of line-up(where they give you info on what's going on in the jail, etc...). If you had to open and close a gate all day it was nice to get a break from it. You were standing and turning the biggest keys I had ever seen, over and over and over. Some of the gates were electric and in that case you sat on a chair all day pushing buttons. Sometimes the CO would have a stick with a taped up tip to push the buttons with. I guess if you had to do it every day you come up with ways to keep from getting a blister on the tips of your fingers. One time the CO working one of these electric gates on the midnight shift which must have been terribly boring opened the gate for a skunk walking down the hall. Skunks were all over the jail and there were plenty of open spots for them to walk under the pass through spots in the hallways. He must have thought it was funny opening the gate for a skunk. He also must of thought it was funny to see what would happen and close the gate on it while it passed through. It took quite a while for the hallways to smell normal again. While on the subject of animals. One of the most common flying around the jail were Bats. I guess they thought it was very cave like. And they would be right!! Well someone killed one once and wrapped it up in plastic. In the Officers break area, (vending machines etc..) they had a machine for buying sandwiches and once you open the little sliding door, it's quite easy to slide in a bat wrapped up nicely in plastic. Pretty funny but a bit gross.. My friend "F" said I thought it was a pretty good deal a bat for $1.25. I guess I've got the theme for today narrowed down to animals. So I'll finish with a story about frisking a cell one day. Like I said the new jacks get to do a lot of frisking. So I'm frisking this cell and trying to check every where. It's sometime unbelievable how much an Inmate can cram into a small 6x8 cell (rough size). So it's going like most frisk go until I open one of his Tupperware bowls. It was full of Cockroaches!! I'm not sure how he was managing to keep them in while adding more to it. But there they were all moving around and I was like totally grossed out. I had never seen a Cockroach until GH. I guess everyone needs a house pet from time to time and you have to take advantage of what's around you in some cases!! I wonder if he had them all named!!

Odds and ends

This will be various things that don't deserve much time but were interesting to me then. The OJT jail which I refer to as DS if you recall kept the Inmates in file two by two totally quiet. It was nice moving them around this way. GH on the other hand was like just try to keep them on one side of the hallway. Speaking of Hallways. When Industry (where they worked) let out it was wall to wall convicts!! Officers would be right in the middle observing so nothing would jump off without someone seeing it. I remember once asking this Sgt. if I was suppose to be doing something while standing there. And he says to me you are doing a good job keep it up. I found out later he was relatively new as a Sgt. at GH. So he really didn't know either. Joking around was common place. I remember once some Officer put a new recruit up to going to the Box and asking them for their Inmates that were signed up to go to the movies. Pretty funny if you ever worked the box or can imagine it, they only get out for one hour a day. They never get to see a movie or a TV for that matter. But he was new and still learning and there was no harm done. I also remember this one Officer who used to climb up the fencing material inside some of the blocks to try and catch Inmates up to no good. That was pretty funny. I used to like working the box. We'd get all of the work done and have the rest of the day to do whatever. As long as nothing happened that is or course. We'd play catch with a football (inside) play guitar, etc.. whatever we felt. So it wasn't always tension working this job. I later won a bid to work there full time as the relief. Before I got a chance to work the job I received my transfer. One weekend I reported to work and for a job that day was given the outside garage.. I got the most key rings I ever had to carry. I was to report out there and if they needed a vehicle I would be there to get one for whoever would be taking the trip. I think I also had to run the visitors for the Annex out to the Annex from the main gate. That was one easy job compared to others I had on the weekends. One job I always hated on weekends were the visiting room jobs. They had two. New and Old visiting room. The old one was better than the new one. You pretty much spent your days trying to keep Inmates off there girl friends/ wives. Really crappy work!! Another was the main gates going to either side of the jail from the main admin. area. It was really busy due to visits really pick up at GH on the weekends. This guy runs all the gates but the hard part is he also has to keep track of the Inmates going to visits. That job was probably the most ridiculously hectic job I had while there. People would get ticked off cause you would be busy and not notice them at the gates. One gate at a time is all that's allowed open so pushing buttons and marking Inmate ID's (a way set up to keep track where they were visiting) over and over and over until your shift was over. Every now and then, the facility would have special event days. They were called something like "San Juan Batista day" amongst others. Things like that. They would have a special area set up for the Inmates and we'd have to report to the rear gate and process them all through. It was wicked busy most of the time. Once for one of these special events I thought I got lucky and got assigned a tower post. Man that day sucked big time. Talk about boredom. I knew a older guy who had worked a tower post on the Midnight shift for like 19 years. I don't know how he could have ever did it. I couldn't do that job for one shift without going buggy!! Enough for one day check back later..

GH and and various jobs.

Going to work at GH was a experience that stuck with me for the rest of my career. My job title for most of my career has been "resource pool" or sometimes called "miscellaneous". I soon discovered it was better for me not knowing what I would have to do when I got to work. That way I couldn't dwell on it over night. GH had well over 2000 inmates and was like a city behind walls. There were a lot of different jobs and many of them were very chaotic. So not knowing what was in store would free me of thinking about what I had to do and how I would do it until I actually got to work. I tried to stick with that concept most of my career. They do occasionally have to assign you to an off shift. So those days I would know. Years later I fell off from following this rule I made for myself and would check the day prior. It was good and it was bad. If I found I was going to be extra, it was good. If I found I had to go chop trees down I didn't care for it. Doing this may have caused me to "Bang in" sick a few extra times. One other positive thing about Resource pool jobs is you do something different most every day. CO's have for the most part a very boring job which occasionally goes from boredom to Chaos, real quick!! One of the worse jobs which would come up from time to time would be Funeral trips. Me and another Officer would take an Inmate down to some of the worse neighborhoods in the city. It was an one hour stop but was always tense. Not many CO's want to do this. Some will if on OT. I was never that lucky for a 10 hour OT for a funeral visit. I guess I could have had this job in my "shocking" section. Who would have known they routinely take Inmates to funeral visits. When I got to the Minimum security jail, it was always a decision to decide whether you would take the cuffs and leg irons off him so he could sit with his family and grieve. It was left up to the Officers but could be denied by higher management. I think of all the ones I had, and it was quite a few, we took the stuff off on every one. Never had a incident. I mean these guy in the minimum had no wall or fence to keep them from leaving the place, and plenty of time to do so. The rarely ever did. So the decision fell on the Senior Officer which I was a few times and we took the chance. Didn't make much since but after the hour we'd shackle him back up and drive back to the jail. But this always made me uneasy. I hated going after a while. Well I jumped right out of GH for on that one. So let me pull myself back in. For a two week stint I was assigned this job picking garbage along the outside of the cell blocks. I had what was called the In-grade gang. I took 4-5 Inmates and walked around the outside of the blocks picking garbage. After a few days of this I was getting pretty bored. This job was funny in a couple of ways. Luckily I was young. I ran a company of of H block to chow which for some reason at their meals on the opposite side of the jail. So after doing the count in "H" block, Off I'd march them down the halls to breakfast and then back over and lock them in. I'd do what they call a "GO around" which consisted of asking them if they wanted the yard or stay in that sort of thing. Then clear over to the other side to "B" block to gather the workers and once gathered head back toward "H" block to get tools from the closet where they kept the tools for the gang. Then outside to various area picking garbage. Once done back to the closet and back to "B" block and then I'd walk all the way back over to "H" block and run the lunch meal and do the count. Only to repeat this in the afternoon. Lots of walking and I wondered why anyone would bid that job. Luckily I had it just two weeks. While working this detail I asked the Sgt. if I could get permission to take a couple of them into the Attics and pick up garbage that I knew had accumulated over the years. Which they did grant me permission to do so. I'd take just two Inmates up and pick garbage. I knew there was lots of garbage up there due to working the yard roof post. After that they asked me to go down in the Morgue and pick up garbage down there which I did. Under GH is a series of underground tunnels connecting the blocks. They run the plumping and wiring that sort of thing. So while at GH I was just about in every corner and nook in the place. Even up in the area where they kept the electric chair although I was not allowed through the door where it sat. So I never saw the chair. We cleaned the area where the Inmates that were going to use the chair resided until the day came. If I remember correctly it was called the death house. From the biggest auto collision repair shop I'd ever seen to the Morgue, to the death house the Inside theater etc... while at GH I saw just about everything. That's enough for the day time for dinner....