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.