Working in a Men's Prison

Before my youngest son, Tiny Tim, was born I knew that I was going to have to continue to work through out the rest of the year to keep paying for all of my bills. However, as I may have mentioned, I was probably going to run out of hours as a permanent intermittent employee and would not have money to pay all of my bills. What seemed to be like good timing and I thought was a blessing, but questionable later, was that I was offered a position at a new men's prison opening up in San Diego, California. This would be a full time position. Once I heard about it I took up the offer without really praying or thinking about it too much.

It was not long after my son was born on July 28, that I started at the men's prison in San Diego on August 10, 1987. This really turned out to be a mistake and it was not longer than I had worked a week there did I experience the most stress I think I have ever had in all of my life.

I started out working there on 2nd watch, which is day shift to the free world or 1st shift to the normal person. Actually, I guess when you start out at midnight that is the first shift of the new day so I do not know how the normal folks call graveyard 3rd shift instead of 1st. Who knows? Anyway, I was working day shift from 6AM to 2PM and had what was called a relief position. I was working in Building # 10 in Yard # 3 for 4 days a week and one day I was working with a yard crew that was still cleaning up the rocks, getting it ready for grass later on.

For a a couple of days out of the week I worked with an Officer Chavez (name changed) and it was on one of the days that I was working with him that we were getting the unit for occupancy that they had an incident in yard # 4. This yard had inmates already housed there. Our yard, yard # 3 was only partially housed and Unit # 10 was not occupied at the time.

We were in the warehouse, at the time, getting various supplies for our unit, when to our surprise or actually my surprise, cause I was not used to this coming from a women's prison, we heard the alarm sounding indicating some type of incident. We could see a lot of officers running towards yard # 4 so we followed in response. I was younger than my partner and still in fairly good shape from the academy, so I was one of the first ones to the yard. I was able to pass most of those that responded before us.

On arrival I could see that there was an inmate laying on the ground with blood all over the place. I did not know if he was dead or not at the time, but my job at that particular instance was to get all of the inmates back into their housing units. All the inmates were all on the ground, at the time, as they were supposed to be. When there is an incident the guard tower officer yells over the intercom system for everyone to get down so the officers assigned to the yard position can take care of the actual fight or incident going on. After we, as a team, were able to get them back in their respectful units, I then had a chance to look back over and see that indeed the guy was dead. It seemed like the whole front of his body was torn apart from the ammo that made his whole chest and stomach look like chopped up liver. It was so disgusting and my stomach started turning as I took one last stare. After that last long stare, I just had to walk away and get away from the whole scene.

From the story I received from several sources is this; There were two inmates fighting on the basketball court when the guard tower officer told everyone to get down on the ground. Everyone did as they were supposed to except one inmate. The recreation officer in charge of the yard was going towards the two that were fighting, telling them to break it up. The one inmate who did not get down was coming up from behind the officer apparently looking as he was going to be a threat to the recreation officer. The tower officer told him to get down again for a 2nd time and he failed to respond to her request. I was told two different stories on if she gave a warning shot or not, I am not sure, but when he refused to get down she shot to disable and of course she was successful in disabling him, for good I guess you might say.

A lot of the officers that transferred in from San Quentin, Folsom and other prisons thought this was the greatest thing and it was almost like they were excited about this, giving everyone Hi-5's and all that other stuff. I guess they were excited too, that it was a female officer that did it this time. Usually all of the shootings in the past were done by men.

For me it was the first person that I had ever seen dead, other than one in a funeral home that was cleaned up a lot more and looked much nicer. I grew up in a small town so this was something completely new to me. It completely stressed me out and to this day I can see his body laying there. It may have been one of the triggers that gave me a mental breakdown later on, which I will discuss later on in the next article.

I didn't mention this but my family stayed in our home in the Inland Empire all of the time that I worked in San Diego. We were going to try to sell it and move to San Diego but after we found out how much more expensive homes were there, plus after I experienced this incident I was ready to transfer right back to C.I.W.(California Institution for Women) In fact, I used to go home on my weekends which I believe they were on Mondays and Tuesdays at the times, to see my family. After this incident, I was back up at CIW, on my day off, trying to get a transfer back to the women's prison. I was told," No,"by the warden who told me that there were no openings for me. This was another trigger that set me off and made it that much more stressful for me.

The main reason that I really wanted to transfer back was because my wife was still really sick with her recently diagnosed Lupus and she had a new born baby that she had to take care of, as well. I couldn't use the excuse of the prison shooting cause that would not hold water at all. I had to have a legitimate reason to transfer back and something that was considered to be a hardship. My wife's illness was considered just that, a hardship, plus her having a new born baby was one as well. It was a two part process in trying to come back. I first had to get approval from the warden at San Diego to release me to come back to CIW. That process was approved but the "dragon lady," (CIW warden) as I call her, would not let me transfer back, not even if it was a considered an extreme hardship. She may have been mad that I transferred out of there in the first place and was not going to give me any chance of coming back and helping my family and I out.

Another stressful situation and incident that happened a couple of weeks later was on the day I was working on the yard crew. I had approximately 20 inmates that I was supervising at the time and I was watching them picking up rocks when I suddenly noticed that my cuff key was missing. Richard J Donovan's (San Diego's prison name) policy at the time was to have the cuff key and your regular key rings on separate key rings. Normally, I would check my side from time to time to make sure my keys were still there. Well, I must of not checked them on regular basis, that day, as I usually do because the next time I did happen to check them, my cuff key was missing. I thought, "Oh no! What happened to my cuff key. If I have lost this I am going to lose my job." I had remembered earlier before we started the day off that as I was giving them them instructions for the days work, I remembered one of them had passed by me too close and said excuse me as he slightly brushed up against me. That is the time, of course, I should have checked my keys, but I didn't do that for some reason.

Having remembered that there was a possible situation of one of them having my cuff key I made this desperate plea and was bold to all of them. I said in anger, "One of you has taken my cuff key and I want it back! Give it back now and there will be no write-ups. If I have to, I'll have you all stripped searched. Just give me back the key!" For some reason, but it was not right away, one of the inmates came up when no one else was looking and gave it back to me. I kept my word and didn't write him like I said I wouldn't and he apologized for playing a joke on me. That was the end of that story even though it was another stressful trigger in working in a men's prison.

One time where I sort of lost my cool with one particular inmate is when was I working out on the yard and I don't remember what brought up the confrontation but this inmate about my size, got up in my face and started yelling at me for some reason. I started yelling back and noticed that gun coverage from the yard tower above. The officer was alert and had his gun ready. That is one of the main reasons I didn't back down with this inmate because I knew I had back up from above (more than one way, if you know what I mean.) Eventually, the inmate backed off from me and we were able to communicate in a more civil manner. He used all kinds of profanity, some words I was not familiar with, but I was able to to keep my morals and not lower myself to his level. I never used one word of profanity even though I was very firm and forceful with him (if forceful can be associated with anger.)

All in all, even though I had some very stressful times working in a men's prison, I guess all those experiences were there for my good, even if it was just for the fact of writing a good true story. If I were to do it all over again I don't believe I would have transferred to San Diego. However, what is done is done, and God is always watching over me from above even though there is a chance that the guard tower officer may not be. There are times the officer may be asleep, but with God he never sleeps and is always watching over me. That is a good thing! And even if someone is an atheist someone is watching over you too, whether it be your money or your golden calves, someone or something is always watching over you. And I don't think I would want money or a golden calf to be my God. I don't think they would be able to take care of me as well as God does and has in the past. Now don't get me wrong! There is nothing wrong with money, if you have it, but just remember who blessed you with that gift. Money is there for you to bless others that do not have that gift.

I will share some of my most personal experiences in my next article and hope no one will be offended in sharing some of my trials and tribulations of one that has had some mental and emotional problems.