Gary Waid, investigation, DOC, Florida, prison, Florida State Prison, FSP

Kay Lee
It seems the D.O.C. is mounting an investigation of sorts.
Send a copy of this letter to whomever you wish. Maybe Michael Moore (Sec. of DOC) needs one.
And the Miami Herald.

On a hot, humid afternoon a few days ago, I was summoned to the administration building to be interviewed by an investigator from the Florida Department of Corrections. He had copies of some of my letters to the Miami Herald, and, I suppose, the FBI. He claimed to be from Gainesville and to be interested in getting at the truth.

Sadly, when the ensuing interview was over, I decided he had not been entirely truthful with me. The interview was at the very least unproductive. It actually scared me at one point. It now seems, based on the actions of this guy, that the Florida D.O.C. intends to investigate the wrong things. They want to discredit the messenger and those who aided him (me, you, and my lawyer).

He introduced himself, ordered me into a room with a desk and two chairs, swore me in and turned on his tape recorder. He looked at his notes and told me what he expected. He had an agenda. He was, by turns, preoccupied, testy, indifferent or hostile to my opinions, rude, supercilious, and oddly myopic with respect to possible wrong doing by D.O.C. employees. I thought then that this would not be easy. I was nervous, actually, and afraid. As some of you know, I'd been punished before for my thoughts.

There is, in prison, an unspoken but nonetheless tangible threat in many inmate-staff interactions. If the threat is not overt it's implied. ALWAYS. And the discomfort is encouraged by the agency directives towards prisoners. They never acknowledge us by anything more conciliatory than our last names, spoken flatly, with contempt. An expulsion as in: "Wade, sit down! This is your big chance, Waid! Just do as you're told! Don't make me go over it and over it, Waid! "...etc...

If you have to sit for a lecture from someone who distrusts you, is afraid of your opinions, wants to discredit you in some way or hurt you, and is theatrical in his approach as he misquotes you (sighing, sucking his teeth), there's a tendency to become uncooperative. Maybe they know that. Maybe it's what they want.

Imagine you're a little kid and the meanest man in town is yelling at you. The natural inclination is to clam up. It can't be helped. Every angry question might be designed to trip you up or elicit a response unrelated to the subject of the interview.

In this case, when the questions began I became more and more reticent, more and more conscious of the pauses and the white noise between utterances, more and more afraid I was missing something. This is not an inquiry, I thought, and wondered if the D.O.C. officers would be done this 'a way when their time came.

I said no sir, I'd alleged nothing. I'd heard and reported, I said, and I explained how I'd been working in the Law Library. I was helping inmates, which was my job. Since the beating death of a prisoner at F.S.P., inmates were coming forward, many of them swallowing their fears. I'd taken a number of affidavits in which brutal, illegal acts were recalled in detail, and I was disturbed enough by them and by other rumors to want to report it. It was information that needed to get out. I was a scribe and an editorializer, and I wrote letters to the paper, to judges, the Bureau of Prisons (federal), the FBI etc., based on the unbelievably detailed transcriptions. I believed the inmates, of course, and tried to explain why.

I'd seen these men explaining. I'd watched the fear and hesitancy. I've been down for five years now, and never in all that time in the feds had I witnessed anything remotely like it.

Then I tried to explain what Testimony means. I mean, I'm in jail on a conspiracy rap. I should know how a proper investigation can sometimes disclose a compelling scenario based on several diverse testimonies. The feds build whole cases on points of similarity, details, and the probability factor. Eyewitnesses aren't required.

He didn't want to hear me though, and indeed, ordered me to "just answer the questions." His pillar, his rock and the rock that D.O.C. obstinacy must be built upon is the certainly that if no one saw anything it didn't happen. A wall of silence, as they say.

Next he asked me about my lawyer, Don Cohn. He bore in, unrelenting. He seemed bent on attacking me for procedural violations (like typing) in my whistle-blowing activities, and wanted to blame those who helped me.

Please tell me, someone, why should the Florida D.O.C. investigators attack the procedures and insist on the minutiae about How affidavits get into FBI or Miami Herald hands, rather than investigate the actual substance of the allegations? What are they so afraid of?

Shouldn't they be trying to get at the truth rather than peck around at silly rules violations? Are they exploring ways to shore up the wall of silence? Are they going to make even more arcane, protectionist regulations I must abide by?

Today I am not allowed to type. Tomorrow I may not be allowed to write at all! Already they inspect my mail (in the feds I was allowed to type and seal my outgoing letters, but not here). And the regulations go on endlessly, difficult to recall for their sheer volume, designed to dissuade guys like me from risking disclosure or censure.

The regulations are the Reason no one knows what goes on in prisons. They're Why some officers feel free to beat on inmates. The stifling secrecy is the PROBLEM!

The investigator wanted me to produce copies of the affidavits. When I said I had none, he ordered my personal property searched - page by page. He wanted all the names of the inmates claiming abuse. I told him I couldn't do that; I had no permission. It wasn't ethical.

But ethics is not high on the D.O.C. list of priorities. Just ask me. I've been reprimanded, thrown in the hole at F.S.P., given a Disciplinary Report for typing, transferred to a close-custody prison for my "own protection," given another D.R., this time a bogus one for "Lying to Staff," all because of my activities in the law library, activities I was supposed to be doing on behalf of the inmates. It's why I was afraid. So to hell with D.O.C. ethics. Maybe the investigator was upset because of something unrelated to me. maybe his integrity was under fire. Maybe it Should have been under fire.

Or maybe, as I've said, he had an agenda. According to the St. Petersburg Times, more than one in six guards employed at F.S.P. (there are more than 500 of them) have criminal records, including arrests for manslaughter and child abuse. Getting at the truth may be secondary to finding a suitable political solution...or a scapegoat.

...on a personal note then, U.S.A. Today reported recently that former Florida House Speaker Balley Johnson, once one of the state's most influential politicians, began a two-year term recently for tax evasion. He reported to the minimum-security federal camp at Eglin A.F.B.