LIFE AND TIMES Chapter 19

LIFE AND TIMES OF A CORRECTIONAL OFFICER
By R. Mark Shepard

It was at least two or three months later before the investigation of this incident began. It started with Subpoenas for all of the officers of the shift to report to the State Attorney's Office 'with your lawyer, if you had one'. This was supposed to be an Informal hearing with one of the State's Prison Inspectors, the Investigator from the State Attorney's office, and a member of the F.D.L.E., Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

What I have not told you yet, is that after that fateful first night, for the next 3 or 4 days, various officers on different shifts decided that this inmate should be further punished, and be accountable for his actions from biting a fellow officer. So the things that had went on, unreported of course, were things such as making the inmate get on his knees with his nose resting on the concrete floor and putting his hands behind his back for hours, and officers telling him that if he moved 1 inch, that they would come into the cell and kick him to sleep.

The officers told the inmate that they wanted him to know what pain felt like, just as the officer did that he had bitten and probably given the aids virus to. They wanted him to feel pain everyday of his waking moments here at this institution.

Other things that the inmate encountered were his meals were sent to him Via Air Mail: In other words, when the food tray was placed on the slot in the cell, the officer would give it a good shove so it would hit the floor, or the officer would put his arm in the slot along with the food tray and throw the food tray at the inmate. It was documented that the inmate was afforded the Opportunity to eat, and if he didn't, Oh Well!

After about the fourth day of the small torments that I have mentioned, and the others I have no idea about, the inmate could not handle this system anymore. He had gotten a hold of a piece of plastic, sharpened it, and began cutting himself on all of his veins that he thought might end his life the quickest.

He apparently had a lot of time to do this, because when the officer found him, he was lying in a pool of blood, or should I say a puddle of blood. The whole Cell floor was covered from corner to corner.

The officer Immediately told the Sergeant, and the Medical Department was notified. Before going into the cell, everyone had suited up to take that extra precaution because of the inmate being HIV Positive. When the inmate was brought out of the cell, the medical staff was amazed that the inmate was still alive because he had lost so much blood.

The inmate was taken to the infirmary and the head nurse checked him out, and for some reason, even with all of the blood loss and all of the cuts and bite marks - Yes, I said bite marks: The inmate had tried to bite through the cuts that he had made, and chew his veins - the inmate was NOT transported to the local hospital, so that he could be stitched up. Instead, the Nurse put strips on his skin to close the wounds, and dressing over the strips, because the Head Doctor of the institution plainly said over the phone to the nurse, that the inmate would probably last until the morning, and that the Doctor would stitch him up when he came in at 8:00 am.

As I have previously said, when an inmate tries to take his own life, he is placed in the CSU unit for further observation and care to make sure he does not try to hurt himself again. And he is usually given a large quantity of medicine to help him relax.

Even with all of the blood loss that this inmate had sustained, he actually walked to the CSU unit with a large escort of officers. When he arrived, he was placed on the highest suicide watch anyone can be on. He was strapped to a bed on his back, naked, with his hands and feet at each corner of the bed so he could no longer hurt himself.

Because I was not physically there, I cannot tell you any more about what happened in the C.S.U. unit that night. The next morning I got a call at home from an officer who told me that "the inmate who tried to kill himself the night before has died".

Sgt. Tom and myself had the same days off, and when we came back to work, the whole Buzz amongst the officers was about the Big Investigation in the C.S.U. Unit and what had happened there the night the inmate tried to commit suicide.

Between Sgt. Tom and myself, we were glad that we were not involved with that mess, because we were still thinking about our mess with this same inmate four days earlier, lying, writing false reports trying to cover our tracts, Per the Captain.

With the subpoenas being handed out, and all of the officers calling their PBA lawyers, this investigation was going to take on a whole new meaning. And what we didn't know is that some of the officers that we were associated with four days earlier were the ones who were also involved the night the inmate cut himself.

The captain of our shift asked Sgt. Tom and myself if we were going to be all right, and wanted to know if we were going to hang in there and basically, stick with the Original Story that we had already Falsified. From what we could gather from talking to all of the other officers who were interviewed, everyone, and I mean everyone, lied to the Investigators at the first interview.

Everyone had stood fast and stuck together with their original story of what had happened to the inmate that came to our Institution four days before he had decided to try to kill himself, supposedly. Sgt. Tom and myself could only give them the false details of what went on when he had arrived, and only that.

Six or Seven months went by before we heard anything about this investigation. WE thought that it was over with and that all of the paper work was completed and this incident would be swept under the rug, just like any of the other incidents that have happened here, or anywhere else. I myself had enough time in the system that I could Retire. My Body was physically breaking down to the point where I could not run anymore. My knees were full of Arthritis and previous injuries from when I was a child, which prevented me from exercising my joints properly. I always said that if I could not run to help save another officer's life who was in danger, I was no good to him/her or myself or the System, so I retired.

One day out of the blue, the Head Investigator for the State's Attorney's Office showed up at my front door and handed me a subpoena to go before a Grand Jury to tell them what had happened the night the inmate came to our prison.

The investigator told me that he knew that Sgt. Tom and myself had lied in some capacity, because he had talked to other State Prison Investigators, and they had told him that Sgt. Tom and myself were always straight up with them, with all of the reports, and that this situation sounds like something that we would not Voluntarily do, not without someone ordering us, or threatening us, and that we were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people in charge.

The Investigator told me that the worst thing that we could do is lie to a Grand Jury. Here it comes, the investigator said. "If you tell us the truth, BEFORE you go to the grand jury, you will NOT be charged or prosecuted." So I told him that I would talk to Sgt. Tom and get back to him and let him know.

The conversation between Sgt. Tom and myself would be quite lengthy. I mean after all, this investigator had told me in detail exactly what had occurred from the time the inmate stepped off the Van, to the time that the Captain ordered us to write the false reports, IN DETAIL. So, apparently someone who had been with us had gone to the investigators and confessed everything that had really happened, IN DETAIL.

Already not having a clear conscious from the first interview, we both had decided that it was in our best interest, and to have a clear conscious, to tell the truth, which we should have done from the beginning. But you as the public have to remember, that we had to work with this same captain and these same officers everyday, and if you don't think that our jobs, our even our lives weren't on the line from within, you are wrong.

If this Captain got the least bit of a scent that we were about to tell the truth, we would have not only been assigned to the worst detail in the system, we would be black-balled by our fellow workers, and set up to make us look like the Dirtiest Officers that ever existed - and if you think that this type of thing does not exist, well, it does.

After Sgt. Tom and myself had agreed with each other to be the Professional Correctional Officers that we have always tried to be, we had decided to tell the truth. We were sure that this was the only way to remain and go on through life with our dignity intact, and be human at the same time, no matter what anyone or Officer said, or names that we were called. It made no difference: We were telling the truth, which gave us now a clear conscious of this incident. We never had to struggle with any form of guilt before for doing our job, no matter the situation.

Our first meeting with the head federal Prosecutor and Two Investigators was nothing more than normal, seeing that they already knew the truth, Sgt. Tom and myself led them on the most direct path to the truth. They talked to us separate, and got the same facts.

We were called in a week later for a lie detector test. Sgt. Tom was first and took the test. They had taken me into a room and asked me the same general questions that we had gone over before, and as they tried to play their little game of how my story didn't match that of Sgt. Tom, well.....That didn't work. I ended up Not taking the polygraph test. They said they truly believed me, and that I was telling the truth. I responded by saying, "Why wouldn't you, after all we came forward to tell the truth". They stammered and stuttered for a while and said that they just wanted to make sure that you were truthful.

We had already figured out that they would separate us, and play one against the other and try that psychological game. But no matter what questions they asked us, or tests they gave us, it always came up the same, The TRUTH. The one lead investigator stated that he had never seen two people either stick together as much as Sgt. Tom and myself, or it was just a fact that we were telling the truth. He said it usually takes some time to separate the truth from a lie between two people, and they had always had been very successful in doing so, but there was no denying that we were as truthful and as sure about what we had said and done, or didn't do, as any two people could be.

The whole time we had spent with the Investigators and the Federal Prosecutor, they constantly reminded us that we were still on the GOOD list, and we had nothing to worry about.

Sgt. Tom was the first witness to go into the grand jury room. My testimony took all of 7 to 8 minutes, tops. When completed the head prosecutor shook our hands and thanked us for all of our help, and sent us on our way.

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