I was the cell checker tonight, and it was slow at booking. I don’t mind cell checker, and as long as the few bookings we get aren’t too drunk, it’s nice. Although, one guy that came in around 11, was a peach (sarcasm alert!), but all in all, not too bad a night.

I was starting a round at about 1800 (6pm for the non-military-time minded) when an inmate handed me a medical request form. We call them kites: as in “fly a kite”. I took the kite, and went on with my round, and when I got to the next area I looked at what it said.

Some medical kites can be pretty entertaining. Sometimes it’s just the spelling, and other times it’s more about the actual “medical issue” they are having. I remember one kite complaining of starvation due to the lack of food. I think I might have “round filed” that one.

Anyway, the kite I was handed tonight said:

“I need to talk to the Sergeant, have medical call me out so I can talk.”

Interesting.

When I was finished with my round, I saw a nurse standing next to the unit the guy was from, so I asked her to stand by while I called the guy out. Once out of the unit, I walked down the hall with him towards the nurses station, so nobody could see he was actually talking to me, the enemy, instead of a nurse.

I asked him what he needed, expecting an issue with a cell-mate; instead, he told me that he had been asked to kill a guy.

Uhhh…

I gathered my wits, as they were in my shoes, and tried not to look too shocked. I asked “Gary” some details about what was going on, and he told me that “Seth” was testifying against “Bob” and a couple of other guys. Gary said that Bob knew that he used to beat people up for money, and asked him if he would “take care” of Seth by killing him.

At this point, you may be wondering if this is true or not. There are many times that I have been lied to while working at the jail, and I have heard some real doosies. This particular story had what I can only call the “ring of truth”, and although I was still slightly skeptical, I believed the bulk of what he was telling me.

Are you following? Let’s use some color codes to keep it simple

Ok, so we have:

Seth: The guy Bob wants dead

Bob: The guy who gave the green light to Gary to kill Seth.

Gary: The guy who felt blue about the notion of killing Seth, and talked to me

It seems that Seth, Bob, and a couple of other guys all got caught doing some nefarious things. Seth decided that it would be better for him if he told on Bob and the other guys in order to cut himself a deal and stay out of jail. According to Gary, Bob asked him to kill Seth a couple of days prior, and then Bob bailed out of jail. Gary didn’t say anything about it earlier because Bob was in jail, and there wasn’t much he could do to Seth from there. Once Bob bailed out though, he was now more capable and obviously willing to find a way to get Seth dead.

I took Gary to medical to have his blood sugar checked, and then had them take him back to his area. As soon as I got the chance, I called the communications center (what you probably call 911) and told them to send a deputy over to get this guys statement, and an hour or so later, they did. I talked with the deputy after Gary gave his statement, and he told me he also thought Gary was being truthful. Scary.

I can honestly say that tonight was my first time in a long time I have been shocked. It just goes to show you that no matter what, this job ceases to amaze. Who knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow?

There are many inmates that bail out of jail. Most use a bondsman that has contracted with the courts to ensure that the person will make their court dates. They get paid a percentage of the bail amount by the inmate, and that’s how they make their money.

Other people just pay the whole amount to the courts (via the jail). We call this “Cash Bail”. The courts will give the bail money back if they make all of their court dates. If you don’t have a high bail, or if you have a large savings account, this is the way to go. You don’t actually lose any money if you do what you are supposed to, and you still get out of jail.

Tonight, we got a cash bail for an inmate. The interesing thing is that it was almost all in quarters. $500 in quarters. You do the math. We had to count it all. Good thing we did, because they were 50¢ short. Cheapskates.

A couple of days ago was my first day back on Swing shift, or “swings” as shift workers call them. It was nice, but I was the control room officer, so I had it pretty good. The other officers didn’t have it too bad either, since it was a fairly smooth night. At least it was until I got my skittles.

I love Skittles. I, at one time, owned a 3 pound bag of them, and they didn’t last quite as long as they should have. Well, my wife brought me dinner along with a small bag of skittles in honor of my first day of swings, and I made quick work of the bag, only handing out a few skittles to my fellow officers.

About an hour after my skittles fix, I started feeling them, and not in the good “wow, what a great sugar high” way, but the “uh oh, I think I’m gonna need a break to expel these” kind. I had to take about 3 extra breaks in order to purge my bowels of this candied delight. On one of these quick breaks I went down to the booking area. Mistake.

There was an inmate in booking that was just brought in. He was pretty obviously drunk, and didn’t mind letting everyone know about it. He also wasn’t happy, crying in fact, and let that feeling freely flow as well.

The booking officer was trying to get him to take off his piercings; he had quite a few. An eyebrow ring was causing him some particular trouble, so he decided that instead of unscrewing the end of the ring, he would just pull it hard… through his eyebrow.

Well, in keeping with our whole, “We can’t let inmates hurt themselves” motto, we stopped him from fully realizing his wishes, but not before he caused quite a bit of blood to flow from his newly minted tear.

Officers were on hand to keep his hands from his face, since he kept trying to yank on the ring. I came around the counter with my pliers, and when he saw me he started crying again, talking about how expensive the rings were. I sort of felt bad, but not bad enough to not cut the rings out of his bloody head. If we had let him, he would have yanked them all out, causing a great deal of blood and pain. Neither of which I like to see.

He ended up sobering up a bit after the whole ordeal, and even went to sleep a short time later. I managed to finish my original business, and sauntered back to the control room to sit out the rest of my shift. It was interesting to be back on Swings. I always forget that that weird stuff always seems to happen then.

Take tonight, for instance. I was the rover tonight. We had a couple of bookings early on, and after that there was 4 hours or so of pretty much nothing. It was nice. I commented to a fellow officer about the niceness of our situation, when suddenly we were knee deep in bookings.

I will keep my mouth shut next time.

Out of the bookings we had, 3 were suicidal, and one was a long-time recitivist. (is recitivist even a word?) Anyway, he has been to jail far more times than I can count on both hands. Tonight he was finally caught in some bushes after a lengthy foot chase.

It seems that this inmate, I’ll call him Lee, was trying to burgle some houses and got caught.

The funny, or sad (depending on how you look at it), thing is that Lee was having a pity party tonight. He complained of rib fractures, and of leg breaks, and of head-aches, and a “need to be taken to the hospital NOW”. According to him, he was beaten, and jumped on, and poor poor Lee was just misunderstood, because according to him, he had been told that those houses were OK to go into. He couldn’t tell anyone WHO told him that, but just that he had been told.

Our medical staff looked him over thoroughly and deemed him fit for jail. The exam took a little longer than it should have since Lee was fairly foul mouthed with everyone in near proximity. If he could see you, then you were a “Mother Fu****”. (In his defense though, I am married to a woman who is a mother of two. So, technically…)

Anyway, unfortunately for Lee, he also had some Meth on him, and when he ran from the officers, he didn’t exactly give up at the first available opportunity. You would think that someone who has been caught as many times as Lee has would know when to say when. If I was as bad at being an officer as he is at being a felon, I would be fired by now.

I have some rules I will follow if I ever decide to become felonious. Maybe I will write these down for Lee.

1. Don’t run from the cops unless, you know the particular cop chasing you:

a. has no radio.

b. is fat and out of shape.

c. doesn’t have a K-9 dog with him.

2. In the event that I don’t follow rule #1, I will:

a. not fight when I am caught.

b. not have drugs on me, or near me, or around me, or IN me.

c. run like I’m being chased by something worse than what is actually chasing me.

3. In the event I am caught, I will exercise my right to remain silent.

Of course, most of the population, like me wouldn’t BE felonious in the first place, but in the event of a moral slip, I think the above rules might come in handy. Just a thought.