Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces - Dave Basham - Страница 14

There was an older female that made it through the hiring process. I'm guessing her to be around 50 years old. She really stuck out especially since she died her hair the red color of Lucille Ball. She was very friendly, too friendly. She didn't have many problems with the inmates because they saw her as a mother figure and not as anyone that would stop them from doing anything they wanted to do. Some of these people in here hate their mothers, but she didn't keep her job long enough for them to hassle her. She was oblivious to security procedures.

Officers know right away when someone has been hired that never should have been. She was one of them. One instance that sealed her fate with most officers was a time when she was working in the dining hall. She had a set of keys that an officer had given to her in order for her to complete a task. There was major emphasis in the academy training about never leaving keys lying around. When she was through with the keys, instead of returning them to the officer's hand, she just tossed them on the desk. This is an area that inmates had access to. By the way, she did this in front of an associate warden. Normally a new person would be sternly informed of their mistakes and they would eventually become a good officer. This however was a capper to her numerous other security violations that everyone had been putting up with. The female officer that should've received the keys saw CO 1 Oblivious toss the keys on the desk. She saw the associate warden observe what had happened. She knew that in order to cover her ass, she had to write a report on the incident, even though you can get in a lot of trouble with other officers by doing so. She also knew that this would probably be the nail in Oblivious's coffin. Other officers were fine with her writing the report due to the circumstances and due to the fact that they were fed up with dealing with all the mistakes that Oblivious made.

During Oblivious's final days, she worked in my block quite a bit. With Boomer being in my block and being able to be out of his cell all of the time due to his job, Boomer and Oblivious had opportunities to chat.

The following is a report that I found necessary to write to the warden. It should also be noted that this was winter in Minnesota – slipping off an icy road into a snow filled ditch on the side off a road is a common occurrence.

This is a confidential report about former CO 1 Oblivious. When she was working here, I helped her with learning the job, as I have with others. The difference was that by the time she worked in my block, B-West; she had made mistakes, which caused her to be written off by most other officers.

The day before she was terminated, she had gone into a ditch on her way to work making her car inoperable. She asked me for a ride home and possibly to work the next day. I told her that if she couldn't find a ride that I would do it, but that she should try other options first. This is when I gave her my phone number. I never had to give her a ride, but she called me the next day, after she was terminated to thank me for helping her with the job.

Offender Boomer was a swamper in my block at this time. Within a week or so after CO 1Oblivious's departure, he told me that he had talked to her and her husband on the phone. I thought this was odd, but she no longer worked here, so I perceived no potential problem.

The day after Boomer was knocked out by Offender Chub, while Boomer was talking on the phone; Oblivious called me here at work. (It should be noted that I have never given my work number to anyone. I don't want phone calls at work. If people need to contact me, nothing is so urgent that they can't wait until I get home to get my messages.) She had nothing urgent or important to say, so I told her I had work to do. She called again later while I was working on count. I was not pleasant with her and hung up. When I got home she had a message on my answering machine asking me to call her. I did not call. Several days later, she caught me at home. It turns out that she was the person that Boomer was talking to on the phone when he got knocked out. She was wondering what had happened, as she hadn't heard from him. I informed her that she probably wouldn't be hearing from him for a while.

I informed my fellow block officers about this. They just teased me about her. But when I heard the rumor of her sending a picture of herself in lingerie to Boomer, the progression of these things seemed quite strange. I informed my sergeant about this and he suggested that I call OSI. I informed OSI about this and was told to write this report.

She has not called me again. If she should call again, I will not just give her the polite brush-offs that I gave her previously, as she seems unable to take a hint. I will be informing her that she is not to call me again in my "painfully blunt" manner my friends tell me I am so good at. Helping her learn the job was my job; not an attempt to dig up a psychotic friend.

After this, I heard through the officer grapevine that she had sent Boomer $15,000 over 3 payments. The payments were in the increments of $7,000, $2,000 and $6,000. What was the reason for these payments? I don't know. However, I do know that Boomer knew that she was not competent to be working in the prison as a corrections officer. He had coached her on how she had to handle herself in this place. She may have felt very appreciative. Boomer was a very smooth con man. He may have worked his magic on her. There are so many possibilities, it would be near impossible to draw the correct conclusion. Another question that came to mind was that if she had that kind of money to spare, what was she doing working here? It was shortly after hearing of these payments that I found out that Boomer was transferred out of Stillwater's segregation unit to Oak Park Heights.