Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces 2 - Dave Basham - Страница 47

Another officer and I were doing cell shakedowns. We came upon an item in the cell of a very creative and knowledgeable inmate. The other officer though it could be a bomb. I didn’t believe this to be true, but it was possible. It was a container with wires coming out of it. We must always error on the side of safety, so the other officer notified the sarge, who notified the Watch Commander, who notified the captain. They investigated and the captain decided it was necessary to initiate a B-Level response at 0911.

Officers accumulated in the rotunda and were given their assignments. An orderly evacuation of the unit began. One of the main reasons that B-West was chosen to be double bunked was that the inmates could be evacuated quickly and directly into the recreation yard.

Two Bayport Police Officers arrived at 0919.

All staff non essential to the security of the facility were evacuated to a building across the street.

Being the first of November, in Minnesota, it can get cold outside and it was. Most inmates had coats, but many did not. Inmates were freezing and complaining about being stuck out in the cold.

The laundry officers gathered all of the clean coats they had available. Some were new and some were used, but clean. The coats were mixed in with each other in boxes. Officers took them out to the yard and started distributing them to anyone without one.

There always has to be at least one person to try to create a problem. An inmate came for a coat. He was given a used coat from the top of the box. He violently ripped the coat from the officer and threw it on the ground.

He screamed, “I’m not taking a fucking used coat! Fuck you! I’m getting a new coat! Everyone else gets a new coat! You can’t give me that fucking piece of shit!”

There were a large number of inmates in the area waiting to get coats. There were about 400 inmates in the yard. The inmate was cuffed up and taken away. He was charged with disorderly conduct and trying to incite a riot. If officers had not acted quickly, the type of inmates that were among this group would have definitely raised hell.

Two St. Paul Police Department Bomb Squad Officers arrived by 1021.

It was not possible to evacuate the around 1200 inmates that were left in the prison. The prison is a large facility, so it was easy to keep them away from the suspected bomb area and keep them safe. Feeding of the inmates from other cellblocks started shortly after 1030.

The Bomb Squad Officers had determined the item to not be a threat and left the institution at 1103.

The administration staff that had been evacuated across the street were allowed to return by 1110.

With inmates moving back and forth in the hallway coming and going to lunch, the B-West inmates continued to be in the yard. The evacuated inmates could have entered directly into the cellblock from the yard, but there are no metal detectors set up there. They had to enter through the hallway once feeding of the other units was complete, so they could pass through the metal detectors. If there were any shanks or other pieces of metal that could be made into a weapon out in the yard, we did not want it entering the cellblock.

The process of slowly filtering the inmates from the yard, through the metal detectors and securing them in their cells in B-West started at 1220 and had concluded by 1249.

Just as the inmates were lining up at the side door to return to the unit, officers heard inmates yelling, “Fight! Fight!” Luckily, officers got to them, separated them, cuffed them up and removed them before it could turn into a riot.

A lot of the time, there were construction workers inside the prison walls working on updating or doing maintenance repairs on the facility. This was the case now. They were allowed to come back in and resume their work at 1250.

The B-Level response remained in effect for some time afterwards. It was necessary to make sure everything was 100% back in order before resuming normal operations.

As far as the non bomb, the inmate told me that he made the device to try to amplify the sound on his radio. He wound up in the hole.