Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces 2 - Dave Basham - Страница 59

Early in doing my time in this place, I was sent to D-Hall, to assist in shaking down cells during a lockdown.

The inmate of a cell I had been shaking down took offence to how thorough I was doing my job. He started yelling at me to leave his property alone, that nobody had ever gone through his stuff to the degree that I was going through it and that he had been around a long time. I informed him that I was doing as I was instructed and trained to do.

The way I looked at these shakedowns was that if I missed anything, like a shank, and this guy caused a problem with it later, it was my fault for not doing my job properly. Whenever I finished shaking down a cell, I was confident that I had done everything I had been trained to do during these inspections. People trying to hide things would not like me shaking down their cells.

This D-Hall Diva was complaining that I was mishandling his property and tearing his cell apart. He said I was destroying his property. I always treated inmates property better than if it were mine. I would not like someone going through my things and I know they didn’t appreciate me having to go through their things. I always did everything possible to make sure I didn’t harm any of their possessions.

When people went to the hole, some would request to have me pack up their belongings. I even had some of these guys thank me for how well I packed their property when they received it after getting out of the hole.

This inmate was on the verge of me sending him to the hole. The sergeant of the block heard the commotion and came over. Once he gathered the facts of what was going on, he got the inmate to settle down and had me finish my job.

As time went on and I learned more about how this place worked, I had to make some adjustments in how I did things. I searched cells just as thoroughly at the end of my time in this place as I did at the beginning, even better because I learned more.

However, there were inmates that didn’t create problems and had done a lot of time that some sergeants, lieutenants and other officers didn’t want searched as well as others. This was a respect thing. Minor violations would be overlooked if the superior officer in charge directed it to be that way.

Official details of conducting a lockdown: