Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces 3 - Dave Basham - Страница 4

Officer Heroin worked on Third Watch and I worked on Second Watch. My first encounter with him was when he needed someone to cover a shift for him. He couldn’t find anyone that would switch with him. Rarely did I ever do switches, but he said he had a family function in a different state. I bailed him out at the last minute by taking his shift.

After this I would see him every once in a while when I was leaving for the day and he was coming in.

Not long after my shift exchange with him, an inmate was found dead in his cell. As this was a juicy story, the grapevine started putting out information rather quickly.

We heard that Officer Heroin had an old friend that was an inmate in B-East. He got Officer Heroin to bring in drugs for him. Nobody could find out how often or how long this had been going on. When the tapes were checked, he could be seen tossing a small black package into a cell. It turns out that he had the drugs wrapped in black electrical tape. The drug was heroin.

Officer Heroin's inmate friend passed the drugs off to the inmate that overdosed on them. That inmate was doing time for murder.

Once Officer Heroin was arrested, he was fired.

All inmate phone calls are recorded. We have some officers that do some pretty good detective work at Stillwater. When they listened to telephone calls of the dead inmate, they were able to find a witness. The witness admitted going to Detroit to pick up the heroin. The dead inmate had coordinated the deal. The witness admitted to giving Officer Heroin drugs and money.

Authorities tried charging Officer Heroin with 3^rd degree murder and a second degree charge of trafficking a controlled substance. By agreeing to admit to bringing in the drugs, the murder charge was dropped and he was sentenced to 4 years in prison. So officially he was only a drug dealer and not a murderer. He did not do his time at Stillwater. I guess that would’ve been cruel and unusual punishment.

When the warden spoke to the media he said, ‘”There's a zero tolerance for anybody smuggling drugs into our correctional facilities, not just staff. The case with Officer Heroin casts a stain on an honest, dedicated group of professionals.”

Every once in a while we would get wind of an officer bringing in drugs or tobacco. For a while there seemed to be a revolving door on kitchen workers getting caught bringing in drugs and tobacco. Some personnel got themselves hired strictly to bring in contraband for their friends, family or gang members.

I always remember how panicked Officer Heroin was to need me to take his shift that night. I think it's a pretty good bet that he had to make contact that night or even drive to Detroit to pick up heroin that night. I'll never know for sure.