FEATURED Stories
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One thing I did like about booking, once I got some experience, was fingerprinting inmates. I loved rolling the finger so it made a neat square with clear prints. The only problem was that, no matter what, I got ink on my shirt, same place every time. On one of my first days printing, the male sergeant came over to me just as I was about to print an inmate. He grabbed my right ear and walked me over to where we placed the finished print cards. Mind you, the inmate was now standing alone, waiting to be printed, and other officers in the area were watching this.
"Ear-Yee! Ear-Yee!"
One night on duty, I was reading on the second floor. The sergeant came by for his security checks and asked if I was doing mine. I told him I was, after I read four or five pages. He motioned for me to show him what I was reading, and I showed him Antigone by Sophocles. He jerked his head back, widened his eyes, raised one eyebrow, put his hands on his belt, and arched his back. I told him I loved Greek tragedies. He cleared his throat and said, “Carry on.”
"You step back."
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When I worked midnights at WCC, it was so silent at times that you would hear things and your mind would play tricks on you. Some officers believed there were ghosts haunting the WCC. I wasn’t one of them, at least not until one night when I began to doubt myself because I heard noises above me. The sounds followed me as I did my rounds. The other floor officer must have been on break, because I knew I was alone while hearing them. As I made my way to check the B-wing, a rat fell from the ceiling and scurried toward B-2. Freeze-frame! I took a few steps in the opposite direction. I soon changed my mind and decided to see if I could find the rat. No sign of it, and no more noises above my head. From then on, I always looked closely before walking under any broken ceiling tiles.
"Ghosts? "
One day I got a call from an officer in a C-wing cell on the third floor. He asked me to come to his unit. At the time, I was the shift commander and not the security sergeant who usually responds to units when there is a problem. I asked him what the problem was. He said he had an inmate with AIDS, and the clinic was calling for him, but the inmate was refusing to go. OK again, why me? He said the inmate was going to fight and bite any officer who tried to take him to the clinic. The officer wanted to prevent that from happening for both the officers’ and the inmate’s sakes. He was hoping I could come up and talk to the inmate. I asked the lieutenant if he could watch the desk while I went up to a unit. He said he could.
“Sarge, please come to my unit.”
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