April 30: Beth and Melanie drive well over the speed limit to get to the jail
Once in the car, I was worried about pulling out of the parking spot and getting creamed by somebody’s massive SUV. My car is, after all, the size of a thimble and the color of the road. So I was one of the last people out of the parking lot. And I was worried. Because everyone was speeding.
Yes, we were speeding to get to the jail. All of us. Including the cops who were leading the way. Why were we doing that?
Beth: “I feel like if we get lost, we should call it a night and head home.”
I had to agree. However, we did not get lost, as everyone finally slowed down when we were near the courthouse.
How to explain the jail?
Well, when we pulled into the lot, I told Beth, “The jail is considerably more upscale than my condo.” On the outside, it was very tall and very brick. On the inside. . .
Okay. When I was a kid, my brother went through a hamster phase. The thing about hamsters is that they all pretty much look the same and they die reliably, and the pet stores never run out. But you don’t get a hamster because they’re friendly or engaging or trainable or loving. You get them so you can buy expensive plastic tubes, hook the tubes together and try to lure the hamster through them. Hamsters don’t generally collaborate on projects like this, but if you can’t spend money building mazes like large intestines for your rodent, you aren’t going to be a happy rodent owner.
We walked into the lobby and put on our sticky-backed name tags. First name and first letter of last name only, so nobody would be able to locate us later.
We handed over our cell phones. I couldn’t figure out whether I was supposed to put my keys in a locker, and I’d left my wallet and everything else in my car (because we were parked ten feet away from the front door of the jail.)
Nobody seemed to care about the keys, and my coat didn’t have a hood, so people were okay with letting me inside as-is. Beth left her hoodie in the car, so she had to make do with just the green polo shirt.
They split us into two groups. Sergeant Handsome went with our group, and Kasey went with the other group. Which is when we learned that for a time, Kasey had worked at the jail.
(Pause for yet another mental recalibration.)
Yes. So the jail has upper and lower levels. The inmates are at the upper level (which is still underground), and the laundry and booking and observation room (and etc.) are lower level. Our group saw the top level first.
We walked down a hallway and into what amounted to a freight elevator. It wasn’t large enough for the whole group, so we went down in two batches. Sergeant Handsome was in the elevator with Beth and me, so I took the opportunity to ask the question that had been on my mind the entire evening:
“Why would anybody do this for a living?”
Sergeant Handsome said it was a good question. He thought for a moment, and then told me that things at the jail are very regimented. There is a routine for everything. No surprises. Some guys thrived in an environment like that. Whereas the year that Sergeant Handsome worked at the jail was enough for him. He preferred being a street cop.
I didn’t know what to say. To him, the logic was clear: you could risk your life in a regimented way, or you could risk it on the unknown. But the only job worth doing was a law enforcement job.
I still don’t understand. But I’m grateful.
Sergeant Handsome warned us before we got off the elevator: “These guys’ll say a bunch of crap. Be prepared for it.”
We stepped off the elevator into a hall too narrow to walk side by side. There were a lot of primary colors. Yellow for this area, red for this other area and so on. We met an amazing guy named Sergeant Johnson, who reminded me very much of Agent Nick Fury in the Marvel movies. It was the way the sergeant talked. He was personable, friendly, smiling and made sure to wish everyone a good day, and all of it was perfectly sincere. He was a truly nice guy. He was just made of iron underneath.
He showed us the day area first. There was a mural near the ceiling of a park with sunshine and trees. The sergeant told us that an inmate painted it years ago.
Sergeant Johnson: “There’s a lot of talent behind these walls.”
When we were about to leave the day area, a man in an orange jumpsuit was walking by. We were instructed to wait while the guy moved on. He was a smiley, cheerful guy and Sergeant Johnson was also smiley and cheerful. But we were instructed to wait.
From there, we went down another long hallway, turned, and went down another hallway. We saw a room with shelves and shelving carts covered in books, every genre. By now, I was thoroughly lost. All the hallways looked the same, and they all connected at right angles; the layout was almost a spiral.
And then we walked into the area with the inmates.
They were all behind plexiglass like animals at a zoo. And they behaved like animals. They hammered on the plexiglass and hooted at us. There were air holes in the plexiglass, so we could hear them clearly.
“I recently found God,” one of them shouted at me.
I looked up and there was a second level of inmates above our heads, and yes, the area was arranged like a spiral, with a big pillar in the middle. Everything was painted bright red.
We were through that area in under thirty seconds. It felt like time stopped.
Everybody was very quiet after that.
Except for Sergeant Handsome, who kept seeing people he knew. Every hall we walked down, somebody would see him and want to chitchat. It was like entering a movie theater with an A-list actor. A very bright, loud, narrow, primary colored movie theater full of chimpanzees.
From there, we took another elevator down to the bottom floor. This was somewhat easier; mostly it was operational stuff. Here was a room the size of a walk-in closet with a chair, small table and video phone (inmates could use it to talk to their lawyers and counselors.) Here was an empty area that used to be the kitchens. Here was another series of narrow hallways (and a couple more of Sergeant Handsome’s old friends.)
Every time we moved from one area to another, Sergeant Johnson, with a cheerful smile for us, would hold his radio to his mouth and tell whoever was listening that we were moving to a new area, and that there needed to be no inmates present when we got there. At one point, an officer was asked to walk in back of our group. Just in case.
He was wearing a black uniform with a vest over it, and weapons and cuffs. Just in case.
Then we got to Booking (what Bohnn and Karcher kept calling the “Back Door.”) It actually is a rollup metal door in the back of the building that leads to a garage with a ramp. Cop cars drive in, the door rolls down, the suspect is off-loaded and hauled up to Booking.
Which is a round, cement room with a giant cage in the center. Over on one side was a small nurse’s station with a chair and table and a blood-pressure machine. Opposite us was a grim hallway, which led to holding cells. To our right was the Observation Room, where people who came in drunk or high could sleep it off. There were three people sleeping on the floor with army gray blankets over them.
The black cage in the middle of the room was for the jail’s central command staff. There were video screens and switches and tables covered in equipment, and four people in the standard black uniforms, vests and nonlethal weapons were inside, monitoring everything that was happening in the jail.
They all came out to shake hands with Sergeant Handsome and ask him about his foot.
Sergeant Johnson explained that in most cases, people the police brought in needed several staff to help subdue them. And that it could sometimes be difficult to do an intake interview, because the person was uncooperative. And that until the nurse could do at least a preliminary examination, the person was kept in holding. If he needed advanced medical care, the jail wasn’t set up to provide it.
From there, we walked down yet another narrow hallway, and saw bins full of folded orange, red and yellow jumpsuits. The color of your jumpsuit indicates whether you are a minimum, medium or maximum security inmate.
At last, we ended our tour in a big waiting room. The use for the room was a little unclear; I suspect it’s for cops who have to wait for the booking process to be completed. There were formica-topped deli tables down the middle of the room, with bowls of fruit and candy and bags of chips.
I looked over and saw a big Tootsie pop.
Me: “Okay. I gotta have a jail lollipop!”
Luckily everyone laughed.
After that, a few more people helped themselves to stuff in the bowls, mostly because it was a normal thing to do in the middle of the most abnormal place most of us had ever been.
Sergeant Johnson asked us if we had any additional questions. We did not. Although Sergeant Handsome got the chance to chitchat about his foot. Apparently Sergeant Handsome’s best friend had recently lost his leg. The friend received a prosthetic and was back to working SWAT. Sergeant Handsome felt like he couldn’t complain about his own foot injury, in light of his friend’s experience.
The Important Guy In Charge (Man, I wish I could remember his name!) Got a call on his radio. There was a Code 4.
“Okay,” Important Guy said. “We gotta get these people out of here.”
We were not unhappy to leave. In fact, even Tangentia didn’t have questions.
I had one, though. “Do any of these people ever turn things around? Is there a chance that any of them will get out?”
Sergeant Handsome laughed.
Important Guy: “It’s up to them. We tell them that. Guys, it’s all up to you, how you want your life to go.”
With that, the jail tour was over. Beth and I went back to my car. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I reached over and turned the heat up.
Vignette: Beth and Melanie go to the Taco Bell
Beth still needed dinner. After an unreasonably long discussion regarding the location of the Taco Bell, we made it to the parking lot.
The parking lot was confusing. The arrow for the drive-thru was way off by itself like it had declared itself an independent country. It didn’t point to a drive through. It didn’t point to anything in particular.
We found the little road to the drive thru and pulled up in front of the menu. The nice young man asked for our order.
Things got problematic, because I was driving, so Beth had to lean over and squint to see the menu.
“I want a box meal,” Beth said.
I relayed this information.
“Which box meal?” The young man asked.
Beth didn’t know.
I waited, wondering what to do. The young man waited. Finally, in desperation, I asked, “Do you have a recommendation?”
“I don’t really like the box meals,” the young man admitted. “By the way, we’re out of cheesy fries.”
Beth still didn’t know what meal to order.
“Okay,” I said, “which box meals don’t include whatever you’re out of?”
The young man hesitated. “There’s the mac and cheese box meal.”
“I’ll take it,” Beth said, relieved.
“What do you want to drink with that?” The young man asked.
I looked at Beth. Her expression was frantic.
“Coke!” She blurted.
The young man told us to drive to the window.
“I don’t actually care what it is,” Beth said, as we waited for her food. “It’s a meal, and it’s in a box. That’s good enough.”
You know, after the night we’d had, “good enough” was pretty darned great.
Up next: Peer Support, Traffic and Special Investigations!
