My Favorite Correctional Officer

My Favorite Correctional Officer

There were a few correctional officers that made my time harder. The one who did it the most we will call Officer Hateful.

When I first got there, I was talking to CO Hateful, and they said they are glad that they aren’t in my shoes. That’s how our communications started off.

This officer was a stickler for the rules. When I was locked in the suicide cell, I was only let out once a day to make one five-minute phone call. Most officers let me make a 15-minute phone call but not Officer Hateful. I got one call and that was it.

When I was told my mom was in the hospital due to her mental health, I expressed to this officer that I wasn’t hungry. I refused the tray. This officer wrote a report about it. A person is allowed to miss a meal in real life….

This was an issue because they used these reports against you in court. I could not afford reports as I was facing natural life.

When I was on 23 and 1, CO Hateful locked me out of the phone and kiosk to where I couldn’t order commissary for a week because “I disrespected them” by not going straight to the lunch line when I was “let out” of my cell.

I’m already in a cell for 23 hours a day then the 1 hour out I was no longer able to call my loved ones for a week because their pride was tarnished for a few seconds.

One time during shake down, this same officer heard me call them the spawn of Satan, so they took this time to trash my cell.

All my mail, papers, pictures and commissary, scattered everywhere on the floor, on the steel bunks (because the mat and the blankets were on the floor too).

Then had the nerve to lock me down for one day because I told them they needed Jesus and God bless them. I’m an agnostic atheist which made it funny to me.

I spent the day cleaning my cell that was destroyed by the Devil.

Any time you needed something from this officer, the answer was always no in a smart-ass way.

A friend of mine was good at graffiti, so he used to write my name in a graffiti design on my letters. Officer Hateful would cut it off and say that it was gang related.

Just small things to make a person’s time harder.

I labeled Officer Hateful as my favorite as a way to laugh at the situation instead of being upset.

Other notable officers, one asked me if I knew how to read. This same officer lied on a report saying I refused to get in my cell. Absolutely false.

A different officer told me I chose to be in jail because I went “VROOM VROOM” while making the motion of gassing up a motorcycle.

Another saw us detainees watching The First 48, a homicide show, and he said “McBride, are you trying to learn how to get away with murder?” Another detainee went off on my behalf.

Lastly regarding myself, I said something like “I’m ready to go wherever it is I’m supposed to go next.” This CO said, “To prison," and the other CO they said it to laughed.

I saw a CO taze a woman who was already locked in her cell by herself. She was doing nothing besides talking shit. The CO left and came back to taze her, and two other COs put her in the chair.

I saw a CO slam a woman’s hand in the steel cell doors (on accident), but had he not slammed the door it could’ve been prevented. It took 20 mins for them to come check on her even after we told them she was bleeding, and her fingers were cut open.

Nothing happened to that CO and the detainee didn’t file reports because she has schizophrenia and is unmedicated. Who would believe her?

I saw women be man-handled.

I saw one CO punch a detainee in the leg to get the detainee who was resisting, down the stairs.

I didn’t see anything too crazy but any small thing to make a detainee feel even worse than they already do is sad, sick, and disgusting.

COs are there for safety, not for judging.

Everyone has skeletons in their closets.

Some just get put on blast and others do not.

~Natasha BYTS