When I first arrived in Prison at the Department
of Corrections at Vacaville, California where they
were warehousing Charles Manson, my friends in my
hometown of Yuba City, California were attending their
prom dance and I was incarcerated.
It wasn't long before they had shipped my ass off to Soledad Central where Sur han Sur han, mass murderer Jaun Carona and the Disneyland Killer were. Soledad is an infamus Gladiator School and this is where I witnessed my first brutal murder. It took place out on the Mainline yard in front of the Canteen building ... This convict had pulled a shank made of wood and looked like a Dracula's spike. He slammed it into his target so many times that every time the victim's heart pumped, blood shot out the stab wounds. It was Soledad Prison that I had encountered my first predatory prison guard. A correctional officer by the name of Jeminez. This had been around 1983. He was a ruthless agitator of warehoused prison convicts. He must of had a very empty and miserable personal life, for he brought his discontent to work with him. He used his unhappiness to wage war against those incarcerated convicts he had absolute authority over. Officer Jeminez each and every day would enter convicts cells where he would do a rip and tear crusade upon their personal property. Jeminez would pour the convict's coffee out on the desk. Rip down pictures from the walls, throw everything on the cell floor and stomp his boots through it. It was brutal. Jeminez truly enjoyed the verbal abuse he heaped upon convicts, along with his own destructive abusive behavior. To see him you would think he was in some kind of sexual ecstasy. One day Jeminez was in his perfect form but he made the mistake of picking on the wrong two white boys. The first convict commenced to put the boot to ol' Jeminez who in turn, pushed his panic button that is located on his belt loop for help. Then here came the Goon Squad, about twenty guards in gray jump-suits and black combat boots. They had come to rescue Jeminez from the ass kicking he was receiving which he dearly deserved. As that convict was being dragged off to the hole and the Wall To Wall Attitude Adjustment Plan he would definitely be receiving by the Goon Squad, ol' Jeminez was licking his wounds gloating about the new set of criminal charges the convict would receive for assaulting a prison guard, though Jeminez had clearly provoked it. Then ... not ten minutes later, Jeminez started on the second white boy. The prisoner used a cane to walk around due to back problems. Jeminez thought he had himself an easy victim but this convict wasn't having any of Jeminez's bullshit either. The convict hit Jeminez with a punch that was like a mule's kick. That's all it took. Jeminez's blood made this huge blood-splatter fan that swept across the prison unit wall. There went Jeminez's panic button again. Officer Jeminez got what he got because of his own relentless brutal consistent abuse of convicts. In all the years of my incarceration, I have seen, that the mass majority of assaults on correctional officers by inmates have been behind an officer's constant torment and disrespect of the person who assaulted them. As all warehoused inmates know, any assault on guards or staff members will almost always end with a beating at the hands of other prison guards while in the hole. They also know they'll spend six months to a year in the hole where they'll suffer massive torment by prison staff. They'll be maxed-out on their current sentence of incarceration. To top it off they'll receive additional criminal charges in a court of law which will end in more years of prison warehousing. There is no inmate in his or her right mind who would ever put their hands on a correctional officer or staff member. Inmates who do, usually have been verbally abused, harassed or tormented past their boiling point, where they just couldn't take it any longer and felt their back was against the wall. If you would like to read the rest of the Jeminez saga and more on predatory prison guards during my years of incarceration. Please stay tuned for the next installment in this series. |
"I know of only one duty
and that is to love"
Albert Camus, circa 1940
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