Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  “Georgia” Buoy liked Peterson. Unlike some blacks, who’d sneer at Peterson as an “Uncle Tom,” Buoy was proud of Peterson, that he’d made lieutenant. A few days into December, Buoy saw Peterson crossing the yard, and called to him. “‘Hey Pete, got a minute? Listen, be careful down there. Some shit may happen. Just don’t get caught flat-footed.’ Pete says back, ‘Wait, what are you talking about?’ an’ I said, ‘Pete, just listen to what I tell ya. Watch yourself.’

  “But damn, a few hours later Pete brings me into the captain’s office,” Buoy continued. “Everybody sittin’ there an’ Pete says, ‘Okay, tell them what you told me.’ I looked at Pete an’ said, ‘What I said was for you, not these people. I’m not your rat. Fuck you.’ An’ I left.”

  Buoy’s wasn’t the only warning, though. In the following days, CO Jimmy Weaver heard that Peterson had found a note on his time card that read, “Watch your ass. They’re going to get you.”

  If Lt. Walter Peterson was worried over the recent scuttlebutt, he set it aside, rationalizing it as no more than other staff had gone through. Still, Asaline, his wife of sixteen years, knew better:

  Though my husband talked little about his work, I could tell when there was trouble. When you live with a man so long, you can read him. I wanted him to get out, really, but it was his profession. He’d been commended for his work with dangerous inmates but there’d been a subtle change over the past year. Yet only once did I see him visibly upset, and that’s when the Supreme Court banned capital punishment. Speaking of his job, he said, “Where does that put us? We won’t get any protection now.”

  Though it was a longer drive for Walter, we stayed in Clairton, buying the place we’d been renting on Mitchell Avenue. Family, friends, our church, we wouldn’t leave. And by this time our only child, Walter Neil, was eight and well situated in school. Everything was good, but gradually I noticed Walter had fewer smiles, less twinkle in his eyes. He was always a strong man and I knew of occasions where he’d have physical confrontations in that prison, but now Walter was into his forties…. I worried.

  On December 7, Superintendent Walters signed a memorandum to the deputy commissioner at Camp Hill headquarters. His opening lines clarified the issue. “As I have previously indicated to you, our institution has received an overload of problem cases from other bureau institutions without any degree of relief from the present problem cases we continue to hold. I therefore request that certain problem cases be transferred from our institution….” Listed in the memorandum were ten troublemakers, including the inmate suspected of passing a shiv to Danny Delker, who a minute later used it to murder Whiskey Sermons and nearly kill Brady Jackson.

  The top four of six other problem cases cited were Stanley Hoss, George Butler, Daniel Delker, and Robert McGrogan, but “these men we are keeping and are not requesting transfer.”

  Also by this Friday, December 7, Peterson’s mood had brightened. Maybe it was the season. Christmas trees were going up in the big blocks, but no tree had ever been put in the Home Block. Maybe now, as a lieutenant running the place, he could see about that. Maybe a more conciliatory manner in Stanley Hoss helped too. Stanley Hoss seemed to have come around these past days toward the Home Block staff, and even more so toward Peterson.

  “Hoss was out of his cell a good bit, cleaning the steps and ranges,” recalled CO Horvat.

  He took to talking with Pete, something he’d never done before, Pete being black. I watched this exchange for about a week. After the insults Pete had earlier taken from Hoss, I don’t know how Pete could be receptive to Hoss’s friendly talk, but we all knew of inmates who credited certain officers with helping them turn their lives around, even if it’s just a better attitude, and maybe Pete thought he was doing some good. I even saw Hoss show pictures of his kids to Pete, and on this Friday, just before Pete’s shift ended, I heard Hoss say, “Okay, Lieutenant, have a good weekend, see ya Monday.” Hoss just wasn’t normally that chummy. Only later did I piece this together.

  24

  December 10, 1973.

  “We’re gonna kill Peterson today.”

  If that had been spoken by just about anyone else, it would have been a joke, but Bob McGrogan knew Danny Delker meant it. If certitude was needed, standing with them in the basement, not five feet from Delker, was a mirthless Stanley Hoss, who appraised McGrogan for any reaction.

  Having spent thirty-four of his fifty years behind bars, McGrogan was thin but wiry and categorized himself as “one of the 15 or so thoroughbreds at Western.” He was known as a good shank man and had twice killed in prison. But that was then. Facing Hoss and Delker, McGrogan knew he was out of his league. “Hoss kept staring at me,” said McGrogan, “while Delker said, ‘Got it, Bob? You want in on it?’”

  McGrogan knew there’d been rumors he was working with the administration. That he was an admitted homosexual didn’t help either, not circled by these Nazis. McGrogan reasoned to himself that he was a killer like them, and he was white. Still, he sensed they didn’t trust him.

  “What’s it gonna be, Bob?” asked Delker.

  “You’re kiddin,’ right? I mean, why do you wanna do this?”

  “Peterson’s always fuckin’ with us,” Delker answered flatly, “givin’ us a hard time upstairs, but as soon as we can get him down here …”

  “Look, why not wait a couple days and I will think on what I wanna do?”

  After conferring with Hoss but not Butler, who was further off to the side, Delker told McGrogan, “All right, we’ll do that.”

  Voices were kept low, for aside from the four inmates, one other man stood nearby, Officer Patrick “Bus” Reilly.

  Once the basement hole had been reinvented as a rec room, it was thought wise to post an officer there as an observer. For his own protection, Officer Reilly was situated at the far end of the rectangular area, in a small room separated from the corridor by bars. During his shift he was locked in; he had no keys to let himself out, but he did have an intercom that connected him with upstairs. Bus Reilly was unarmed. To the conspirators, his presence posed no threat.

  Upstairs, Lt. Peterson was working the 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. shift, but Sgt. Doug Cameron and three others had just come on for the 2 P.M. To 10 P.M. shift.

  “Once I got seated,” Cameron recalled,

  I took care of the log and started to ready for the meal which would be sent over early, about 3:15, and me and Pete was catching up on the weekend. Pete said he was busy with family things and that he’d come to the prison Saturday night for the Lifers banquet, then on Sunday he had an uncle’s funeral, but like always he still looked better than anyone else. Shoes like mirrors, pressed creases, spit-polished brass, squeaky sharp … damn, if he sat down he’d break.

  Pete tells me a couple inmates are out cleaning the range, a couple showering, and the white guys are downstairs with Reilly. Pete also said Reilly called up about 1:30, saying Hoss wanted to see him about someone’s illness, so Pete called Hoss’s counselor Gary Boyd to see if he could check it out. Routine stuff.

  “By two o’clock I thought they’d forgotten about killing Peterson,” said McGrogan. “I’m talkin’ to them about just anything to keep their minds off that. I had a visit comin’ around two-thirty and I was just prayin’ I’d be called so I could get the hell out of there. Then Hoss said to me, ‘We’re not waitin’, we’re killin’ him now. If you don’t want in on it, you better go upstairs.’ I figured that was a set up against me in that if I went to leave they would try to kill me. I didn’t say I wanted in or out. I just stood there.”

  “We gotta hurry,” said Hoss. “Get everything ready.” George Butler knelt down at a bucket on the floor. He pulled out a bed sheet, put it in a wall sink and turned on the water. Watching from a distance, Bus Reilly saw nothing unusual. Inmates were always bringing things into the basement to wash.

  In another attempt to lure Peterson to the basement, Delker moved a small table beneath an electrical outlet on the ceiling, stood on the table,
and, taking the plug from his radio, held it near the outlet but did not insert it. Hoss then asked Reilly, at the far end of the corridor, to summon Peterson to fix the outlet. Reilly relayed the message but the scheme was foiled when Peterson replied he’d send down an electrician to check the plug.

  Ignoring McGrogan, Hoss, Delker, and Butler discussed the situation, then Delker stood on the table again, inserted the plug and turned on the radio, Hoss telling Reilly, “It’s okay, we got it working.”

  Worried about further delay, Delker said to Hoss, “You sure we can get ’im down here?”

  “Yeah, with luck,” Hoss answered. “I’ve been playing him, ya know. He thinks he’s getting me in his confidence. He’ll want to keep that up by doing me a favor. If he wasn’t a dead man, next week he’d be showing me pictures of his kids, and pumping me for information at the same time.”

  After Peterson’s call to Gary Boyd an hour earlier, Boyd had gotten through to Hoss’s girlfriend, who confirmed her mother had had surgery but would be fine.

  Then two things happened in quick succession.

  Lieutenant Peterson got the return call from Boyd, telling him the mother of a Hoss girlfriend was doing well. At the same time, downstairs, Hoss approached Reilly, asking him to call Peterson about the very same thing, as he’d inquired earlier but no one had gotten back to him.

  Bus Reilly eventually called upstairs, but it was Sgt. Cameron who answered. Getting the lieutenant’s attention, Cameron said, “Hey Pete, do you know about this hospital thing with Hoss?”

  “Yeah, I know about it, everything’s okay. I’ll go down there and tell him.”

  “Hell Pete, why go down? We’re gonna bring ’em all up in fifteen minutes anyhow.”

  Peterson shrugged this off. “Ahh, I’ll go down.”

  Cameron hit the intercom button. “Bus, Pete’s comin’ down to see Hoss.” It was 2:15.

  Hoss smiled at his confederates. “Okay, this is it.”

  McGrogan’s mind was spinning, made worse when Delker remarked, “We should have showered. I don’t expect we’ll be getting showers after today.”

  Delker retrieved the soaked bed sheet from the wall sink, then wrung it out, commenting, “This should do it.” He handed the sheet to Butler, who knew what his job was. In turn, Butler produced a package of tobacco he was carrying and removed two double-edged razors, giving one to Hoss, the other to Delker. The blades had one edge taped, for a better grip.

  “Butler took position by the door,” McGrogan later said, “while Stanley and Danny took seats at a table. I kept moving further away then sat down with my back to one of the cells, about twenty feet from them. I was halfway to Reilly and did everything I could to signal him, but he didn’t know what I meant.”

  At the table close to the door, Delker’s back was to Reilly. Sitting opposite Delker, Hoss was shielded from Reilly’s view, who couldn’t see what McGrogan saw: Hoss was holding an electrical cord with wooden handles he’d fashioned into a garrote. Frozen to his spot, McGrogan thought, Oh Christ, Oh Christ, Oh Christ …

  “Pete made ready to go,” said Cameron, “so I offered to go down with him. He said, ‘No, stay at the desk, I’ll just be a minute.’” Cameron thought nothing of this, as officers went to various places and into cells alone with regularity.

  Moments later, with Peterson by the door, CO Ronnie Hagmaier, a cadet, arrived from the back of a range.

  Pete says to me, “Here, take the keys, I’m going downstairs,” so I said I’d go with him but it was, “Nah, you got showers, stay up here.” So Sgt. Cameron and me stood at the main door and watched Pete leave. I still had his keys but he wouldn’t need them because inmates could go from yard to basement at will so the door down there was left unlocked. At the landing Pete called to me, “Hag, lock your door.” I don’t know why he said this, because with the in and out traffic through the main entrance, it was usually left unlocked, too, but when we went back inside I locked up behind us.

  Peterson turned the corner of the Home Block then took the steps to the basement door. “When he came in, I looked directly in his eyes,” said McGrogan, “as if to say, ‘Jesus Christ, Pete, why did you come down here?’ hoping he’d run away, but he smiled at everybody, said, ‘Hi guys,’ then waved a greeting at Reilly.”

  Watching from a distance, Reilly heard Pete’s greetings but could not make out the subsequent exchange. Nothing struck him odd, but in those few seconds he didn’t like the inmates’ encircling movements, didn’t care for their proximity to the lieutenant … Then came the lightening attack that transfixed Reilly for several quickening heartbeats before he sprang to sound the alarm.

  Pummeled and shoved, Peterson was dragged to a corner. While Delker struck with fists, Hoss tried to loop his garrote around the victim’s neck but lost the cord in the general melee. Hoss then proceeded with methodical punches. Peterson raised his arms to protect his face and head but still suffered serious blows. Blood streamed from his forehead into his eyes.

  “It wasn’t long after Pete went downstairs,” said Cameron, “that I went over to the sink, then heard Bus Reilly yelling, ‘Hoss! Hoss! Hoss!’ I jumped to the intercom at the desk. ‘Bus, what’s wrong?’ But he just kept yelling ‘Hoss! Hoss!’ I thought something is damned wrong. Hagmaier had gone out the main door so I yelled, ‘Ronnie, what’s going on down there?’”

  “From my position at the bottom of the steps,” said Hagmaier, “I couldn’t tell anything was going on, didn’t know what Cameron meant, but he yells again so I ran up to him and we’re both listening to intercom noises, scuffling and cursing. I said we ought to push the button. This was an alarm that registered in the control booth in the admin building. The alarm buttons were numbered so the trouble spot could be identified by its number.”

  Watching the assault unfold, locked in without a handgun, Reilly was impotent. Further, every use of the intercom put him several yards to his left, behind the corner of an end cell, cutting his line of sight into the corridor.

  “Already Pete was hurt,” said Reilly, “and I wondered how far this was going to go? But it got worse so fast. McGrogan was standing off by himself, Butler was hunched down fussing with something, but Hoss and Delker were all fury. When Hoss landed a particularly vicious blow, and Delker laughed … I knew it wasn’t going to stop.”

  “Tie the door! Tie the door!” Hoss yelled. Clutching a wet bedsheet, Butler jumped over to what was a two-door setup, not unlike any house’s screen and main doors, but in the Home Block’s basement, the inner door was made up of thick vertical bars, while the outer door, except for a seven-inch-square section of thick glass at eye level, was solid steel. Yet there was a design flaw that the inmates exploited: in addition to a handle on the outside, there was a big brass handle on the inside of the steel door, allowing Butler to double loop one end of the bedsheet through the brass handle and then, tugging for all he was worth, through and around the bars. Several sets of knots held it secure. Free of this first responsibility, Butler joined in the battery.

  Suffering under a terrific flurry of punches and kicks, Peterson had been beaten down to a sitting position, but, with strength born of desperation, he broke away.

  “After we hit the alarm,” said Hagmaier, “Cameron and me grab blackjacks and mace and run down the steps.”

  Cameron recalled arriving at the basement door to find it closed,

  and I mean shut tighter than a drum. It felt like it was locked, no movement at all. I was pulling and shaking that handle and looking in the window. At first I see nothing, and with the angle of that door and window you could not take in all the basement area, maybe only the middle half…. but then I seen Pete come by my line of sight, staggering, and I seen blood on his head. He went past and Hoss was after him. Then they disappeared and I didn’t see no more. I yelled in, “Hoss, open the door … Hoss, open the damn door now!” McGrogan was standing to one side. I yelled, “Bob, open the goddamned door!” but he just shook his head.

  I kn
ew that door couldn’t be locked because we had the keys … but with that door, there wasn’t a budge, a gorilla couldn’ta opened it. I yelled again at McGrogan but he stood there with a wide stare. Not getting anywhere, we ran back upstairs to hit the button again.

  After Reilly had sounded the alarm, much was in motion. Lieutenant Kozakiewicz was in the front rotunda right beside the control booth when the alarm sounded. “I looked in the booth and they yelled out, ‘Home Block,’ so I ran and picked up guys on my way.”

  Outside in the yard and in other locations, the initial alarm could not be heard, but “it was word of mouth, walkie-talkie, or simply by sight,” said CO Steve Dutkowski. “When we saw our guys running in one direction, we knew there was trouble and we’d join up at a dead run. You have to remember, over the past year that alarm was always going off—inmate fights … a lot of false alarms—but it never mattered. Inside, all we had was each other, and every alarm call was a sprint. In these first moments we didn’t know exactly what the problem was, but we got there ASAP.”

  Even Ronnie Hagmaier didn’t know the gravity of the situation. “After Reilly’s yelling in the intercom, I ran down with Cameron, but with that window so little we both couldn’t see in at once, so I didn’t know … but we couldn’t get that door opened, then Cameron yells, ‘Come on!’ and we rushed back up. Cameron said, ‘We got trouble.’ I thought the inmates were fighting each other. It’s not like I panicked or anything—an inmate fight, no big deal.”

  Cameron and Hagmaier had no sooner gotten upstairs when help started arriving. “They were trying to get in,” said Hag, “and I had to keep opening the outside gate for them to run up to the Home Block. I was running the keys back and forth so much I didn’t know anything beyond my thinking there was an inmate fight going on.”

  Fear swept through the inmates. They heard the alarms, the shouts, Reilly screaming, and saw the frantic activity of the officers, their faces strained. On top of this, there were the recent rumors of a black takeover of the Home Block, or, alternately, a white insurrection—a killing spree against the blacks.