Lockdown on Rikers

by Ms. Mary E. Buser

  My buddies at the depot were waiting. “Well?” they smiled.

  “Well, nothing,” I said. “The bus is coming.”

  Eventually it did come, and as it rumbled down to GMDC and the day got going, my great letter idea faded away.

  But my feelings of powerlessness were giving way to anger. Every morning when I came in and glanced up at the Dostoevsky quote over the entryway gate, I shook my head. “A society can be judged by the condition of its jails.” If I’d wondered what life at GMDC would say about us, I had my answer, and it wasn’t good. By now I knew that inmate abuse was chronic and systemic, and that neither the Board of Correction nor the civilian presence in the jails was enough to meaningfully deter it. I was especially frustrated that there was no safe mechanism for me to report it. Not that such a mechanism wasn’t possible. As a social worker, I was legally mandated to report suspected incidents of abuse of innocent children. In a jail setting this issue rarely came up, but what we were faced with was a procession of inmates who’d been brutalized, yet no laws required us to report abuse of the “presumed innocent.”

  I never wished for a mandatory reporting mechanism more than in the aftermath of a housing search that went badly wrong. We were in the middle of our sessions on a late summer afternoon when an alarm went off and the entire jail was abruptly placed on lockdown. The sessions stopped, and the inmates were hurried back to their houses.

  As we learned afterward, the inmates were lined up against the wall, where an older man with arthritic, gnarled hands was unable to flatten his palms. The search team circled him, yelling, “Open your fuckin’ hands!” A younger inmate came to his defense, blurting out that the older man had arthritis. Outraged by the audacity of his outburst, the team attacked the young protector. But as he was being punched and kicked, the other inmates were coming off the wall; the situation was destabilizing. Recognizing the growing danger, the squad pulled the inmate to his feet, ordered the others back to their cots, and left. But they had been challenged, and this would not go unaddressed. They returned, this time with the Emergency Response Services Unit in tow. Easily identifiable by their gargantuan proportions, the ERSU is an elite unit available on a moment’s notice to assist with searches, squelch uprisings, and generally provide physical intimidation and force. Frequently seen patrolling the jails’ hallways, they’re often called the “Ninja Turtles” because of their heavily padded gear. They had another nickname, though: the Goon Squad.

  The dorm was quickly overrun with security squads and elite units. As the afternoon dragged on, tension was mounting. In the clinic, we joined the medical staff in wait. The big clinic usually operated at a frenzied pace, but now the waiting area sat empty. Everyone nervously chatted, but beneath the small talk were the unspoken questions: “How bad is it?” and “When will it end?”

  Shortly, a few COs straggled in, holding up injured fingers. After they were examined, it was paperwork time. On every spare desk, they spread out their forms. The chief physician, a short wiry man from the Philippines, paced the clinic. “Where are the inmates?”

  I walked over to the Mental Health section, where Miss Edwards sat alone.

  “So—how bad do you think this is going to be?” I asked.

  “Well,” she said, lighting up a cigarette, “hopefully not too bad. It’s not like it used to be before we got all these regulations. Back in the day, these inmates, they’d wind up with lacerated livers and kidneys. But you don’t see too much of that these days—thank God.”

  If she meant that as a comfort to me, it wasn’t.

  And then the gurneys started coming up. One after the next. The clinic was suddenly crammed with moaning and dazed inmates.

  “Let’s clear out,” ordered Charley, and we went back to our office.

  In the days following the clash, we were desperate to find out what had happened, hoping against hope that maybe the injuries were minor. But rumor had it that an inmate had died. “He was older, had a heart attack,” a worried clinic CO whispered to me. “Had a heart condition—anything would have pushed him over the edge.”

  The thought that someone had died was sickening. But the rumors grew worse, that the dead man had been stomped. “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said one of the old-timers, a nurse who’d worked at Rikers for a dozen years. “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

  We scanned the papers for news reports but found nothing. And asking the inmates in the dorm for their version of things was not an option. They were gone. After incidents like these, DOC moves quickly, breaking up the house so the inmates are scattered about the island, transferred to different jails. By next morning, fifty new faces filled the dorm. “As though nothing ever happened,” said one of the psychiatrists. “And of course,” said another, “it makes it almost impossible for them to band together and get a lawyer—DOC has it down pat.”

  The clinic administrator assured us that calls had been placed to the Board of Correction, and I just prayed that they would get to the bottom of it. But being on-site, we were much closer to these situations than they were. In the days that followed, I was haunted by what might have happened, once again wishing for a reporting mechanism that would have triggered an official investigation.

  23

  On a bitterly cold morning in February 1997, I stood huddled with a group of civilians in the bus depot, waiting for the good ol’ bus. The frozen earth was fringed with snow, the cold blue sky marbled with trails of white plumes left in the wake of the LaGuardia jets. When the bus finally pulled in, we piled on, grateful for the warmth. I grabbed a seat and settled back, taking in the morning chatter. Above the windshield, someone had slapped on a bumper sticker that read, “Corrections: Hired in your 20’s—Retired in your 40’s—Can’t Touch That!”

  As the bus nosed through GMDC’s parking lot, the talk abruptly subsided. Affixed to the front of the jail was purple and black bunting that swayed in the wind. The somber cloth meant that someone in the DOC ranks was dead. There was immediate speculation, but with hundreds of officers staffing the big jail, I figured it likely wasn’t anyone I knew. The lobby was quiet, and at the top of the stairwell, an unfamiliar CO unlocked the door. When I stepped into our office, the first thing I noticed was that everything was dim—the lights were off and the morning pot of coffee had not been started. Instead, our quarters were filled with captains and COs, many weeping. Pat turned to me with a teary face. “It’s Miss Edwards, Mary. Miss Edwards is dead!”

  “What!”

  “Apparently,” said an ashen Charley, “she went to the doctor on Saturday for a routine test where they put you under and put a camera down your throat. But when they were finished, they couldn’t revive her. By the time the ambulance arrived, she was already gone.”

  Miss Edwards was dead! I’d spoken with her on Friday afternoon just before she left. I could still see her packing up, saying, “See you Monday!” This could not be—it just couldn’t. It had to be some kind of a dream. But as more weepy officers filed in, I knew it was true.

  That morning began days of tears and profound grief. Because of Miss Edwards’s role with the Mental Health Department, our staff and DOC came together in a way that we ordinarily did not. The walls came down, and we mourned as one.

  When the HIV group convened, it was the first time it was conducted without Miss Edwards, the quiet ally who’d silently watched over this brood. “She always got me up here,” said Pedro, who’d been with the group since its inception. “One time,” said Marvin, the youngest at twenty, “when I needed my meds, but it was late ’cause I just came back from court, she helped me. Otherwise, they were telling me to come back tomorrow.”

  “And here we think we’re gonna die any minute, and then bam! Miss Edwards dies. You don’t know—you just don’t really ever know, now do you?” uttered Paulie, the group’s unspoken leader. As the group members expressed their feelings, I
said little, letting their wise words soothe me.

  Later in the week, we drove into Manhattan and up to Harlem for the funeral. As happens when someone dies in the prime of life, the church was packed. Family, friends, and coworkers filled the pews. Lines of correctional personnel in dress uniform spilled out the doors as they remembered their comrade, best known to them as “Eddie.” Without their workday uniforms, face shields, and helmets, they looked ordinary, if not a tad vulnerable. Like the police, the COs were a loyal and cohesive band. Sadly, what they also shared with the police was an above-average suicide rate and rampant alcoholism. Within the island’s massive parking lots, their own despair was evident. Smashed liquor bottles, the remains of after-hours drinking sprees, covered every patch of pavement. Any intact bottles were propped up against the lampposts, a grim greeting to the morning shift. The parking lots were so thoroughly coated in glass that I kept a dust pan and brush in my car to sweep up the shards before pulling into a spot. Periodically, a detail of prisoners was dispatched for a bigger sweep, but within short order, it was right back to its usual depressing state. Jail isn’t just hard on the inmates—it’s hard on its keepers. Although I was convinced that the more brutish COs were quite simply on the wrong side of the bars, I also had to acknowledge the work of Miss Edwards, and so many more like her, who carried out their duties with honor and integrity. While the NYPD marched proudly down Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the unenviable work of the Correction Department—who patrolled New York City’s “toughest precinct”—went largely unrecognized.

  The minister was at the pulpit, and in front of him was the closed mahogany casket. In the first row, Miss Edwards’s bereft sisters sobbed, and a young man I surmised was the son she often spoke about held his head in his hands. And then the minister spoke about the incomprehensibility of death, of how we cannot fathom the ways of God. Throughout his sermon, the congregation joined in, “Amen, Brother! Amen!”

  There were moments when the whole thing turned surreal. What was I doing here? It was odd to see my coworkers out of place like this. We were all out of place. I was supposed to be back at the clinic, meeting with the daily stream of the depressed, suicidal, and mentally ill. And Miss Edwards was supposed to be at her desk, controlling the whole scene. But one glance at the casket brought me back to this wrenching reality.

  Following the minister’s remarks, speeches were made by high-ranking correction officials, and on our behalf, Charley stepped up to the podium and lauded Miss Edwards for her diligence as our Mental Health officer.

  The service was nearing its conclusion when shouts came from the rear of the church. “Hold up! Bagpipers are here!” In the ultimate clash of two cultures bound by the shared traditions of law enforcement, a quartet of freckle-faced bagpipers in tartan garb bounded into the old Baptist church, muttering apologies for having gotten lost. The bagpipes wailed the bittersweet strains of “Amazing Grace.” And then it was over, and in a procession we filed past the casket. I ran my hand over the rich wood and said a silent prayer for the soul of Charlene Edwards.

  * * *

  As the hard, painful winter thawed into spring, we were once again consumed with a growing concern: the hospital contract, due to expire in less than a year. In previous contract cycles, things would have already been settled, with Montefiore signed on for another three years. But now, with vendors from as far away as Texas in on the bidding, we were operating in a limbo. Nerves were on edge, rumors abounded, and the contract became a major distraction from an increasingly burdensome workload. With the city’s budget cuts and the ensuing collapse of the Social Services Department, the Mental Health Department became the catchall for all sorts of problems. The most common request was for long-distance calls, usually to sick family members or to court-appointed lawyers in Westchester or Long Island who didn’t accept collect calls. It was Pat’s policy that we were to help out as best we could, and we arranged these calls on our phones.

  Another unlikely problem pertained to gangs. The predominant gangs were the Bloods, Latin Kings, Nyetas, and, surprisingly, Muslim inmates. Though not a gang per se, within the confines of jail, and because of their large numbers and cohesiveness, Muslim detainees are considered one by DOC.

  In jail, the primary appeal of a gang is protection. During the recruitment phase, the gangs downplay their darker agendas and instead espouse loftier ideals. For the Nyetas, their stated purpose is to defend and support Hispanic culture. I’d sat with many a young man who’d enthusiastically talked up the gangs’ noble causes before signing up. But after induction, the bloom fades, and the disillusioned found their way back to us, looking for help in getting out—to escape the inevitable violence that comes with the turf. “I don’t want to cut anybody—but if I don’t, then they’re going to cut me” was a familiar refrain.

  These inmates hoped we could intervene with DOC to get them transferred to another jail. But other than contacting the Security Department, there was little we could do. A captain would meet with the inmate, but a transfer came at a price: useful information about the gang had to be offered up. This put the inmate in an awful bind; the mere suspicion of talking to DOC warranted a “green light”—death to the inmate. Most tearfully declined the offer and returned to their house to fend for themselves as best they could.

  Tragically, jailhouse violence was very real. The time spent in detention is a critical period. It is a time when deals are cut and agonizing legal decisions are made—the period when fates have not yet been carved in stone, and emotions vacillate between soaring hopes for exoneration and plunging despair as grim futures in prison become more likely. Living in tightly restricted quarters with thousands of others consumed with similar pressures, fights and violent outbursts are frequent among the men, and we were often called to duty in the aftermath. This was especially so when it came to the dreaded “lifer scar”—a quick razor attack to the face that leaves an ugly scar extending from the cheekbone down to the corner of the mouth. Charley told me about an incident in the adolescent jail, where a seventeen-year-old was the victim of a particularly vicious assault. After being stitched up and sent back to his house, the bandaged youth fixed a noose out of bedsheets and quietly hanged himself. After that, a new policy mandated that anyone who’d had his face slashed be given a mental health assessment immediately following medical treatment. Consequently, I attended to many of these sad situations: with the telltale gauze across their faces and tears in their eyes, these sessions were sparse on words. Mostly, I would just sit quietly with them, letting them know that someone in this world cared about what had happened to them.

  While many would view weapons possession and gang membership as characteristics of criminal behavior, the flip side is that terror would make anyone—criminal or not—take steps to remain safe. Many grappled with this weapons issue in particular, and on one occasion a client of mine arrived for his session and furtively looked about before reaching into his clothing to pull out a handmade shank, which he handed to me, much like a cat relinquishing a dead bird from its mouth. Startled, I awkwardly held the weapon in my hands. He confessed he’d been filing it against the side of his cot all night, suspecting that the guy in the next bed was plotting to cut him. “I was going to stab him while he was sleeping, you know, get him before he gets me. But I don’t know—I kept changing my mind. ‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’ I kept thinking about our session today, and I didn’t want to face you knowing what I’d done.”

  I poured on the praise for his good judgment, and by the end of the session he was beaming with pride. After he left, I examined the deadly instrument, unsure of exactly what to do with it. He’d wrapped a long strip of sheeting around the base to allow for a good grip. Out of curiosity, I unwrapped it and then handed the whole thing over to a surprised captain, who wisely asked no questions.

  While most endure incarceration without carrying weapons, jail exacts its toll even from tho
se with solid character who are determined to remain above the fray. Sadly, Chris Barnett could not escape it. “Miss Buser,” he said, “my girlfriend came to see me the other day and she got hassled by the officers in the visit house. Now she’s not coming out here again.”

  “I’m sorry, Chris,” I said. “A few people bring drugs in, so they make it hard on everyone. But you can’t let that get you down. This will all be over after your trial.”

  “Yes, I know, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to make it to trial.”

  “Of course you will!”

  But a week later, Chris was visibly upset when he arrived for his session. “On court days, it’s four in the morning when they wake you, and you wanna know how they do it? The CO kicks the cot and yells, ‘Get up, asshole!’ All I did was drive a motorcycle down the street!”

  But things took a decisive turn when his lawyer, who had long supported Chris’s plan to go to trial, suggested the plea bargain instead. “I don’t understand it!” Chris said. “After I got arrested, he was all gung ho about trial. But the other day in court, he did a complete turnaround. Now he’s telling me to take the cop-out. I don’t know what to think. He told me to call him and we’d talk, but when I do, I just get his answering machine. Here I am, going to the law library every day, trying to get smart about my case, and now this! I think I need a different attorney. But the guys in the law library tell me that only the judge can assign a different lawyer because the lawyer is court-appointed. And they say judges won’t do it ’cause everybody’d want different lawyers.”