by Cliff Yates
We had been trained very well on how to facilitate the training. In fact, we had to be approved by the consultants and report to the court that we had met the standard for facilitating the policy. We knew the policy inside and out. We knew how to facilitate it the way we had been trained. But we didn't have all the answers that we would get during the training. I didn't like that. I started studying sexual harassment and discrimination law on my own. I can honestly say that about a year into the training, I was a subject matter expert. I found out it was the law that for every sexual harassment policy to be defensible in a harassment case, the head of the company or business has to relay that they understand the policy, agree with it, and are dedicated to eliminating harassment based on sex, race, ancestry, gender, marital status, or medical condition. So to comply with this requirement, we showed a video of the Sheriff introducing the training.
Sergeants and deputies would get pissed off just seeing the Sheriff at the beginning of the training. It's a legal requirement that people take a test before the training and then after the training. And then each employee is to be given a written copy of the policy and sign for it. People would go off, "Why is the Sheriff making us sign for a copy? What, he doesn't trust us?" When I got a better understanding of the law, I was able to explain that this has nothing to do with the Sheriff; it’s a legal requirement of a sexual harassment policy. Especially one where the business, in this case the department, had been found guilty of discrimination and policy implementation is part of a consent decree. This helped alleviate some of the anger in most cases, but not in all.
It was agreed to by the court that at the end of every training class an executive at the level of Commander or above would say a few words about the importance of the training, and that the department took it very seriously. And one day that executive was that same Commander who I talked to outside the Assistant Sheriff's office. I reminded him of our conversation. I told him, "You told me to go to DLI, and I did. I also became a facilitator for the training. You told me to go to a specialized operations unit, and here I am facilitating at the Equity Training Unit. Thanks for your advice. I know it will make me a better sergeant when I get promoted."
He said, "You did everything I told you to do, so when it's time, I will support your promotion." He had been my region commander, so I’m not sure how much input he had in promotions.
I do know that my personnel commander went out of her way to help me get promoted. She was my advocate. Everyone needs an advocate. I know because she actually called me from the promotion meeting. She said, “Cliff, I’m at the meeting now and we are on a break. I’m trying to keep you on the board and get you promoted. They want to take everyone off that doesn’t have a degree. How close are you to getting your degree?” I told her that I was two classes short and I was taking those now. She said, “Ok, I’m going back in to fight for you.” My personnel commander was Lynda Castro, and without her advocating for me I never would have been promoted. When she was my captain at West Hollywood, I took the time to stop at her office and chat whenever possible. Not asking for anything, just in passing. To make a connection. It really is about relationships. Lynda Castro, who I’m sure had to fight her way in rising through the ranks, always took the time to reach back and help others. I tried to follow that example after I was promoted. I never forgot what she did for me.
A few short months later an intent to promote list came out, and I was on it. I was promoted to sergeant in 2004. And almost all new sergeants who get promoted have to start their new assignments in the jail. Yuck, back to the jail. This is the worst. But it's only fair; there are sergeants who had to go back to the jail waiting for new sergeants to come in so they can go out to patrol. I was going to be in this group now. Back to Men's Central Jail I went, but now I was a sergeant. Just like when you go to patrol from the Jail, you first go to patrol school to prepare you for leaving the jail and going to patrol. Now my group had to go to Supervisors school and prepare us for our new assignments in the jail as a sergeant.
As much as Men't Central Jail was a nightmare to work as a deputy, it was as much or more of a nightmare to work as a sergeant. Although there were many negatives to working as a sergeant in the jail, there was just as many positives and, in fact, rewarding experiences. At the time when you are in the moment, it’s hard to see the positives. At Lynwood Station, an executive once said to enjoy every moment. And he quoted Charles Dickens I think from his novel A Tale of Two Cities: “these are the worst of times, these are the best of times.” When we're in it, it seems like the worst of times, and later we look back on such times fondly. I find that to be very true.
MENS CENTRAL JAIL
I ENDED UP being the supervisor on the 5000/6000 floors. These floors had dormitories as opposed to cell blocks. In most cases, the inmates were in for lighter type crimes. Part of the 5000 floor housed what they called K11 classified inmates. They were gay and/or transgender. They were housed on one end of the 5000 floor and had to be kept away from the general population of the jail, which wasn't always that easy. Some of the transgender inmates looked anatomically like a woman, but they all had a penis. If they came into the jail taking female hormones, the county was required to keep giving them their hormones. Some of these inmates had very large breasts with long hair, and they made their own makeup. They took up two full dorms at one end of the 5000 floor. There were about 200 K11 inmates at any given time. Friday nights they would have a beauty show. The inmates would take blue medication pills and wet them to make blue eye shadow. They did all sorts of things with what they found in the jail to use as beauty products. Although it was prohibited by jail rules, let alone against the law, there was a lot of sex going on in those K11 dorms.
As you can imagine, I had to be very careful what deputies I assigned to work that part of the jail. For religious reasons alone, many deputies could not work around these inmates. There were two deputies assigned specifically to deal with the classification of the inmates who were assigned to these dorms. They would conduct interviews with each inmate prior to being assigned as a K11. Many inmates would try and lie their way in. They would claim to be gay so they could get assigned to these dorms for sex purposes. If an inmate was truly gay, they had better know the gay clubs and community to a certain extent, or they would not be assigned to the gay and transgender dorms.
There was a major political connection between the city of West Hollywood and the K11 section of the jail. Community leaders would donate televisions and whatever they were allowed to donate specifically for the K11 section. These leaders would tour the jail to make sure what they were donating was getting to the right inmates.
These inmates would go to a classroom in the jail and get computer classes taught by an outside teacher that would come into the jail. Also, there were weekenders that would come into the jail on Fridays and serve their time until Sunday night. There were many outside clergies that would come into the jail to give services. This was the main way that drugs were brought into the jail. The weekenders would secrete the drugs in the cheeks of their ass to smuggle them in. They would swallow balloons of heroin, and once in the jail, retrieve them from their stool after going to the bathroom. They would put needles and drugs in plastic cigar holders, and then insert that into their ass to smuggle the needles and drugs into the jail. It was surprising the amount of drugs that would circulate inside the jail. No doubt many of the teachers, clergy, doctors, and psychologists that came into the jail would bring drugs in with them. Sometimes they would get caught, but most of the time they wouldn't. The head executives discouraged as much as possible any searches of people coming in and out of the jail. Everything they brought in as far as property would be thoroughly searched, but a pat-down of their person was hardly ever done.
I had a good crew on the 5000/6000 floors and liked all the deputies I had working for me. Our side of the jail was considered the soft part of the jail. In a lot of ways, we were looked down upon for working that side of the
jail. I didn't like that. On every shift, we had an in-service form. This listed all the positions in the jail and who was assigned to them for that particular shift. Every shift had an extraction/emergency response team designation. It was usually six or seven deputies and a sergeant. When I was assigned as the sergeant for the emergency response team, I took that as an opportunity for the deputies in the rest of the jail to see what I was about.
One pm shift, the extraction team was called to the hardcore 3000 floor for an extraction, and I was the sergeant. There was a row of cells that housed a group of Southsider gang members. All these cell rows had what they call a shot caller on the row. All the inmates on that row took orders from the shot caller. When the team and I arrived with our helmets and shields, the lieutenant was negotiating with the shot caller. Sometimes it was just embarrassing the way the administration tried to negotiate with these gang members to avoid a major jail disturbance. It might come down to the lieutenant pleading with the shot caller, "Please don't cause trouble, we will get everybody ice cream.” This was rare. Most of the time, you would have a lieutenant with some balls who wasn't afraid to make decisions and maintain control of the jail.
On this particular shift, the inmates on the row refused to submit to a cell search. My team, the floor sergeant and assisting deputies were in the hallway while the lieutenant was talking with the shot caller. I heard the shot caller tell the Lieutenant, "No, too many searches. No more. We are not going to allow any more searches of the row for a while." This back and forth went on for some time.
The lieutenant told the shot caller, "The team is waiting to come in, tell everyone to hook up (submit to handcuffing) and then no one gets hurt, and I will be here to supervise the search."
The last thing I heard the shot caller say, raising his voice so all the other inmates could hear, was, "Bring on the fucking team, let's get hurt. Nobody is hooking up, what are we waiting for."
Now on my team, I have a taser deputy, two pepper ball gun deputies (paint ball guns that shoot balls filled with pepper-spray), two shield deputies, a distraction grenade deputy, and two handcuff deputies. There is a video deputy designated to video tape the entire extraction process. Waiting in the hallway are medical personnel to administer aid to the inmates. We basically go in and start at the first cell, which in this case was the shot caller. I couldn't wait to take this guy out of his cell. Orders are given for each inmate to back up to the cell door so they can be handcuffed.
This wasn't going to happen since the shot caller had given the order that nobody is to hook up. So as we entered the row and went to the first cell, the other fifteen or twenty cells start yelling and throwing objects at the team. They had cups filled with urine and shit they threw at us. They threw toilet paper soaked in shit and urine. They took towels and jammed them down the toilet and start repeatedly flushing to flood the row with water. They want the floors flooded so deputies had a hard time getting their footing.
To suppress this barrage of fecal matter, deputies start firing pepper balls toward the end of the row. Inmates tie towels and sheets around their nose and mouths to try and minimize the effect of the pepper balls. We also have basically a pepper-spray cannon that shoots a powerful twenty to a thirty-foot stream of pepper-spray. As the inmates refused to be handcuffed, we deployed pepper-spray. If they were armed, we attempted to disarm them with the taser before we rushed in with takedown deputies. We pinned the inmates to the back of the cell, bringing them down and handcuffing them. Deputies removed them from the cell to the hallway for medical treatment if necessary, and then we moved on to the next cell.
This was my first extraction, so before we entered the row, I told them we don't get hurt—they do. They dictated how this is going to go, so be aggressive and take care of business. I was at the rear of the team, directing them as we went cell to cell. At one point, I jumped in to assist with the takedown of a giant inmate who wasn't going down. They really didn't need me, but I wanted them to know I was there to mix it up with them if need be. We had to tase about ten inmates that day. The south siders sent their message.
After the extraction of all the inmates from their cells, a search was made of the cells and all their property. Each inmate was interviewed on video tape by the floor sergeant and Lieutenant. I have to give these Southsiders credit; each one was interviewed and asked what happened and how they got their injuries. Each one would say on camera that nothing happened. We would even say on camera, “You refused to leave your cell, a deputy tased you, pepper-sprayed you and took you down to the ground. It looks like you have a black eye and a bruise on your forehead from the deputies.”
And the inmate would say, "No, I fell. The deputies didn't do anything." I have to give them credit; they never made a complaint. Every once in a while, they had to make a statement and basically take an ass whooping to maintain street reputation.
Now, after all the fun and games were over, I had to create a force package. On a major extraction like this one, it might take a full week or two. I had to document from the beginning everything that was done up to my team entering the row and using force. I had to document each use of force by each deputy on each inmate at each cell in chronological order. I had to make sure each deputy prepared a report on what they did and why. I made sure that all force was at my direction. Most of the time, I had to go over the videotape to remember who did what and when. I might have to remind the deputy that he used pepper-spray first, then a taser, and then a takedown, and then forced handcuffing. In the midst of the chaos, it's sometimes hard to remember exactly each move you make. As we take one inmate out, we are on to the next cell. And we do this for fifteen or twenty cells. Each one goes a little differently. Some inmates do submit to handcuffing, but most go with what the shot caller said, which was not to comply with any orders.
So, I had to gather all the reports from all deputies on the team. All the medical reports that dealt with each injury from the extraction. Submit all the reports with videotaped interviews to the watch commander. So this might take a week or two to get everything in order. In the meantime, it's not unusual for you to be involved in another extraction or several other force incidents. It wasn't unusual to be backed up five or six force reports. Then you might go a week or two with no force incidents, and you could get caught up. In the meantime, you had inmate complaints to handle and write up, and employee evaluations that were time-sensitive. And the Captain would want to know why the sergeants weren't walking around checking on the deputies. Quite a crazy place. There were sergeant positions in the jail that were considered premier that some didn't mind working for years and had no desire to go out to patrol. Most of us couldn't wait to get out of the jail and to a patrol assignment.
PATROL SERGEANT
WHEN THE TIME approaches where you can get out of the jail and transfer to patrol, you have to be proactive and interview at the stations you would like to work. Some stations would not take any sergeants unless they had interviewed at that station and been given the interview score of acceptable. Once the Captain gave you an “acceptable,” they would have to take you as your time came up and they had an opening. Sometimes the Captain would bluntly tell you he or she couldn't rate you as acceptable because they would have to take you next, and they might be looking for someone else to bring to the station. Everybody was gaming the system to move personnel around to their liking.
My dream job would have been to go back to the Universal substation out of West Hollywood. In most cases, they didn't like to bring new sergeants to an assignment they worked at as a deputy. It creates difficulty sometimes when you have sergeants supervising deputies they worked with as peers before promoting. In most cases, they tried to avoid that. But it wasn't a hard and fast rule. Usually, sergeants that were at Universal stayed there, and the turnover wasn't very often, so I didn't think I had much chance to go back. So, I interviewed at other units.
I had taken sailing lessons in Marina Del Rey, and I had met a deputy who lived on
a sailboat. He worked at the Marina Del Ray Station, which was right on the water. They had a separate Harbor Patrol that worked out of the station. I talked to the deputy who lived on the sailboat. I remember talking with him. "Let me get this straight. You live on this sailboat, and when you go to work, you get on your dingy and motor to the station dock and go to work?"
He said, "Yeah, it's a cool thing."
I interviewed with the Captain at the Marina who I knew from previous assignments. It would mean an hour commute from my house each way, but I didn't care about that. I stepped out the back door of the station, which was the dock that looked out over the Marina. I was in awe, taking in this wonderful sight when a lieutenant stepped out on to the dock with me. It was my training officer Marv Washington. He was now a lieutenant. My chance of getting to the Marina Station was getting better. So I felt good about my chance of getting to the Marina Station.
Shortly after I interviewed at the Marina, I got a call from Sergeant Talmo at Universal, and he asked me if I would want to come back to Universal. Are you kidding me? That would be a dream come true, but I didn't think it could happen. He said, "We've had a sudden opening, and I'll talk to Captain Long, and if Chief Ronnie Williams approves it, we will make it happen." Wow, I was getting excited about all this.
The list came out, and I was scheduled to go to the Marina Station. I got a call from Sergeant Talmo asking me if that was my choice. I told him that Universal was my first choice, and when I interviewed at the Marina, I told the Captain that my first choice was West Hollywood/Universal. Sergeant Talmo said that the Chief thought my first choice was the Marina. He called the Chief and had it straightened out. And I was on my way back to Universal, this time as a sergeant.