Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The next entry...

...in My Road Home: 

Sunday July 8th 

The dorm was raided this morning! There I was getting ready for my precious one hour of outdoor recreation, the hour that keeps me sane, keeps me going throughout the day, when all of a sudden 30-40 officers come storming in, most dressed in riot gear, with their helmets, long shields, night sticks, looking just like a group of Ninja Turtles, but a whole lot meaner. What the hell was going on? 

Well apparently it all stemmed from 1 idiotic inmate the night before who had put on such a scene; screaming, cursing at the night guard, refusing to shut up for a solid hour. As they do I guess, the night CO recorded all of this in his daily log, so when the Sergeant came around to inspect the book, well that's all he needed to see. Game over for this dude, and the rest of us as well. Time to show these inmates who is really in charge. What struck me as weird was that none of these other bad asses in the room bothered to challenge this lunatic. No one yelled over, telling him to sit the fuck down or something to that effect. And believe me, there are some hard core dudes living here who take no shit from anyone. Because even a rookie like me knew there would be consequences for his actions. 

Once the Ninja Turtles took charge of the room, we were all ordered to strip naked, our clothes then tossed in every direction. Then each man's bed was stripped, lockers overturned, food spilled every which way. There was shit thrown about the entire room. If contraband was found on anyone, that would be a bonus for the guards, but the main goal was simple shock & awe. To create the largest mess and headache for us. The raid was a particular blow for me, not only did I never get my hour of rec, my sneakers were confiscated. They were the Nike Air Max 360's. The problem is they had the tiny plastic bubble soles along the base of the shoe. Big deal, right? Well the guard claimed they could be used to insert and hide various drugs. What? In addition, they had a trace of red on them, which is a gang color, so red is abolished throughout Rikers. I'm so pissed as they were my running shoes. Now I don't have a pair. Of any shoe! So I was given a pair of orange slip-ons (Pataki's they call them, after the former NY State Governor who cracked down on prison reform) which are absolutely repulsive & make me look like a convict more than ever.

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