ANOTHER BOX STORY
E-Mail by Ken Baird Bio/Address
About ten years ago I received 5 years in the 'Box' for an attempt to escape. I didn't even get over the wall. I just got caught with escape paraphernalia that was attributed to me by circumstantial evidence.I'm not going to say what prison was in at the time except that it was one of the prisons that I classify as a dungeon because of its old mortared stone appearance. Having never been in the box prior to receiving the 5-year term, I didn't know what to expect and only had yard stories to rely upon, half of which were unbelievable because, as I thought, they were embellished and made to be gruesome. I was wrong.
I was brought to the box and made to strip in a little cell full of C.O.'s. They made me bend over and expose myself numerous times because they know the practice is degrading. I was given box clothing that's different than prison garb, and taken to a box cell.
After I received the 5 years from a "kangaroo court." I thought I could handle it - just sit in the cell reading, exercising, eating, etc. Even then I had a lot of free time so I gave myself little things to look forward to like letters from home, chow, showers, recreation, and book packages from home (the only packages we were allowed). That's when the bullshit started.
I received one loaded book package from home, but the C.O. told me I could only have ten mags and ten books, the rest I either had to send back, donate or destroy. The rule at that time was that the extra books and mags were to be placed in the cons property, but this C.O. wouldn't do it. I was in the box and not making any money, so I had to donate the extra books and mags, knowing that they wouldn't be donated but would become C.O. property.
About fifteen days later I received another package but the C.O. said I couldn't have any of the books or mags. "You just got a package," he said. I argued the standing rule at that time, that there's no limit on how many book packages, just the amount we're allowed to have in a box cell. I had to donate the whole package based on an imagined rule that the C.O. had adlibbed on the spot. I was heated, livid, entirely pissed because it was something major-league to look forward to, and the C.O. made up the rule just to deprive me.
It was winter when I went to the box, very cold in the cells even with the heat on. One day, before the change of shift, the C.O.s went one behind the other turning off all the radiators and then opened a few windows. We froze all night!
Letters wouldn't get mailed. Instead of one hour of recreation mandated by the courts, we'd get ten minutes. Instead of a ten minute shower we'd get five minutes; we had to shave with the water off and a handheld 4"x4" mirror. No toilet paper for two days, "We're out of stock," they'd claim.
We were at the mercy of the box police and they weren't merciful at all.
I had one C.O. who had a personal beef with me, I still don't know why he singled me out. He would always crush my desert before giving it to me. Sometimes he would hand the deserts out an hour before the meal. I didn't say anything about it, just handled it.
The nights in the box were comical for me. I would save my bread, put it on the floor, turn out the light and then watch the fun. Mice! At least fifty of them would slowly and cautiously arrive and polish off the bread. My cell became the nightspot for the mice - the hangout for an easy meal. I'd kill the cockroaches and leave them in a pile on the floor and the mice would eat them also.
Unfortunately, a proverbial straw broke my back. The C.O. (the one that crushed my deserts) wouldn't give me a light for my cigarette. A very minute straw because I could've gotten that light from another con that did get a light. My anger had to be released. This C.O. was singling me out to abuse me and I couldn't figure out why. I spit at him! Not even a good shot, he was ten feet away, but I got him.
I knew the police were coming for me, I had heard a lot of stories about that box. Broken bones and facial swellings were a big part of those stories.
The Sgt. came to my cell ten minutes later, alone.
"We got to move you to another cell. My C.O. says you spit in his face, is that true?"
"No sir! I don't know what he's talking about!" I quickly lied.
At that point the other cons started yelling that the C.O. was lying his ass off.
"We got to move you anyway, it's procedure," he told me.
When the Sgt. left the other cons told me I did good because as they said: "That mutha deserved it!" He always abused us. He thought he was perfect and we were the dregs. He was always going out of his way to hurt us in some way.
I knew I was headed for a beating. When the other cons warned me that the police were coming, I started shaking. I can handle this I thought, but my knees wouldn't listen. They cuffed me behind my back. The C.O. I had spit at wasn't with them. They gave the signal to open the cell and I backed out, standard procedure. They walked me down the tier by all the other cons in their cells and I felt like I was leaving death row for the electric chair. "Watch yourself," said one con, "Be strong," said another.
As soon as I reached the end of the tier I was pushed into a cell and the punches started flying. The C.O. I had spit at was waiting in that cell. They beat my ribs, my back, my kidneys and arms, but not my face. At least seven police, including the escort Sgt., got a piece of my body. I found out later why they didn't beat my face in. They knew that the I.G. (inspector general) was going to visit me concerning the escape attempt. They didn't want me in front of him with my face all broken up.
After the beating they left me in the cell to cool off. I expected more, so as soon as I got the chance I slipped one of the cuffs off and left it loose around my wrist. I waited about two hours before they came for me again - only a Sgt. and one C.O. - none of the police that had given me the beating.
They noticed the cuff off but didn't make a big deal about it, as they escorted me to a cell that had the gate completely covered with thick plexi-glass. Now I was out of contact with everyone and everything. I received nothing for two days: no mail, no toilet paper, no sheets to cover the stained mattress, and most of all, absolutely no food so I drank a lot of water. The C.O. who hands out the chow, open my chow hatch, then laugh when I got to the gate. He slammed the hatch closed giving me nothing but air. However, for my consumption, the C.O.s microwaved popcorn and placed the bag by the vent behind my cell along with a watch that played some unknown, endless chime. I couldn't sleep because of the continuous chiming from the watch and I was literally drooling from the smell of the freshly cooked buttered popcorn.
On the third day they finally gave me something to eat, but it wasn't a meal. It was "the loaf" with raw cabbage as a side. I had to eat it, parts of it anyway. The parts I didn't eat were the ones covered with mold. The loaf had been sitting around for a while before they gave it to me. It was always the same: hard, wrapped in loose cellophane, and looking like a moldy football.
I complained to the box counselor about the mold. She left saying she'd take care of it, but nothing changed. After five days on this diet, I began pissing blood. The nurse observed me through the plexi-glass, said I'd be fine, laughed, and walked away.
They began to feed me regular meals on the ninth day. I stayed in the shielded cell for about thirty days with nothing to do except sing to myself and see how much confetti I could tear my legal work into. I filled a paper bag. My neighbor offered me a smoke (this was over ten years ago during a time when we were allowed to smoke in the box). But the C.O.s wouldn't pass the tobacco. I made a pole out of the flexible backing from a pad, stuck it together with the glue part of my envelopes and slid it under the plexi-glass. My neighbor didn't have the shield on his cell so it was easy for him to tie a pouch of tobacco to my fishing pole. I enjoyed smoking until one of the C.O.'s caught me.
"We need to remove you from your cell so the painter can paint it," they told me. I went with the escort to another cell, waited there about an hour, believing that my cell was being painted. When I returned to it, all my tobacco had vanished. No mystery behind it: I had been played. The C.O. who caught me smoking made it a point of letting me know that he had engineered the fake painting ploy just so they wouldn't have a problem taking my tobacco.
After doing about a year in that box, I was transferred to another box, Southport. Although this prison wasn't a dark dungeon, it was draconian in the way the police treated the cons. The prison consisted of three floors with the upper two floors reserved for normal box inmates. The first floor housed the so-called 'trouble inmates.' Initially I was placed on level three where another con and I witnessed the C.O.s on level one floor taking food from one tray and putting it onto other tray, effectively making some trays bigger and other trays smaller. I'd hear the cons call to one another, "Yo, I got dished!" - meaning very little food. Or, "Yo, I got a heavy tray!" - meaning a lot of food. We were told not to say anything or else we'd get the same treatment.
As a box inmate you had no contact with anyone unless you went out of your cell and then you were always in handcuffs and chains. I remember cursing a C.O. out because he had put the cuffs on so tight I couldn't feel my hands. Naturally, he refused to loosen them. For punishment I was moved to 'level one.' I wasn’t on level one for a week when I got tired of being "dissed", the short showers, the overly tight handcuffs we had to wear during our one-hour rec period and the overall inhumane treatment from all the personnel working in the box.
When the C.O.'s passed my cell for the noon meal and gave me another light tray, I told them that someone would eventually shit on them the way they were shitting on us, and they wouldn't like it. They took this to mean that I intended to throw shit on them so they put me behind the plexi-glass shield in another cell. The next morning I stood up at the gate to get my chow. Instead of giving me the food through the hatch, I was doused with two cups of hot coffee. I stood there like an idiot while the C.O.s slammed shut the hatch and laughed with each other. Even though I knew that a grievance might disappear (a common practice at this prison) and that the C.O.s would deny it anyway, I thought to myself, "Okay, there's nothing I can do except complain and file a grievance for this assault."
So I changed my clothes and laid the stained t-shirt and pants on the bed for proof. In ten minutes a Sgt. came to my cell and told me that the C.O.s were claiming that I had thrown coffee on them! Two cups, one at each C.O.; even though we only get one cup a day! Later the hearing officer theorized that I saved a cup from the day before. I had to be moved to another cell. "But Sgt.," I exclaimed, "they threw the coffee at me! Look at my clothes!"
I was cuffed, shackled and taken to the prison's old a complete sensory deprivation cell (S.H.U.). I had nothing to read, no inmate contact and a crazy con for a neighbor who would bang on the walls and stomp on the steel bed all day and night.
At this point I was really stressed to the max. I could do nothing except seethe about what had happened. I was put back on the loaf prior to a hearing without seeing anyone as to my physical or mental capacity to withstand the loaf diet. Why should I have been? It was common practice. I was literally crying in my cell. I seriously contemplated suicide thinking that it would teach them that they couldn't treat us like animals!
I went to my hearing for an assault I didn't commit, received six more months in the box, six months loss of good-time, and twenty-one days on the loaf.
What could I do? I left the hearing in chains, holding back tears of rage. As I passed, one of the C.O.s teased, "Look, he's about to cry!"
On the first day after the hearing, I decided I wouldn't go down without a fight. I'd teach these demons a lesson! So I stopped eating. "NO more moldy football shaped bread for me. I'll die before I touch it again!" I didn't even get out of bed unless it was to urinate, the only waste left in bowels. I refused everything. I just didn't move at all. When the C.O.'s called to me through the gate, "Are you alive in there?" I ignored them. Then they'd laugh and walk away. I was hoping to die, it would teach them!
On the fourteenth day without eating the loaf I began to experience pain in my side and my urine was blood red. The doctor told me I should've been more careful and eaten something. I told him I couldn't eat because the food (the loaf) was rotten. He said, "I’m sure it tastes bad, but..." and I interrupted, "No sir, it's moldy and hard as a rock - really rotten!"
He put me in the hospital for the night for observation.
All the while the pain in my side increased by the minute. I was crying and on numerous occasions begged the nurse to give me something for the pain. It took four hours of begging before the nurse called the doctor at home who ordered a mild pain reliever. In five minutes I threw it up with horrible heaves that just increased the pain. I hit the emergency call button and surprisingly, the nurse came quickly. He decided to feel sorry for me at this point and called the doctor again at home. This time, thank God, the doc ordered a shot of morphine for me. I cried with relief as the powerful drug slowly replaced the awful pain. As a kidney stone slowly tore through my side, I drifted off to sleep.
I should've filed a lawsuit! I couldn't, I had no proof, just a lot of paperwork with police lies. My grievances disappeared with time and became police brutality yard stories, bragging-rights. I've been through it. I paid my dues.
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