People can be like that, too, especially when they’re locked up in a prison, and the paths they might otherwise take to avoid danger are closed to them.

Two inmates come to mind.

The first, Casper, was housed in a general population unit. He had been found guilty of some minor infraction of the Inmate Code of Offenses (the prison rulebook), and he was serving a penalty of room restriction. He did not like being restricted to his room, and he resisted it. He would fail to return to his Unit from the Dining Hall after a meal, or he would linger on the yard after completing his work assignment and be missing when staff went to check on him in his room. One staff member, I’ll call him Dennis, was in Casper’s crosshairs.

Dennis had written the misconduct report that had landed Casper on room restriction, and Dennis seemed to be extra vigilant about ensuring that Casper was in his room and not avoiding the punishment that had been imposed upon him.

Casper began to give warnings. In words, posture, gestures, tone of voice, and in strong reactions to otherwise inoffensive comments Dennis would make to him. There was a tension building in Casper that anyone could see. Casper spent too much time sitting alone in his room nursing a grudge against Dennis and working himself up into a rage.

Casper was a powder keg ready to explode at any moment, and Dennis knew it, but Dennis seemed unable to defuse the building tension. Perhaps it was impossible, but his supervisor Ms. Bonnie was trying to help him, and she was keeping a close watch.

Our inmate grievance procedure was designed for inmates like Casper. Aggrieved inmates are supposed to pour out their tensions in writing onto a grievance form. On this form, they describe in detail and in their own words the offending staff's misdeeds, and they explain why they feel so angry and threatened. Every inmate who chooses to use our grievance procedure to resolve a problem has chosen not to resort to violence to express himself. I am a strong supporter of our inmate grievance procedure. I’ve coached angry inmates to write them, and I’ve even helped a few inmates decide what to say.

But the inmate grievance procedure is a story for another day. It’s time to get back to Dennis and Casper.

One day, Casper fashioned a shank for himself. A shank is a weapon. Typically, it resembles a knife, but the sharp cutting edge is often missing. What remains is a point. A shank is designed for stabbing, and Casper had one in his hands that day as Dennis was making his rounds.

Casper had taped his shank onto his right hand. With his weapon tightly attached, when he closed his fist and struck his first blows, slippery blood would not cause the shank to slip out of his hand, and he could continue stabbing Dennis without interruption. Casper also knew the request he would make of Dennis that would cause him to open his door. Like a snake, Casper waited to strike. He didn’t wait long.

Dennis appeared at his door midmorning to make sure Casper was inside, and he opened the door as Casper expected he would, and then Casper attacked with his right fist swinging wildly stabbing and slashing at every opportunity. Dennis tried to protect himself, to escape, to fight back, anything to save his life. It was loud and violent and bloody, and Ms. Bonnie rushed to the scene.

Now Ms. Bonnie was not a large woman. She was tall, middle age, and normal weight, but she was surprisingly strong. She grew up on a farm, and she lived on an acreage west of Lincoln with her husband. She cared for a horse on the acreage along with a dozen chickens. Lifting feed, hay, and horse manure had equipped her with upper body strength that would surprise you. It surprised Casper. Oh yes, Ms. Bonnie was also brave, and she was not afraid of men, something necessary in a farm family when your older siblings are all brothers. That also surprised Casper.

Ms. Bonnie alerted Central Control of the emergency, so they could send our Emergency Response Team, and then she went into action. She rushed to the scene and jumped onto Casper’s back. It stopped the attack, and as they struggled together, she and Casper tumbled down a flight of stairs. Fortunately, Casper was on the bottom, so she rode him down the stairs as she would a horse. It reminded her of her rodeo days, and by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, all the fight had been knocked out of Casper.

A host of security officers responded to the emergency, and they soon arrived. They quickly disarmed Casper and led him away, and then we could tend to Dennis’s injuries. Finally, we could stand back and marvel at the courageous actions of our very own Ms. Bonnie. Bonnie the brave! She had probably saved Dennis’s life.

Dennis recovered from his injuries. We never saw Casper again. He was transferred to another prison, and Ms. Bonnie did not get a medal for her heroism, but she deserved one. At that time, we didn’t award medals to anyone for anything they might do on the job. Maybe we should start. If we did, I’d nominate Ms. Bonnie.

The second inmate that comes to mind is Jackson, and his situation was very similar to Casper’s. He was serving a period of confinement in a Disciplinary Segregation cell, and he was angry with Peter, a caseworker in our Unit. He believed Peter was a danger to him. Peter was a strapping young man who dismissed any danger Jackson might pose. Peter could take care of himself, he said. But his bravado did not serve him well. Jackson was not intimidated, and he, too, like Casper, planned his attack.

When Jackson’s door was cracked open one day, he pushed it open and rushed out of his room and attacked Peter without warning. Using only his fists and feet, he landed several blows to Peter’s face and head before Peter knew what had hit him. Peter put up a brave fight, but by the time we arrived to help, he was down on the floor with Jackson on top pummeling him with blows as fast as he could.

Bar room etiquette dictates that a fight can quickly end once a winner and a loser are determined, but we weren’t in a bar. Jackson had to be pulled off of Peter. Officers restrained Jackson, and then they had to drag him off the Unit, and as they dragged him away, Jackson continued to hurl threats and insults, and he continued to try to get away from them and so he could inflict more damage on Peter. He was struggling with the officers even as they dragged him out the door and closed it behind him.

Peter was a mess. Bruises were rapidly rising on his face and head, and blood dripped from his nose and from lacerations on his scalp that soaked into his shirt. His adrenalin level was sky-high, and we had a hard time getting him settled down. As he was being led out the door to receive medical care, I cautioned my supervisor not to let him return anytime soon.

“He’s going to take some time to recover,” I said, “physically and emotionally.”

There is a surprising amount of blood coursing through the veins and arteries of the face and scalp, and once everyone had left the scene, it fell to me to clean up the blood that had sprayed out of Peter with every new blow that struck him. It was everywhere.

I got a mop bucket, and I filled it with hot water and bleach, and I spent the next hour cleaning Peter’s blood off of the floor, walls, and ceiling of the housing area gradually tinting the mop water red. Inmates stood silently at their doors and watched me. The smell of warm blood lingered in my nostrils, and was gradually replaced with the smell of bleach. Both smells followed me home after work that day. I felt a little awkward as I stepped through the front door. I didn’t want to upset my wife and family.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” she said. “How was your day? Anything interesting happen today?”

How do you go home after work and tell your family that you spent an hour that day cleaning up a co-worker’s blood? A fellow caseworker, who was doing the same job you were doing, but in a different part of the same unit where you worked, and at the same time as you were working. As I recall, I told my wife nothing.

“Oh, nothing special today, Honey,” I said. “Just another day.”

Discussion

1. What policies and procedures can administrators follow to help employees who experience trauma?
2. What can employees do to help themselves respond to traumatic experiences?

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