Scenes of Prison
44. Breakfast assault
I t was early morning. Dawn was only a suggestion of the high clouds glowing faintly in the sky above our Unit. I was in a general population Unit, and I was supervising the breakfast meal in the pantry. I was the only staff member in the area. Inmates were lined up and filing past the food cart picking up their trays. Next, they took seats at one of our four-person square tables and ate their food. The first inmates to arrive were sitting at tables quietly eating. Late arrivals were standing in line waiting for their trays to be prepared. Once finished, inmates returned their trays to a collection table and left the pantry. It was quiet. Inmates ate without conversation.
A refillable glass sugar dispenser rested on a shelf of the food cart. Inmates used it to add sugar to their coffee and to pour sugar on their cereal. It was made of heavy glass, and it fit comfortably into the hand of a tall, young, athletic inmate named Kirik who curled his long fingers around it and imagined it to be something entirely different.
Kirik looked away from the sugar container and glanced briefly at a nearby table where an inmate was sitting by himself. The table was directly in front of the office door where I was standing and watching. The seated inmate was facing away from him.
Suddenly, Kirik tightened his grip on the sugar dispenser and dropped his hand and arm to his side. He took a couple of steps away from the food cart, and with a wide upward swing of his fist - now armed with the sugar dispenser - he quickly reversed the motion and swung downward with all his strength planting the sugar container squarely on the top of the head of the unsuspecting inmate he had noticed. He was an easy target. He was alone, sitting perfectly still at a table, facing away from him, and eating his breakfast.
WHAM!!
The sugar container landed with a sickening thud, and then it bounced, flying high out of his hand and across the room. The inmate who had been sitting quietly eating his breakfast collapsed onto the floor, and Kirik followed him down. He was on him with fists flying and curses and threats echoing off the walls. All the inmates in the pantry scattered, heading for the exit doors, and I activated my emergency alert on my two-way radio. It all happened in a few seconds.
Kirik rose from the inmate he had assaulted and stood upright. He paused for a couple of seconds as he looked down at the bleeding, motionless inmate lying on the floor in front of him, and he took a step away and turned slightly to his right. I jumped at the opportunity to intervene. I stepped between Kirik and the inmate on the floor and faced Kirik, and I extended my hands to rest on his chest as he turned back toward me.
I had thought he might be finished with the attack, but he actually intended to continue the assault. He had stepped away so he could pick up a chair to use as a weapon. Now, as he turned back to continue the attack, he raised a pantry chair high over his head ready to bring down a crushing blow on the now-barely conscious inmate lying on the floor.
I was in the way.
My mind raced. Kirik wasn’t mad at me. I was a caseworker. He knew I was there to help inmates, and his attention was squarely on the inmate on the floor. I put both hands on his chest and gently pushed him backward.
“That’s enough, Kirik. That’s enough,” I said softly directly into his face as I stepped toward him and gently pushed him backward once again. His eyes and his attention were trained behind me at the inmate who was sprawled on the floor. I kept my two hands on his chest and continued repeating “That’s enough,” as I continued stepping toward him and pushing him farther and farther away from the scene. I hoped my gentle touch and words would calm him.
As he moved backward, Kirik took one hand off of the chair still poised high above his head. He was ready to strike, but I was in the way. He continued moving backward, away from his victim as I gently pushed him. As we neared the pantry exit door, he hurled the chair toward a group of inmates who were now moving toward the injured inmate. They wanted to help him get out of the pantry and away from his attacker.
I continued to keep my hands on Kirik’s chest. “That’s enough, Kirik. That’s enough,” I kept repeating softly as I gently pushed him through the door and completely out of the pantry. Soon, very soon, our Emergency Response Team showed up, cuffed Kirik, and escorted him away.
I returned to the pantry to tend to the injured inmate, and I was surprised to find that he wasn’t seriously injured. I gained a new respect that day for the strength of the top of the skull to withstand blows.
Kirik disappeared out the entrance door with his hands cuffed at the base of his back and three security officers walking behind him. His first stop was the Control Unit, and his next housing assignment was far away from the inmate he had assaulted, and far away from me. I never learned why Kirik had assaulted the other inmate. I imagined that there must have been some history between them, but I knew nothing of it.
Those of you reading this now who work in corrections or law enforcement will be shaking your heads in disbelief as you read this. Why, you might ask, would someone take such a foolish risk to protect an injured inmate? All I needed to do was to spray Kirik in the face with the chemical agent that I carried on my duty belt. It is an irritant, like bear spray, and he would have stopped immediately and not have been able to carry on the attack.
You are absolutely right. If I'd had a chemical agent on my duty belt that day, that’s exactly what I would have done. Unfortunately, at the time, we did not have chemical agents as part of our standard issue.
Today, everyone in the criminal justice system who works with prisoners carries chemical agents, and the job is safer because of it. It is much easier to have an inmate take a shower to remove the irritant than it is to stitch together lacerated tissue or piece together the shattered bones of a face, especially if it is your face.
Discussion
- The first rule in first aid is to assess the safety of the setting before attempting to give aid. Many lives are lost every year because people spring to give assistance and find themselves needing assistance, too. Did the author adequately address the safety of this setting?
- Describe other ways this incident might have unfolded.
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