Office Alex learns the fine art of guarding an unhappy customer
In police work, there are two specific jobs that require the same uniform but have nearly opposite roles: Law Enforcement and Corrections.
Saying this annoys the crap out of corrections officers because they will point out in most non-privately run jails they are both sworn officers and wear the identical uniforms as their counterparts in patrol, but that’s where the similarity ends and is by no means an insult.
You see, Corrections is a job I couldn’t do. I’m not equipped. They are better than I am, and while that’s not saying much it’s definitely the opposite of an insult. There are no investigations; no arrests. No freedom to move about, not much more than the people they’re guarding in some cases.
It’s thankless, miserable, and most jails have upwards of a 45 percent turnover rate. (Anyone here own or operate a business? Imagine the training and equipment costs.)
I say all that to tell you that I wind up on occasion guarding prisoners.
I was sitting in a chair only marginally more comfortable than the stainless steel bench my guest was chained to, and he was as successfully feigning interest as well as he could while staring at the ceiling as I was looking at my flip phone. (Yup. I’m not dating this story but I said “flip phone.”)
This blows.
I’d been caught by a detective in a hallway during a rare return to the Mothership (aka police headquarters) and he asked if I could “come here for a second.” I’d already made eye contact so I began mentally kicking my ass in advance as I approached to hear the inevitable, “Could you watch this guy a second while we interview the victim? Thanks.”
I don’t know why he was there and didn’t care. I just knew what I wouldn’t be doing for the foreseeable future and that was enjoying myself in the least bit. It’s not that the job was hard, it’s that it could (and would) go on for hours.
And not just your work hours; you could be there at shift change, and you can’t leave until someone else can’t find a way around relieving you meaning you’d be going into overtime instead of going home.
Meanwhile your partners are answering calls with one less guy to back them up and cursing you for it, which goes back to the idea that there are people that actually do something similar to this every day, all day…in Corrections.
My customer was cuffed behind his back while sitting down which is a bit unusual (we really aren’t in the torture game) and after a few moments of silence I’d noticed a drop of blood smeared on the bench behind him when he shifted at some monotonous point.
I stood up to examine him out of both decency and boredom, and saw an injury on his wrist above his cuffs. I flagged down another passing officer—a sergeant actually—and knowing he wasn’t going to get stuck relieving me because of his rank he didn’t hesitate to help.
“Let’s get these cuffs around front and see what we can do here, son,” the Sarge said as he waived for him to stand. He turned him around and got one cuff off as I stepped towards them and it was about that second that in one motion my guest dropped to his knees and wrapped his hands around the pistol grip of the Sarge’s duty weapon that was not coincidentally anchored into its holster by three separate safety points.
“Well damn,” I would have said if I were thinking instead of diving in to place my hands over the prisoners in an effort to keep that pistol exactly where it was. “GIVE it to me!” he screamed. “I want to DIE! I DESERVE to DIE!”
While I took him at his word, it wasn’t going to be on his terms.
Detectives poured out of doorways and began to pile on (“I came out and there was Teach’s feet sticking out from under a pile of cops, hoo boy!” one would later recall) and there I was with Sarge’s gun still inches from my face, keeping it in place, until they pried him off and re-secured him.
“Damn, that was a hell of a thing wasn’t it?!” they said while catching their breath, and I agreed, finally having pulled myself into a sitting position.
“By the way. Would you mind watching him again? Thanks pal.”
I closed my eyes, but did not cry. (I think.)
Best job in the world.
When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.