Flight One:
Now, this post is from memory (as I was in shackles and/or without pen or paper for this part of my kidnapping). The guys and I are taken to the “shipping & receiving” area of the detention center in Kansas, where we change out of the jumpsuits we’d been wearing and into the cloths that we’d been kidnapped in. I’m now in a fancy suite and shiny black shoes, so everyone can confirm what they thought – I’m not a typical kidnapped person.
We’re then put on a bus and taken to a private airport to await the plane. We wait for a significant amount of time, then it arrives. I can see that it’s clearly a Boeing 737 similar to the Southwest Plane I’d taken to Nebraska many times over the last three years. Inside it has the familiar 3 seats on each side. Although all the passengers are all in shackles. After we’re all seated, the plane takes off like a rocket.
About an hour later we’re at our destination and everyone is taken off the plane into a large holding area. We’re giving lunch and await our assignments. This is the last I’d see of my travel partners as this is where we get “designated” for our final kidnapping locations. We are forced out of our cloths and put into jumpsuits again. Then we line up to talk to a guy who will tell us where we’re going. I’m told I’m going to Elkton FCI in Ohio. After that we say our goodbyes and wait to be taken to our “rooms”.
Transer Center in Oklahoma:
This is where I get my first taste of “prison politics”. It basically consists of making snap judgements about you based on your charge. I cannot speak to the hierarchy in State prisons, but I can state with some authority about the caste system in federal prison. On the bottom rung are “snitches”. One up from them are the “cho-mos” a slang term they use to disparage (rightfully so in many cases) those convicted of sex crimes. One rung above them are the drug users (or losers as I labeled them). The top rung consists of the white collar criminals and the car leaders. A “car” is the gang you “ride with” during your incarceration. Where I’m going (a low security prison) cars are not a thing. I learned about them because a low security prison has a lot a people who had worked their way down (by programming and behaving) at higher security institutions. So everything you’ve seen or heard about prisons kind of applies to medium and higher security prisons, but absolutely do not apply to low and minimum security prisons. As a side note, minimum security prisons in the federal system are called “Prison Camps”, I shit you not.
So, now I’m in a pod and I’m put into a bunk bed room with a white guy with tattoos on his face named “Joker” – who immediately becomes obsessed with my ability to access the BOP’s electronic communication system. Apparently he believes it proves I’m a “cho-mo”. It actually doesn’t; but, I’m not about to argue with him about it. In the end a new friend I’ve made agrees to accept me as his roommate when joker learns I don’t have access. I told Joker I was a hacker, so they won’t allow access while I’m in transit but he refuses to accept my excuse. (This was actually true for me, all I had to do was ask for access and it was granted at Elkton). Anyway, I was happy that the transfer center had the best food I’d had since my kidnapping began. Seriously, it was good diner quality food.
My new friend and I commiserated about how ridiculously unfair the “justice system” is, agreeing that we believed all the myths before getting swooped up in it. His pre-sentence report (in Court records as a PSR or PSI) was ridiculous (as was mine) because “hearsay” and “wild speculation” are allowed. For instance, I refused to talk to them, on advise of counsel (turned out to be the only good advice they gave). My new friend made the mistake of talking to them, where they turned everything he said into a negative. He was “convicted” of a financial crime. He told them that he was an upstanding member of the community, even volunteering to coach his sons soccer team. They boiled that statement down to “Enjoys spending time with young boys.” So yeah, refuse to talk to any criminal justice official without a lawyer present.
My new friend and I watched the Super Bowl through a window into one of the four TV Rooms. This was my first encounter with the FACT that TV Rooms are the PRIMARY focus of federal prison life and they are highly & fiercely contested resources. (More on that in my next post). Since we weren’t allowed in the TV rooms, we played board games and cards to pass the time between delicious meals. Anyway, after the Super Bowl, my new friend and I are woken up by a guard @ 4AM Monday. He ordered me to pack up (you need to put that they’ve given you into your bedsheet and tie it into a bag to take everything with you). We say our goodbyes and the guard comes back in 30 minutes or so. He takes me back the familiar “airport” area where about a hundred other people are shackled up and waiting to board the plane. (Apparently they got me and a few others minimum security people last. They put our shackles and cuffs on loosely then have us take a seat on a bench).
Flight Two:
Unlike the first flight, this one is going to be an all day affair. We board the plane and a couple of hours later we’re near Manhattan (we can see the skyline). We get more passengers and we’re off again like a rocket, seriously I wish commercial jets flew as fast as Con-Air. During this next two hour flight we’re given lunch (bologna sandwiches, chips, cookies and a bottle of water.) After lunch we land again and pick up female prisoners. (The hoodlums were very happy about that development). Once they’re settled in at the front of the plane, we take off again. We land outside Pittsburgh around dusk and are carefully (slowly) transferred to a half dozen busses all headed to different places (thus the care to make sure everyone gets on the right bus). They made some mistakes, so none of the busses were allowed to leave until they had accounted for everyone. Once Accounted for, we had to wait for the plane to leave. Once it was gone, we made our way into the darkness. My bus had six passengers, all going to a low faculty so the guard didn’t stay at his perch in the back of the bus because it was next to the bathroom (it didn’t smell). This was a standard sized metro bus, designed to hold like 30 or 40 people, so we all had a row to ourselves. I looked out the window as the we past through small depressed town after small depressed town. Since my shackles were loose it was easy for me to do number 1 in the bathroom and arrived at Elkton without any marks from them.
We’re taken off the bus and taken into the “reception” area. We were all laughing about the lone gunman with an AR-15 watching us enter the building. Once inside we’re given a bag containing everything the prison is going to give us and taken to our assigned dormitories. Next post I’ll discuss Elkton FCI.