Walking the 'Toughest Beat in the State'
(just one example)
by Timothy J. Muise

I have an old friend here, Bob D., who has been in prison since 1989. He is eligible for parole but the fine members of the Parole Board, who never used any type of peer reviewed social science evaluation techniques, have chosen to deny this man release on the basis of hate and job security. (My educated opinion) I have known Bob to be one of the most generous men I have met, inside or outside prison, but the powers that be care very little about true human identity; all they care about is the worst moment of a human being's life and how they feel it should haunt him (and his family) to the grave.

Bob is an honourably discharged Marine. He served at Guantanamo Bay Cuba and took pride in his service. He is well travelled having lived in New Zealand and the wilds of the Canadian wilderness. An avid sportsman he has hunted and fished all over this fine land and distant remotes. He has always donated to charity and I know of several very unselfish donations he has made to a cleft pallet repair fund and feed the children endeavours. Does the Parole Board know about that? Do the guards who abuse him in here, because of his disability, know about that? I think not, but I also think they would not care; again the hate and job security.

My friend suffers from myesthenia gravis. It is killing him. His eyelid muscles no longer work to keep his eyes open; he has to tape his eyelids up. His speech becomes slurred after a short time conversing with friends and this is especially sad for me as I know that Bob loves to spin lengthy yarns about his many outdoor adventures. What is really beginning to take its toll is the fact that Bob's throat muscles are beginning to fail and it is extremely difficult for him to swallow his food. He can't let medical staff know or they will lock him up in Deputy Denied-Oh's 'sniff' (the prison hospital unit) where he will surely perish. He has seen too many go into the 'sniff' never to be seen again.

Bob has learned to treat his own symptoms. He takes back food from the chowhall in small plastic bags and crushes it into a puréed form so that he can swallow it. It is bad enough he has to amble up to the chowhall each and every meal to get his food, 70 years old and aided by a cheap state cane he slowly treads the walkway, having to stop every 15 or 20 yards due to his lack of breath. No guard ever asks 'Are you okay?' they just tell him 'Let's move along', or 'keep it moving old man.' If this was Guantanamo and the can was his trusty M-14 rifle he may answer in a different way, but being sick and old he swallows his pride and makes his way up to get his sustenance.

Last week I was in the chowhall when I observed a 6'4" guard gawking in Bob's direction. As Bob tried to exit the chowhall the guard said to him, 'Hey you, come here. What do you have in your coat?' Bob responded, 'a few rolls and some potatoes.' The guard said: 'you just disrespected me by stealing that stuff with the sergeant standing right there. Give it to me.' As this shakedown was happening a real waste of human life, COach Woodhead (not his real name - but close), approached like this already abusive guard needed back-up against this 70 year old, terminally ill prisoner. He wise-cracked, 'What do you think your doing? How much shit you got? You better give us all of it.' He was overly agressive with a sick old man as he is a super, super coward; my blood just boiled, I had to come back and write this peace. These two real pieces of shit are some of the big 'union talkers' here at the camp. Their whole goal is to be able to stay home and still get their checks. Woodhead is so lazy that he turned in his blue paramilitary jump suit to pretend to be an athletic coach. If you could have seen these two fools picking on this old and dying man, who was just trying to get some food back to his cell to live, your whole perspective on the prison system would change. How does a man steal his own food anyway?

Bob is too proud to offer these fools any explanation. He would never tell them he was trying to prepare food he could swallow as he knows they would put their jackboot across his throat before they would help him to quell his hunger. They hate Bob because he is a prisoner. They hate all prisoners because they hate themselves. You have to hate yourself when your job is keeping a man in a cage; in this case a sick old man. They push Bob and all prisoners down in an attempt to raise themselves up. But in the end it does not work. These guards have the highest suicide and domestic violence rates of all law enforcement. Recently in the national magazine 'The Week' it quoted that propublica reported:
"Corrections officers are responsible for about half of the sexual assaults in prisons, a new Justice Department study found. Authorities dismiss about 90% of inmate allegations of sex abuse as 'unsubstantiated." - ProPublica.com (as quoted in The Week 02/07/14)

Now old Bob D. was not sexually abused, thank God, but I cannot put it past these abusive and predatory prison guards. No one knows better than me how these correctional fools use the 'unsubstantiated' determination in almost every instance. I make numerous complaints, with strong and compelling supportive evidence, but they are all rules 'unsubstantiated.' I get my relief in the Superior Court Department!

The bottom line here is two fold: why is Bob still in prison?, and why does the public not realise that these guards are diminishing public safety rather than promoting it? The answer is ignorance. The cure is education. I am going to use this blog, and some other powerful forums to shine a light on these 'hunger police'. I just hope my friend Bob lives long enough to see some results. Sicne when does 'walking the toughest beat in the state' mean taking food out of the mouth of an old disabled veteran?

This is the latest in his 'toughest beat in the state' series. More to come from time to time on what these prison guards really do in here. On your dime!

By Timothy J. Muise