THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT AT CCA-FEDERAL HOLDING
After I was indicted, I spent three years on pretrial, walking among the free folk in a daze wondering when the sky was going to fall. When it was finally time to take my plea, I had to turn myself in to the marshals and go into custody to wait for sentencing. This meant I was going to a federal holding facility for an undisclosed amount of time and not knowing how much time I would get at sentencing. Turning myself in was like throwing myself into a rabbit hole that I had no clue when I would finally hit the bottom, or about the journey I would have along the way. The stories and experiences I have had are never dull. The first week of incarceration proved to be the craziest of all. Hope you enjoy this story…
When I turned myself into the marshals, they took me to CCA, aka federal holding, in Leavenworth, Kansas. I knew I was lucky because when my indictment first came out, I had spent a few days at another federal holding facility. It was a small county jail and it was bad. It was so bad they did not give you underwear and would not let you buy them. For women, that is generally a problem once a month. The only pair of underwear I saw there was an old stained, ripped pair of men’s briefs that someone had procured somewhere and somehow. I didn’t ask questions, but those things should be framed and used in a scared straight program for kids.
I do not know how many women were there, but we were all packed into what seemed to be a basement with tiny rooms and 4 beds in each room, and it was full. One day they called to see who wanted to go to rec and I jumped up excited to get out and explore, but was disappointed to find out that I was only going into another room with no windows and NOTHING in there. I was only there for a couple days but some of these women had been there for over a year. I often think of them and cannot figure out how they did it. I was relieved when I found out I was not going there. The experience was enough to make me grateful for the maximum security holding that I ended up with.
When I first got to CCA it was sometime after 4 pm. I dressed out and they gave me my set of bright orange uniforms, plenty of never used underwear, blankets and pillow. Then I waited to see the medical folks in a cold room for what turned into hours. The place seemed big and I just wanted to get to where I was going and see what I was dealing with.
Sometime after 10 pm, I was finally done, and a guard came and got me and escorted me to my pod. We walked out of that building and past a large outdoor rec yard and then into another building and down a long hall and then finally into the pod. It seemed like we went through an unreasonable number of doors and gates all opened remotely by some magical button controller. Some we had to wait for and some opened before us as we walked. This place was big, but I would take that any day over the cramped spot I was in before. This was more like the places they make movies about, which makes more sense because the other place was so small you could not fit a camera crew in there.
I was coming in on a Friday, which if you have a choice, I advise against doing. Apparently, as a new inmate you must have someone from the “unit team” check you the rest of the way before you can go into population. Unit team officers only work Monday through Friday. That meant I was going to be spending the weekend in an isolated intake room, until the unit team came in on Monday to check me in the rest of the way. As I walked into my 6 x9 cell it was somewhat dark but really jail is never dark. There is always an uncomfortable amount of light on. The cell had a sink and toilet on my left and a little table attached to the wall on the right. There was a bunk bed against the wall where the narrow window was, with a human, already somewhat passed out on the lower bunk.
I looked at the very awkward ladder to get to the top bunk and wondered how this would possibly go. I quickly learned it was easier to climb on the table and jump over to the top bunk. I was nervous and concerned about this whole sleeping situation because I am a sleepwalker, but that is a whole other story. I was able to get up there and pass out.
The next day, I was up exploring my tiny new world and watching people through the cell door. The inmates were collecting things for us when we got our hour out for the shower and putting it just outside the door. That is right, my bunkmate and I would only get 1 hour a day outside this cramped cell and during this time all the other inmates were to be locked down. We were lepers and no one could get near us for some reason. I was grateful to see all the things being gathered on the other side of the door. On my way in, all I was given was a bar of soap, toothbrush and toothpaste.
One of the inmates told me through the door that I could ask the guard for razors. So, I located a speaker and a button next to the door, pushed the button, and asked the nice guard in the bubble. She sent someone right over with razors, along with some ice for my water, then popped my door to give them to me. To be clear, the bubble is glassed in place between the two ladies’ pods where a guard sits and watches cameras all over the pods all day and controls all the electric doors for the cells and the entry to the unit.
It became a magical button in my mind. This might sound a bit dumb and maybe a bit entitled, but my lips were really chapped, so, I hit the button and asked if there was any chap stick anywhere. The guard laughed and asked where I thought I was, apparently, I had gone too far with that one.
Come Monday, I was out of intake and in with the rest of the ladies. It was interesting to meet everyone and they all could not have been nicer or more accommodating, which still did not ease my suspicious mind. At federal holding they lump everyone together in one high security facility. The majority had not been sentenced yet and were in that horrible uncertain limbo of waiting like I was. From murderers to white collar money crimes, there we were all in there together. Without access to Google and facebook, you could be anyone you wanted to be because there was no way to look it up. I did not believe anything anyone said. I tried to keep to myself, but I am friendly, and I work out like a psycho which intrigued people. I set up a workout routine and used the whole pod as my playground and got right to it and people were happy to join me. Each day got a little easier the more I got to know people and let my guard down a little at a time.
My suspicious mind probably came from me watching all the TV shows and movies about prison. It was my way of studying where I was going, I guess. I had no desire to sit down or sit still. Watching TV was not part of my plan, I was on the move like a maniac all day and evening until I passed out.
I was quickly realizing that I was being dramatic with my suspicions of the people around me. I was surrounded by a bunch of ladies that meant no harm. I started to make a few close friends and was excited to learn that one of my favorite TV shows was a pod favorite. Of course, “Queen of the South” would be an inmate favorite when most of us were in for drugs. Thursday at 9pm was going to be my big chance to sit down and join the crowd. I was dying for some normalcy in my life, just a little something to remind me of home.
I must pause, dear reader, and paint a picture of my surroundings at the time for better understanding. The pod had 2 tiers of cells and I think there were 21 on the top and 21 on the bottom. The top had a walkway to the rooms and a railing that went around to a set of stairs on both sides. The center of the pod was a large open area with 4 TVs on poles on each end of the room. There were a lot of tables each with 4 stools attached. This is where we ate, watched TV, played cards, and hung out. There were only windows inside the cells. They were very narrow and did not provide much light, and there was no view.
I was in a bottom tier room and my little window looked out to the segregation housing unit concrete rec yard. It was the punishment yard with one basketball hoop and an impressive amount of bird poop. The concrete walls went up 2 stories high so I could only tell if it was day or night. I could not see the sun, stars, moon, or even a cloud. It was not a window I bothered to gaze out. We were not allowed to go into other people’s cells, but it did not matter, no one had much of a view to look at.
On with the story…
It was Thursday and I had almost made it a whole week. I was doing big things and was beginning to settle in. As the night went-on ! I was getting excited to watch my show at 9. At 8:50 I was looking for a seat and desperately searching for the station on my radio so I could hear the TV. All the TVs have transmitters that you have to tune into because there is no volume without it. Of course, I could not get to the station to save my life and finally asked for help. I was ready with snacks and it was not home, but it was all I had.
At 8:55pm almost the entire pod was gathered for the show, and poof! All the power went completely out, it was pitch black. I immediately had crazy thoughts going through my head. I thought for sure someone had cut the power and either someone was escaping, or someone was going to die, I had watched too much TV. It was instant chaos. The only power that was working was the insanely loud alarm with a flashing strobe light. I felt like I was at a rave, all I needed was some music.
I quickly located the pregnant girl that was about to pop and the girl that had just had heart surgery and had one on each arm. I set them down at a table in the center of the room, told them not to move, and I went off to investigate the situation.
I had never in my life seen anyone have a seizure. I have heard about people with epilepsy and I have heard stories of people having seizures, but this was my first time seeing one in person. I learned the loud alarm is a trigger by itself and then the strobe light seals the deal. As I moved around the dark pod, I realized there were 4 people seizing. One gal that is still a great friend till this day, had grand mal seizures. I thought people were saying grandma seizures. It looked like something had possessed her body and I will not lie, it freaked me out. I was glad to see a group of women gathered around her taking care of her because this was not something I wanted to sign up for.
I moved up against the wall under the walkway of the second tier just waiting for more mass insanity I just knew would be coming . There was another lady on the floor with a group of inmates helping her next to me having a seizure as well. The ladies helping her kept saying she was biting her tongue. I kept trying to pass someone my spork (combination fork and spoon) to put in her mouth. It is all I had and in my brain that made perfect sense. It was good that there were so many people that knew what to do because the guards were locked out and the only source of help was inmates. The power outage kept the guard in the bubble from being able to control the doors, so we were on our own. It was left to the inmates to give medical care and take care of one another. The guards all wore a lot of keys on their side and I do not understand what those went to, and apparently they did not either because they never bothered to enter.
Right about now you should be thinking that the generators should have kicked on. Well they should have. At a maximum-security facility that housed roughly 1000 inmates with electric doors, you would think they would be on top of making sure the generators were in working condition. We later learned they were not broken, there just was no fuel in them. No big deal, right?
Somehow the alarm was turned off and I was able to hear the thunder and see the flashes of lightning. There was a raging storm and knowing that instantly settled all the crazy conspiracies in my head. This seemed to freak some people out even more and they were screaming and running through the darkness. I guess the storm made it scarier to them. I know the crazy things in my head were the polar opposite of a little storm, I was really relieved.
This went on for over an hour. At some point a guard and some nurses came in to check on the people that they knew struggled with seizures. Again, having no experience with seizures and no ability to Google I did not know what they were supposed to do but as I watched I noticed they did not seem to know what to do either. It was weird. With the alarm quieted they finally stopped seizing but sat there in that eerie trance with a blank look in their eyes. Some people acted like it was no big deal that the aliens took over their bodies, but I had never seen anything like that.
Since the power was off, we had no air conditioning and no air flow. Many of us were concerned about locking down and when they told us to, we asked for a lieutenant. A very nice, compassionate man came and negotiated with us to go to bed and leave the door open just enough to where it was not locked. I never did understand the purpose of that, but we went for it and nothing happened. We all made it through without anyone harming anyone.
In conclusion, what I took away from that crazy event was actually a warm fuzzy feeling . I will never forget looking around the room and watching the compassion pour out of these ladies. I was moved to see how everyone was compelled to do everything they could to help one another. There was a human in each of those beings and not a single bad intention . With no power, no lights, and no cameras, someone could have done terrible things that night, but not even one did. I learned a lot about inmates that night. I learned that all these people accused of bad things can be such amazing, beautiful people that are caring and loving, and in a crisis, when given the opportunity, they choose to do the right thing. That night will stay with me forever . It felt good to stand with these women, and with this tribe. Not only did this experience make for a great story, it gave me a different perspective on the people that would surround me for years to come, and that has been such a huge blessing.
