OK Riot

Riot!

After the riot, I went back to the kitchen. For three months we worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. We fed 3000 inmates.  The rest of the prison remained on lockdown. I was one of the few eligible kitchen workers because I did not participate in the riot. One of my jobs was to deliver carts of food to the buildings for their meals. 

 We called it Wigglin. 

I had access to the whole prison. Locks and gates are ran by cops in  bubbles. I push the button, they ask my name, and if I’m supposed to be in that building I say, “kitchen worker.” If I’m not supposed to be in that building or at that gate I say, ” Smith.” Every prison has a sergeant or lieutenant Smith. It’s normal for a LT. to be on any yard or building.

I played the hero, while other inmates sold stolen kitchen food to the people on lockdown, I chose only to give it away. 

Of course I was making so much money selling drugs that I could afford it.

 It’s a lot of work stealing kitchen food and smuggling it to a bunch of starving soldiers. Getting possession of the food is easy, free staff turns their head and a box of chicken patties disappears. Getting it out is tricky. I find a way.

During that time I was able to communicate and listen to the events from that day from dozens of eyewitnesses including cops. But cops get plenty of propaganda time on law and order. 

I was being housed in a private prison in Oklahoma. It was overflow from California. At one point these private prisons tried to house California inmates with  inmates from other states, but the California inmates whacked anyone that refuses to show paperwork to prove that they are not child molesters. Because of that the private prisons segregated all California inmates. 

On every level 3and4  yard in California there are gun towers and cat walks. These catwalks are patrolled buy cops carrying both non-lethal and lethal weapons. 

When a riot starts the cops start firing non-lethal block guns, rubber bullets, and pepper spray.

But.,. If a weapon comes out at any time then they pull out an AR-15 and shoot to kill. And a weapon usually does come out, so sometimes the riot doesn’t stop until the first man dies. 

That’s why you’ll see video of some riots lasting for such a long time, because somebody fucked up I forgot to bring the shank. 

Well private prisons are different. They negotiated with California that is long as there’s no lifers sent to these level 3 yards out of state, then they don’t have to have catwalks or gun towers. 

Which means if a riot kicks off then the cop throws a canister of tear gas into the building, shut the door and gets the fuck out of there. Then what happens will happen.

I was supposed to be at work that day.  I had been there earlier, sign in to get my $0.35 an hour, and then wiggled back to my building so that I could play poker for $0.35 an hour. It was a sweet game the southsiders were off lockdown so I didn’t have to give anybody any deals or breaks on the money they owe me.

Chow Time came and almost everyone had left the building. Me and the rest of the poker table had been hanging back waiting for the last exit, so that we could get a few more hands in. The alarm went off and the door shut. There’s about 20 of us in there and we all separated. Southsiders and whites stood on the north side of the building, while blacks others gathered on the Southside. Northern Hispanics we’re not housed in this prison.

I lived in what they call a high-power building. I was only there because I get grouped in with those guys but did not give one shit about prison politics. 

There was no officer in the building. So we had no information as to what was happening around the rest of the prison. It is mandatory that if one part of the prison gets off then the whole prison gets off. And if information can be passed by cell phones then the riots can even spread to other prisons. 

It was good that I had all the high-powered guys in my building. When the sergeant came in, Miss Ferguson, a short little girl ex-military, she said in her tiny little girl voice,

Lieutenant says if you don’t lock down I have to throw a tear gas grenade. 

We all kind of looked at each other. And she continued to try and nicely asked us to lockdown. 

When I spoke with her after the riot she said she was very afraid during that moment when she had to step into the building alone, and was shaking for a long time after.

I kind of played it off, but was obviously pushing that we locked down. I did not want to get stuck in no riot. 

I told to them that it would be even worse if we kick off a riot and this turns out to be someone having a heart attack or something. 

That was enough to convince them. And me and my celly locked ourselves down in our nice safe cell. And I would never have to worry about my non-participation in the riot because the shot callers for the prison made the call. 

That issue did come up, but I was safe and clear.

The  punishment for non-participation in a riot is getting stabbed.

I jumped up on my bunk flipped on the TV ,  the local news was live with the helicopter flying over and I was able to watch live footage of the riot. It had spread to most of the prison the footage I saw was on the yard. I remember seeing bodies laid out. I remember seeing a couple homeboys waving at the helicopter. I remember seeing the gym door open and bodies crawling over each other as 80 inmates tried to fit through a door. They were all choking severely on tear gas. 

They locked the prison down for a week. FEMA  was called in to feed us because there was no inmates to run the prison.

 It was really fuckin good food.

 The cops came to my door one evening I asked me if I wanted to work in the kitchen. I had been expecting this because I made sure to tell my boss and if anything ever happened you better call me first.

It was my best Paisa buddy that I ran into first. Him and a few of the other guys told me what I missed when I was playing poker. We all work in a satellite kitchen on the far side of the prison. The back of the kitchen was just big enough to hold a serving line, freezers,fridges, and warmers. There was one door that led to the back of the kitchen. 

The Riot  started in the main kitchen during Chow. Somebody bumped in to guy in the chow line. They began to fight, because they were not of the same race, then the rule is if one jumps everyone jumps. And if the southsiders jump, the whites jump in, to back them up and vice versa. 

I’m not sure how the riot spread across the prison to the satellite kitchen. I imagine there were still people coming to Chow and when they saw the riot going on in the kitchen they went back to their buildings to back up their homeboys.

My friends tells me that there were mostly blacks in the front of the kitchen, and soon they were only blacks. The cops threw tear gas and ran out the main kitchen door. But it didn’t stop the right.

 In the back of the house there is only one black person, we all work together everyday nobody wanted to beat this guy to death as soon as they kicked it off they told him to get the fuck out. They saved his life. 

Then they proceeded to barricade the entrance of the kitchen. Because groups of blacks kept making runs up in there trying to smash them. The back of the house had pots and pans to use as weapons and that helped. Soon they had boiling hot water and whenever the blacks would run at the barricade they dump it over.

They were trapped in there for hours together. The blacks outnumbered everyone, and these gang rivalries go way back. Nobody died in  that chow hall, And I have great respect for my friend who saved that black kids life. Someday I’ll have to tell his story. It’s pretty fucking amazing.

In one of the buildings the alarm went off and everybody’s door automatically popped open. 

The blacks do not follow the same politics and they had no reason to stay out. So most of them jumped in their cell and shut the door. But there was 4 or 5, they must have been youngsters, who gathered down by the foot of the stairs. Poor suckers.

There were about 30 southsiders in that building, and not one of them locked it down. One of the guys tried to escape, he lived upstairs, he tried to get to his cell but there were already southsiders waiting upstairs, he almost got in the door when they smashed it on his hand he  lost three of his right fingers. 

Another one was put in a coma. I was in the hole with a guy who’s being charged with putting him in a coma. He was facing many years for it. Just a young Mexican kid I never would have pictured him doing it, I was surprised that he bragged about it, these gangs really fuckin hate each other.

So I didn’t feel so bad when I hustled him out of his money. We’re in dog cages during yard. Everyday he and I would play pinochle. But we are separated by a cyclone fence. It was a hassle for him to cut the cards so he would always just say run em. So I immediately started stacking the deck. I was hungry.

In the main kitchen one of the cops found my buddies goatee. A black guy , kept it in a long braid, They ripped it right out of his chin.

The prison remained on lockdown for a year. Because the rule is that you can’t come out have your cell unless you’re booted and suited, the ones that remained on lockdown couldn’t come out to call their families or even take a shower.

They were only allowed to come out during shower time and the cops would not let them come out with their boots on, only shower shoes. It’s really the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, like nobody’s ever fought barefoot. I asked the shot caller for the south side Mexicans why they enforce such a dumb rule, he said,

Why would I care, I have a cell phone.

That particular prison no longer houses California inmates.