GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:
Welcome back to the SNAP. Today, we're exploring what happens on the way from here to there. And there are moments in your life when you get the kind of news that changes everything. Well, that's where this next story starts. Gary Heyward was broke, fresh out of the military, living with his mom, and got a letter inviting him to start training as a correction officer in the New York City penal system.
GARY HEYWARD: Hello, my name is Gary Heyward, and I was born and raised in Harlem, New York City in the infamous Polo Ground projects - 155th Street and 8th Avenue. Since I came home from the military, the only job that I could find was security. So this particular day, I came home and my mother handed me a letter that was from the Department of Corrections that said that I was going to start working. It was like winning the lotto. It's hard to get city and state jobs. So when I got the letter, it was like hitting the jackpot. We were just so happy. Me and my mom started dancing around the living room. We was doing the roach stomper, you know, 'cause we had a lot of practice. She broke down and we did the Watusi. But it was just a happy occasion. In a sense, it meant that I could better my life and possibly move out the neighborhood, get a better surrounding for my kids and myself. Where I'm from, police are everywhere. First, for the job, they do an extensive background check. It was unusual because I've never so much got a ticket for illegal turning style, open container, anything. I never got in trouble with the law at all. My first day was terrifying. When I first stepped inside that jail and that door closed behind me, I was scared to death. STD - scared to death. I'm sitting here faced with individuals.
Sometimes you hear, oh, this guy committed murder or this guy is the drug kingpin. So you kind of, like, looked at all of them the same way. Like, whatever you did, that was your choice. You know, you make your bed, you lay in it. Well, I had been on the job about three or four months, and then I heard somebody say, hey, G. If somebody says G or Gary, 9 times out of 10, it's someone who knows me from out on the street. So when I heard, hey, G, the first thing that came to mind is, this is somebody who knows me from the street. And when I turned around, it was my friend Biz (ph), who I had grew up with. So it was kind of like, holy snap. How do I handle this? I knew this was going to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen this soon. My first instinct is protect your job. Do what you got to do, protect your job. So I snapped at him, and I told him my name is Officer Heyward while I'm in here and you address me as such. He stepped back in shock because this, I mean, this is my childhood buddy where, you know, when our families didn't have food, we loaned each other food. And his mother took care of me, my mother took care of him. We shared clothes and sneakers. And I know it was a shock to him to - for me, of all people, to tell him, call me Officer Heyward while you're in here. I felt like a sellout, pretty much. But then I felt like I was doing what I had to do for my job. The rule is, if I run into somebody I know, I write a letter to my command and let them know.
And they're supposed to move that person out of your jurisdiction, out of your jail, so that you won't show favoritism or you won't be put in a compromised position. Well, officers judge - officers are real judgmental. So if you get to writing 5 or 10 letters - every time they look around, they get a letter from you because, if he knows all these criminals, then he may either have dabbled in crime or eventually he will commit a crime. I didn't want to be judged. I didn't follow that rule. And Biz was the type of guy who used jail like a revolving door. He was constantly in and out of jail, stressing his mother out. It was a little while later where I was sitting in the break room, like most officers do, and an alarm goes off. And it rings real loud. It's called the 10-13 - 10-13 means immediate response. That means stop what you're doing and respond to the area. Me and a couple of other officers, we're running to respond to the area, and as we approach, we see a female struggling with an inmate. And she has his hoodie pulled over his head. We also noticed that her nose was busted. So that - you don't hit women, number one. You don't hit officers. So this inmate did a double no-no by hitting a female officer and busting her nose. I was the first one to arrive there, and I just went ballistic. I went ballistic. Punching and hitting him and kicking him and punching him down. For about a good minute or two, we just proceeded to really go in on this guy. And then all of a sudden, his hoodie came off and I realized that it was my friend Biz.
Shock went through my body and I didn't know what to do. And when I fell back, his eyes locked on my eyes. Everything just came up, like the childhood. And just like a quick flash, it was like, what did I - what did I just do? He kind of just blocked everybody else out and just looked at me, and I looked at him. And the other people around was too busy just, you know, hitting on him to realize the connection between me and him. It was crazy. My heart sunk. I couldn't speak. My mouth got dry. I didn't know what to say if I did want to speak. I know I wanted them to stop, but at the same time, I didn't want to be crucified for stopping officers for beating on an inmate. We're supposed to be family, meaning me and the officers. My body shut down and I didn't react. I didn't say nothing and I didn't do nothing and I didn't stop anybody. I just sat there, and I watched and just felt really bad about the whole thing. You got to understand that they drill in your head that inmates are the enemy. And once you become an inmate, he's an inmate. Don't worry about him. He's an inmate. He's nothing. He's low, and you treat him this way. It's not so much that, OK, I can do wrong to this person and get away with it. It's just that this is the way it is. This is the way the job is. You're not supposed to be treated good in prison. You're not supposed to want to come back to prison 'cause it's not a hotel. We control your every move. Everything you do - when you eat, when you sleep, everything. So an inmate came up to me and asked me, could he get some toilet paper. And I told him, go wipe your behind with your hand because I just didn't want to be bothered. He knew it was wrong for me to say that to him, but I didn't care because in here I had god-like powers. And what are you going to do? Write your Congressman. But also, people don't realize that corrections - we're human. We go through the same drama as everyday life.
In my instance, I was going through divorce. With the child support, I was really going through it with my pay. After child support, my check was about $39. I lost my car. My car got repossessed. My apartment - I had to move back in with my mother. I was - my life was spiraling downwards. So now, my back is against a wall. Now I'm sitting here wondering what I'm going to do, how I'm going to survive. And I knew this particular inmate from the street, and I knew that his family had money. And I knew that if I brung him in something - because he'd been asking me anyway - that I can make money. So the next time he asked me, I gave into it. I made arrangements, and then that's how I started bringing contraband inside the jail. At the time, they had something called Top's Tobacco that cost me $2 to purchase from a store. And then the inmate would give me $300 for a $2 pouch of tobacco. The first time I brung contraband inside the jail, I felt like I could hear my heartbeat over everything. I felt that everyone was watching me. That particular day, I took my stab proof vest - the inserts of my vest out, and stuffed my vest with pouches of tobacco. And I put the vest on, and I put my uniform on over it. So as I'm walking through, nervous and shaking and looking around 'cause I just knew everybody knew what was going on. And as soon as I walked through this door, they was just going to jump out and get me. And the captain stopped me. At that moment, I was like, holy crap. This is it. He's going to rip open my shirt and he's going to find out that I have all these cigarettes on me. I froze. He turned me around and he used me as an example to tell the other officers that this is what he liked. He loved when officers came to work dressed and ready to start the day. He told me, good work. And he patted me on my back that was filled of tobacco, filled of cigarettes, and I walked on through the door into the prison. I didn't get caught that first time. The fear went away. And then the greed set in. OK, well, first, it started with cigarettes, and then, eventually, it escalated to liquor, cell phones, cocaine or whatever I thought the inmates thought was of value at the time. I was powerful. I felt I was. I did it for about six years. The one morning, I got a knock on the door. And they said it was the police. They took me downtown. They placed me in a room, and they told me not to talk. Right then and there, I knew it was over. I knew I was in really deep trouble. Right then and there, I became an inmate.
Oh, it was devastating. And that very first day, when I heard those words that I've uttered over and over to inmates - take everything out your pockets. Take your shirt off. Don't shake it out. Take your socks off. Don't shake it out. The humiliating part of you standing there, naked - open your mouth. Run your fingers through your mouth. And then your clothes are taken and you're given a bright orange jumpsuit. And just like that, you're incarcerated and you're in the system. I don't cry much, and I hadn't cried in years. And that first night, I broke down. I curled up on that bed and I cried all night - all night. Officers would come up and look at me like, that's him. That's the correction officer that's a prisoner now. So it was like a creep show. All the things went through my head about, OK, all the people who I had, in the line of duty, punched, beat up. I was placed in my cell and, as the way things go, the officers control everything you do. And I needed to use the bathroom, so I caught the attention of an officer walking by my cell. And I asked him, could he give me, you know, some toilet paper. And he looked at me the same way I looked at that inmate at the time, and he said, go wipe your behind with your hand. And that smacked me upside my head. The real karma to me wasn't really - it was partially because of the drugs and the cigarettes and alcohol and stuff that I brung in. But I felt my overall experience in being a correction officer and some of the things that I did - just physically putting your hands on certain individuals for various reasons - to me, I felt, absolutely, I had deserved to go to prison. You make your bed and you lay in it.
WASHINGTON: Now Gary's layover cost him two years in prison. But he now has a stable city job, which he does not plan on screwing up. You can find out a whole lot more about Gary, his work and his book on our website, SnapJudgment.org. That piece was produced by Anna Sussman with sound design by Renzo Gorrio. When SNAP JUDGMENT returns, karma comes back when you least expect it. Stay tuned. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
