Thomas T 7.18

Brian Dita and his son Mason are first responders in a Florida community. They started Responder Chronicles to share stories from people in the field. Brian's goal is to educate and inspire others to join the field. They interview Thomas, a correction officer, who shares his experiences dealing with inmates and the dangers he has faced. Thomas talks about the use of homemade weapons in prison and the challenges of being a correction officer. He also shares a story of an intense encounter with an inmate who tried to attack him. Thomas discusses the use of OC spray and how he has become accustomed to it. You're listening to Responder Chronicles with your host, Brian Dita. And my co-host is Mason Dita. He is my son. Mason, you want to say anything? Hi. Hello. We are first responders, firefighters in a northwest Florida community. We've been doing it for a few years now, and we thought, you know, let's get these stories out here for the public to hear. Many people don't realize that some of the things we say, some of it can be pretty bad, but a lot of it can be very comical. A goal of doing this Responder Chronicles is to catalog, share the stories of people who are involved in whether it's fire, EMS, police, correctional officer, and I know we're even going to get some war stories from maybe some soldiers that they just want to share out there. My main goal is to educate people and see, you know, try to get people to go in this field. Our country is a great country, and we need people who will step up. When nobody else, a lot of people say, well, why do you do volunteer firefighter? You put yourself on the line. I think if I'm going to put my life on the line, I want to get paid for it. Well, yeah, getting paid would be nice, but you know what? Somebody's got to do it, and also, it's the most fun I've ever had in my life. So that, today we have a man that I've known for several years. His name is Thomas. We're not going to say his last name or the agency that he works for, but he has been working for many years, so at this time, I'd like to introduce my friend, Thomas. Thomas? How you doing? I'm doing good, and Thomas, what do you do for a living? I'm a correction officer in the state of Florida. I've worked in the stateside, and I work in county. All right, and so now, you work for the stateside, but you also work for a prison, didn't you? Correct. You work for a prison? Yes. Now, how many total years do you think you've had in the correctional system? If you add my time at DJJ, about 16, 17. I forgot you did DJJ, and for those of you who may not know, DJJ is the Division of Juvenile Justice, so you get everybody under the age of 18, right? They can be older. It just depends. We've had them come in as old as 28 years old from a juvenile warrant that they ran on. Wow. Okay, and so the laws kind of apply a little differently there. Now, what got you into corrections? Job security. Because there's always going to be somebody. Okay. Now, my mom was a correctional officer, and so was my stepdad for several years. They actually worked at Rikers Island in New York, so anybody that was ... Its fame is well-known, and so she had told me, why don't you become a correctional officer? And I said, Mom, if I'm going to deal with bad guys, I'd rather deal with them out there when I run into them occasionally and not be surrounded by them. Right. So I think it takes a special person who wants to do corrections, I would guess, all right? Yeah, dealing with inmates is like dealing with your kids, just on a different level. Just on a totally different level. All right, now, you had some ... Weren't you a volunteer firefighter or EMS? When I was 18 until I moved out of the district that I was in, and I just didn't have time for it. Did I give you a taste for first responder law enforcement? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Okay. So we've got a couple of questions here, and Mason's going to jump in here and there. So what is the first ... Whether it was DJJ, the private prison, or the ... What is it? County, state? Yes. Yeah, corrections. What was the first time ... The first thing that you ever came across and you realized, wow, this is real. This is ... Kind of caught you by surprise. Probably before I got certified for adult corrections. They just throw you some keys and some cuffs and say, go to work, and you have nothing else on the compound. And their officer inmate was out, wasn't supposed to be out at that time, and they put him on a pence to search him. And he pulled a shank and stabbed the sergeant about three or four times in the gut. And they had to get taken out pretty quick and had an emergency surgery. They didn't have time to do lapar or anything. They just cut him open, straight down. Wow. Now, a shank is ... It's a homemade knife, if you want to call it that. Any piece of metal that's been sharpened down by concrete or other steel or whatever. Tell me, yes, they get metal from somewhere in the prison, whether- It's all over. It's all over. You can't really chip it out. Kitchen, food service, anywhere. And then- A chair off a desk in an education building. And they have time. That's all they got in prison. They got nothing but time. They got more time than we do. And so they figure out ways to improvise weapons. Weapons, keys, everything. They will study your keys hanging on your chain and then try to duplicate them themselves and all kinds of stuff. Oh, man. I never even thought about that. So this correction officer that got stabbed, what, three times? Three or four times, yeah. Yeah. How did he turn out? They did all right. They came out good. And they came back to work. And they worked, once they were healed up, three or four months. And then they decided it wasn't for them no more and quit. I think if I was stabbed the first time, I'd be like, no, I'm out of here. So that was the first time. And how did ... What with the inmate? What did you all do? Did you pepper him, tase him, gang pile him? He got sprayed and he got hauled out in an ambulance. So let me ask you this. So got hauled out in an ambulance. So let's just say there was some justice served, I guess. Yes. So that being said, in these prisons, a correction officer, they don't carry guns, right? Correct. They don't carry knives. They don't even carry a stick, do they? No. So you're surrounded ... Now, I know a lot of the prisons, they work on a pod system where you're in there and you're surrounded by all of these inmates in all of these rooms. But normally, they're just kind of walking all around, aren't they? The prison that I was at, we only had enough staff for one officer in the control room for that dorm and one on the floor. So each, there's six quads to a dorm, and the big dorms can hold probably 60, 65 inmates per quad. So you're looking at 360 plus inmates per ... And it's just you, so there is nobody else. You have to call for backup. You have to call for help. So if anything goes south, you're basically, you just put somebody in the control room. I mean, it's just you. It's just you. You got your body alarm, you got your radio, your cuffs, and you got some OC spray, and that's it. Now, do some of the inmates, they don't want any part of being ... They just want to do their time and get out, so they'll be there to kind of watch your back a lot of times, won't they, some of them? The inmates that I had less problems with were lifers. The ones who were in there, they call them jets, young inmates that only have five years or less, you get a whole lot more problems out of those. Those are the ones you really got to pay more ... And you got to pay attention to all of them, but those are the ones that generally gave me the most problems. All right. Well, all right. You got anything, Mason? I don't have anything pulled up yet. All right. Well, tell me ... Tell us a story in which it was one of the most intense times. It wasn't kind of like this is real. This is like you were in fear of your life, ever. It depends. I've only had one inmate try to attack me, and that was just a few months ago, and it was a ... This is in county jail. He was picked up on some ... Driving without a license, I believe is what it was, or something. Anyways, he had an immigration hold, so he's from Jamaica, and I tried to pull an inmate out of the cell that was in there with him for chest pain to send him to medical, and this inmate refused all verbal commands and tried to come out of the cell at me, so I pushed him back against the wall. He tried to come at me again, and then I gassed him with like half a can of O.C. spray, then he still came at me again, so he got slammed pretty good, and then we fought for a little while before somebody else got there, and then we tased him. So, out of all these years, you've had one person ... Just one. Just try to take you on. Now, you know me. I'm like 5'4". I weigh the most I've ever weighed now, about 170 pounds, and I'm sure these inmates will look at me like, oh, he's easy, you know? But you, how big are you? I'm about 300 pounds, about 5'11", 6 foot. Yeah, I would just bounce right off of you, you know? And so, with that, this dude thought, you know, maybe. Maybe I can take him then, right? Pretty much. He's probably 6 foot, 150 pounds, soaking wet. That wasn't going to go well. Now, this OC spray, is it kind of like pepper spray? I mean, what is it? It's a lot stronger than pepper spray. It's made from the oils out of, like, cayenne pepper or any hot peppers, really. They just extract all the oils out of it. I don't know. But it's hot. It's meant to just kind of disable them. Yeah, it's 10% OC. So, like, bear spray, for an example, is only 2% OC. So, you're spraying on these guys stuff that's stronger than... Just to give you an idea. Yeah, that's... Well, I mean, if you're in there by yourself, you know, you want something. Now, have you had to use that OC spray quite a bit over your career? Oh, yeah, a lot. And so, let me ask you this, because I know you told me a story where it doesn't even affect you that much anymore. No, really. You get used to it. You might cough a little bit, but it ain't bad. To me, it ain't bad. I've worked a whole shift with it all over my arms and come home and you can touch my arms and they'll still be hot. Now, have you ever got... Now, his wife is here listening. Has he ever brought anything home that had OC spray on it and you got into it a little bit? No. No? Okay. Well, I'm also a mailman, for those of you who don't know. That's why I'm a volunteer firefighter. We get pepper spray in a little can, right? It's dog spray. They want us to carry it. Well, our vehicles get hot in the summer, like really, really hot. And that stuff would kind of start seeping out of there. Several years ago, my wife went with me somewhere and that spray had kind of leaked out around the cup holder. And so, she went and got something to drink out of the cup holder and I wasn't thinking about it. And she had like an itch around her eye. So, she started scratching around her eye. And the next thing I know, she's there tearing up and she's like, what is wrong? I went, oh, you got into the dog spray. So, now you're telling me that you've been around this stuff so much, it doesn't even really affect you. No, I just take a paper towel, wipe it off my forehead or something. If it gets on me from over spray or something, I just keep working. I bet you the inmates are like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. We had one inmate that tried to come out of the cell and attack me. So, instead of spraying him, we got him out of control and got him to a decontamination shower, which is just strictly cold water for decontamination, for three to five minutes. Whenever he came out and we put him in the holding cell to see medical, he immediately stuck his whole head in the toilet because he was on fire still. That's bad. And how long does it normally last on them? It depends. If you stay out of the water, get in the water, get it rinsed off quickly and stay out, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. If you keep going in the water, it's going to keep reactivating. So, okay. All right. I think Mason's got a question for you now. Sure. Are there gangs in the prisons that you work at? And if so, how active are they? In the prison, yes, they're very active. They pretty much control the inmates' population. Like, for example, whenever they come in, you start, especially in the rec yard, you'll see the whites go this way, the Latinos go this way, the black people go over here. That's just them separating into their gangs. For example, Aryan Brotherhoods, Unforgivens. And then you got the GDs, which is Gangster Disciples, MS-13s, Latin Kings. Because these guys are being, let's say Florida, they're being sent from all over the place. Oh, yeah. They're from all over the place. So, you know, from Miami, in the panhandle, people from the panhandle, down Central Florida, all over the place. You even got the, one of the newest gangs is the Outcasts. And those are your LGBTQ inmates. And they are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than some of the other ones that's been around for a long time. Wow. So, we're basically in a little town here in Florida. And you got that added thing to deal with. Right. And it seems like it's very racially segregated. They do that on their own, but yes. Okay. I guess that stuff doesn't just, you know, transfer over, does it, you know? Latin Kings, they don't play around with the homosexual stuff. And they're very, very, very structured. Like, there was one inmate, real old inmate in a wheelchair, who was one of their leaders. And he was, like, untouchable. And he would put a hit on somebody just from sitting in that chair. And this thing, you know, you got to stab him in your hands, because this is how it is. All right. You got another one? Yeah. So, what are some, like, your, what's your typical day look like, whenever you, like, get ready in the morning? And, like, what are some of your responsibilities throughout the day there? Care, custody, and control. You rush me to get there, they're always locked down. You're going to get there and do your head count. Make sure what your pass-on information from the night before, night shift says, is the correct numbers and correct count. Know what everybody's present and accounted for. And then once count clears, they'll unlock the cells. In the prison setting, we had programs. So, if they had a call-out, whether it be medical programs, mental health, or classification, there's, we had a TV scrolling with their names and stuff on it. So, it's their responsibility to get out. For us, if they don't show up, then we got to go find them and get them and make sure they get there. And if I have to come find you and get you, I'm going to tear your cell up, write you a DR, and I'm going to tear everybody's cell up around you, because they're going to learn to police themselves. Got it. I got it. So, when you say tear up cell, you're going in there, you're going to flip it, search it for anything and everything, anything that's out of its original form. I don't care if it's a little piece of newspaper article that you wanted to save. If it's not in its full original form, then it's been altered, it's contraband, and it's just, it's nuisance contraband, but it gets the point across. Yeah. If you don't behave, I'm going to come in here and tear everything up. Pretty much. All right. Thomas, tell us a hilarious story, because, look, I know there's weird stuff, there's weird stuff up here, out of, you know, what do you call it, supervised population, but tell me, you see weird stuff all the time, don't you? Oh, yeah. Like, what in the world did I just see? Give me a story, I don't care if you got two, because I know you've called me and said, hey, listen to this. So, I mean, I got a couple right off the top of my mind that when you told me my mouth just fell open, I go, what in the world? So, come on, lay some on us. Um, a lot of it's like nasty stuff, but, this is what it's for, so people can hear what's going on. So, you got the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is a federal thing, so, in case most people don't know, an inmate cannot consent nor give consent for any sexual acts or intercourse. It happens all the time. Doing your rounds and you walk by and there's two guys on the bunk. So, then they get separated, secure the scene, treat it just like a crime scene, they get full medical exams and then they get separated house alone in confinement until that's probably the nastiest and like thing you ever come across besides bloodbaths and stuff. What are bloodbaths? They're like fights and inmates killing inmates. So, you've seen where inmates have killed somebody else? Oh, yeah. And is it something that's normally planned? I mean, they know about when to do this? Sometimes or sometimes it's spontaneous. For an example, in the confinement unit, there was two inmates that were housed together and one inmate was telling bragging to the other inmate about how much little kids liked him and he was sexually sexual battery charges got him life in prison along with raping animals and other things and he told him he didn't want to hear it and he kept talking about it so he went to sleep, took a sheet and strangled him to death. He waited 30 minutes to tell us. He wanted to make sure he was dead. And when Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the IG office and everybody got there he was quick to admit everything. He was proud of it. He gave us one less chomo to worry about. A chomo is prison slang for child molesters, rapists things like that. Well, I don't Well, I'm not going to say anything before I get myself in trouble. I know one time you called me about there was was it a lady? Do they house ladies over where you're at? Yes, county jail. Yeah, so you got, I mean I know it's separated but do you have to cross over to that area sometimes? I very rarely. Only time I go over there is if there's a fight or some kind of emergency or something and they're calling for extra help. I think one time you called me and you said there was a naked chick and I was like, what? One of them was naked and they were in a cell together and they were fighting and I was the first one over there and as I was going up the stairs I kept telling them, stop fighting, stop fighting. They didn't separate, they kept going so they both got gassed pretty good and then they stopped immediately. I'm sure they did. Everything was on fire and gravity runs downhill. And I'm sure the naked one had the worst end of it. Correct. Yes. Okay. You got any right here, Mason? What was your training like to become a correctional officer? In Florida it's about four, I want to say four hundred and twenty to four hundred and fifty hours, I don't remember exactly. The academy where I went they didn't play around. It was a hundred percent force because if you can't defend yourself in a controlled environment then there's no way you can control yourself in an uncontrolled environment to defend yourself. So yeah, we did like Red Man where you get through all the defensive tactics and you learn everything you possibly can and they put you in pads and all of your instructors are inmates and you had to do like twenty-five burpees, twenty-five set-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, and then you start the fight. They give you a scenario then you start the fight. So you're wore out as if you were running from one dorm all the way across the compound to another. And then you don't stop until your instructors are on the ground and in hand restraints. And your instructors are inmates. Your instructor is an inmate and that's your final test. Outside of that, the firing range, you go through everything like regular law enforcement where there's defensive tactics all your high liabilities like firearms, defensive tactics, you're going to get sprayed with O.C. tasers. That's an agency thing. So you're going to get certified through your agency unless you're going to be a law enforcement officer on the road. Then you'll get it during the academy. Now, I don't know about where you're at because you're with a county department now. Does that county department make everybody go through corrections first and then put them on the road if they wanted that? Or do they hire them straight from the road? Where I'm working at is under the county commissioner. So if you want to go on the road, then you get to reapply with the sheriff's office. But yes, they will put you during the crossover. I think it's two or three months of extra training at the academy. Mainly just going through for accountability, I think it's just the driving and a bunch of legal, a bunch of laws. There's a lot more to it than in corrections when it comes to laws. For us, this is a quick example for us, once you're in custody and you're in jail or prison, you have no, we don't search and seizure, your Fourth Amendment, we don't have to have a warrant or nothing. We can search you all day long, search your property, search your cell. We don't need nothing. If you're on the street, you got to have a P.C. or a probable cause or you got to have a warrant. Things like that. So where, since you're talking about searches, where are some of the most improbable places people will hide something? They can, you'll be surprised, they can take the littlest thing such as a toothbrush for an example. They get a couple batteries together and melt it down and make a screwdriver or mold it to screws and stuff and they can take them out and put stuff in the light fixtures up in the top of the cells. Or I have found shanks tied to their penises so they think that because you're stripping them and they think because they're not facing you that you can't see it. Well, if you do your strip search right, you'll find it every time. Have they put it in quote unquote cavities before? I've found, I've had drugs like that. Mainly drugs and cell phones. And obviously cell phones for obvious reasons, you don't want them talking to the outside world. Correct. But now they got tablets and they can send emails. That just blows my mind. It's all about money. Because every email that gets sent, I don't know what it is, 75 cents, dollar and they pay to receive it, pay to send it. I mean, pictures and they can rent movies and all that stuff with their tablets now so, but and they can make phone calls through it. And everything is strictly monitored, right? Supposed to be. Supposed to be monitored, okay. I just don't think that's a good idea honestly. Me either, I don't like it because it causes too much problems. You know, so. Okay. Mason, do you have anything else? Not at the moment. Not at the moment. What words of wisdom do you have for anybody who's thinking about going into corrections? If you're going to do it, go in as a trainee. I mean, if you go in as a trainee, it'll give you a sense of what it's like before you go to the academy and that way if it's not for you, then you can back out. If it is for you, then you can go away with it. Most and just about every agency that will hire you as a trainee or cadet, whatever your agency calls it, they will pay you to go to the academy and pay for the academy. So, instead of you paying the three or four thousand dollars, whatever it is, I don't even know right now. It's been a while. But whatever the cost is, they'll pay that and pay you and provide you transportation to travel to and from. So, it's a win-win. Benefits are good. You can retire. If you go with the state or any agency that has state retirement in Florida, you can retire out at 25 years easy and live decent because you get 85 percent of your pay versus 65 percent if you were DMV office or some office job. Sure. Now, I forgot. How many years with the state program are you in right now? Roughly? Well, right now I'm about two years because I came from a private, private prison. I did have eight or nine years in with DJJ, but due to circumstances at that time, I had to cash it out. Yeah. I get it. There's something I did meant to ask. You've been in the private. You've been in DJJ. Now, you're with the county. I think you even did a little bit with the state at one time. Yeah. A short little stint. Are they all the same issues with all of them? They are the same issues. The big difference between county and state is in county, you do have inmates that are there. Not of money, but you do have some that are innocent. They have not been found guilty yet. These are also inmates. The most time they can serve in the county if found guilty is 11-29. Anything over 11 months, 29 days, they go to prison. You will be seeing these inmates again out in public whether they be working at Tom Thumb or working somewhere. You just have to know and be aware. You will see them again on the streets. Especially with the county. Correct. I've even seen some inmates from prison out on the streets. I have one inmate that I saw not too long ago that finished up a 20-year sentence. I saw him out on the streets. He remembered you. He remembers me. It's easier for us than we can remember them because there are so many of them. You always have to keep your head on the swivel. At least in Florida, you're able to carry. Correct. Would you highly encourage anybody that's in corrections to carry if they could? Yes. Once you are in law enforcement period, whether it's corrections, law enforcement, officer, whatever, in Florida, we're all law enforcement. You do fall under the statutes in Florida and for the federal government, you can carry in all 50 states concealed. I still would encourage you to get your concealed weapons license just because I like guns. If you have it, you don't have to wait a three-day hold to purchase a gun. That's one thing about concealed carry that I really do enjoy. Just walk in, pay for it, show them your ID and you're good to go. Everybody else is just twiddling their thumbs waiting for three days. If ATL or depending on what you're buying or Florida Department of Law Enforcement, sometimes they drag their feet and you have some people waiting six months. Exactly. Anything else you want to add? Something at all? Nothing? Not really. You got more stories because it just ain't coming up to the top of your head right now. Mason, you got anything to add? What would you say is a public misconception of what you do at the prison? Probably they think we're just glorified babysitters. Plus we're behind things. You don't see us like you do law enforcement officers and cop guards. Kind of like forgotten about because you're not in the public eye. But everything that law enforcement does on the street, it's the same thing just behind the gates, behind the wires. Same problems. They got drugs coming in. Now we got other problems with drones dropping drugs. I mean there's problems all the way around with it. Under surveillance 24-7. Plus you're being monitored by cameras and they're even starting to audio record us now. We are under a lot of scrutiny. You get into a... You just got to be on your P's and Q's and just like anything else, whether you still have your same problems like in the fire department and stuff. You're going to have inmates die. You're going to have to do CPR whether you like them or not. There is no DNR which is do not resuscitate. There is none of that stuff with inmates. Every inmate you will work the code as if it was anybody else. If the inmate has to have surgery, you've even got to go in the operating room and stand there while they're getting surgery. I've seen many of them. So that being said, because you know they're going to get... Something's going to happen about five minutes from you being off work. Always. Do they pay overtime? They do. Time and a half for overtime. Anything over 86 hours is time and a half if you work 12-hour shifts. I have had paychecks for two weeks as high as 160, 170 hours. Of overtime. Well, total. Total. Alright. Thomas, thank you for coming in and telling us stories. I know you've got more in the back catalog you ain't even thinking of. We'll hear from you again. Again, thank you for listening to Responder Chronicles. Tune in again. We'll have some more stories. Maybe we'll have EMS fire or whatever. If they're on the line serving the community, protecting, you'll hear them here. Have a good day. Have a good day. Have a good day.