Escape from Death Row (Mecklenburg 1984)

I just watched a program on Discovery Times Channel, Escape From Death Row, about the six death row inmates who escaped from Mecklenburg Correctional Center in May 1984.

The program stressed how brilliant these inmates were to pull off the escape. I have to give the inmates some credit too. It took intelligence to plan, and discipline to execute the escape, but I mainly credit the fact that the inmates were simply less stupid and less lazy than the corrections officers and the entire chain of command at Mecklenburg.

The regulations and procedures were there. If any one of them had been followed the escape plan wouldn't have worked.

The escape happened a few years before I went to work at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, but a few of the inmates and corrections officers were still there. My observation was if they learned anything from the escape, it was forgotten before I got there.

The job is inherently dangerous. I knew and accepted that fact before I applied for the job, but it turned out the job was unnecessarily more dangerous than it needed to be because of lackadaisical, haphazard and careless supervision and performance by the staff. My corrections officer career lasted six months.

They had a fast turnover of personnel and were usually shorthanded because when new people saw what it was like they didn't stay long. When I was hired they wanted me to start work right then and go to the Academy later. They gave me the uniform, but no badge, and put me in the "on the job training program". The main job of a newbee was hauling trays from the pods to the galley. Not being a sworn officer, I wasn't supposed to be counted as an officer for purposes of complying with regulations.

There were about twenty inmates who were supposed to go to the library. There was only one officer available to escort them. It was a four officer job. The supervisor didn't want to cancel the library for fear of the ACLU. He assigned me to go with him as the other three officers.

The way it was supposed to work was when you get to the library, he calls the librarian and tells her we are there. Then he opens the outside door to the vestibule, we enter, close the door which can't be opened from the inside. The librarian opens the inside door and we enter the library.

The way it worked was we entered the vestibule, closed the door, then he called the librarian, who wasn't there. There we were, shoulder to shoulder, belly to belly, twenty inmates and two "good guys" in a tiny vestibule with no way out. To say I was a little concerned wouldn't be an overstatement, but I was afraid to show any fear, so I started cracking jokes with the inmates, and they started giving the officer a hard time for being so stupid. The officer was able to raise the supervisor who contacted the librarian and pulled her off her break to let us in. The situation didn't get out of hand, but it very easily could have. I put this dude at the top of my list of people not to trust my life to.

Then I went to the Academy. Virginia has an excellent training program for Corrections Officers. I don't fault the training or the regulations the correctional facilities work under. My first day back at Mecklenburg all the inmates knew I took marksmanship honors for the class. I didn't tell anybody, and there weren't any inmates at the Academy. Loose lips.

When I returned to Mecklenburg I was assigned to work the cage for a while, then I worked the floor. One day we were running behind schedule, and it was time for the inmates to go to the exercise yard. The way it was supposed to work was you let four inmates out, search them, take them to the yard, come back and get four more.

That day the supervisor saw a way to make up some time, so the way it worked was let everybody out and take everybody to the yard. There we were with forty inmates and four officers when one inmate decided it would be a good time to take some revenge on one of the officers. He attacked him from the rear with his right arm around the officer's throat. We were very lucky that day. Nobody panicked or lost their head. The officer who was attacked backed the inmate up against the bars and kept him pinned there enough that he couldn't retrieve the shank he usually had up his rectum. Another officer who knew the inmate fairly well went over and helped the other officer take control of the inmate and got him back into his cell. By the time the black shirts got there we had most of the inmates back in their cells. I said to myself "That's TWO".

One day one of the inmates had done something which earned him some time in Isolation. The procedure is you inventory and search all of the inmate's personal gear and take it to Property. The inmate takes nothing with him to Isolation. The common sense thing to do is start early enough to get it done or wait and let the next shift do it. I drew the job with another officer in the late afternoon. We were searching his personal gear and the other officer picked up a cardboard box which was full of legal envelopes which were full of legal papers. He set it over in the searched and inventoried pile. I told him I thought we should search the box. He was already pissed before I said that, but that really set him off. As he was going through his rant and temper tantrum, he pulled out one of the envelopes, turned it upside down and shook it as he screamed "What the hell do you want to do, check each envelope like this?". All the papers fell out of the envelope and the shank made a loud noise as it hit the deck and bounced. His eyes got as big as saucers. He picked up the shank and ran down the passageway screaming "I found a Rambo knife", "I found a Rambo knife". I said to myself "That's THREE".

The next morning at quarters the other officer got a letter of commendation and after quarters I handed my letter of resignation to the Sergeant. I said in the letter I was willing to stay for two weeks if they wished, or I was prepared to leave that day.

As the letter went through the chain of command, I got a visit from the Major. He said he couldn't read my mind and I should have told him how he was running the place. I told him evidently he couldn't read writing either, or we wouldn't be having that conversation. I felt really bad about that later when I found out he really couldn't read.

The Assistant Warden told me I couldn't quit. I think he might have really thought I was ignorant enough to believe that. After I told him I thought he was mistaken, he decided I could quit, but I had to stay at least a month. I told him I was still willing to stay for two weeks from the date of the letter, but if he really thought I was that stupid, I'd leave right now. Then he said I could leave, but if I did, I'd never work for the state of Virginia again. I accepted his terms. I stayed for the two weeks.