“Everybody has to have a buddy working behind the fences of this prison”, said our school principal. He believed the teachers needed to check on each other between classes making sure we were ok. The academic teachers watched out for each other and the vocational teachers did the same. We still carried our body alarms, and were told to use them if we were ever threatened by prisoners, but we still made sure we could see each other while class was in session. Our classrooms looked like fish tanks, with the wall facing the corridors being made of tempered glass from about waste up to the ceiling. The students and teachers were all visible from the corridor. Later in my career, we received cameras in our classrooms as well, for added protection. The school officer could see what was happening in all the classrooms from his podium screen.
There were times when the officers would come intro our classrooms and make an arrest. That didn’t happen to often, but when it did, it raised a few eyebrows. The prisoners would comment between each other about the officers just protecting “their snitch” or things like that “dirty bitch finally got caught.” I never really paid much attention to it and filed it under things that happen in my prison-classroom. On one busy morning I was reminded that this was a prison and the violence is unpredictable. I was wrapping up my morning class going over with my tutors what we accomplished this morning, and what I was planning for the afternoon class. The classroom across the hall from me was empty, so I thought, and the lights were turned off. The door was opened to the hallway. As I was instructing my tutors, inmate students for another class had tried to enter the darkened room. They were immediately stopped by a table that had been dropped, with a bang, on its side blocking the door, and their entrance. Then I heard the words, “go any further and I slit this bitches throat.” No one was visible in the room with the lights out.
The student inmates began walking back down the corridor towards the officer station, and I asked my tutors to leave the classroom as well. My heart began to pump a little faster as I called our officers station letting him know what had just happened. I was totally surprised when one of our programs personnel, who had heard what had just happened, rushed to the room, pushed the table out of the way, and flipped on the lights. She started laughing, more like a sigh of relief, seeing that this was nothing more than a drill conducted by our administration, and her partner had not been taken hostage. I questioned her as to why she thought her actions would not have gotten her partner or her killed had this been a real hostage taking incident? Her response was awesome, and I knew her “appointed buddy” was glad to have her as his partner. “He’s my friend, and we have been through thick and thin in this environment. He was scheduled to teach a class in this room, and I thought he was taken hostage. The inmate would have to kill me as well, if we didn’t disarm him.” I was amazed by her bravery and dedication to her friend as my anxiety began to somewhat subside. I thought, what an awesome woman. ..TO BE CONTINUED .. JOHN 1: 16-17
MJ-Way 