Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Prison Inside Out
Former CDCR Lieutenant Alex Duran shares his journey from county jail deputy to prison leadership, offering an unfiltered look at the realities of correctional work and the mental toll it takes on officers.
• Started career at Kern County Detention in 2012 during AB-109 implementation when state inmates flooded county facilities
• Transitioned to CDCR and witnessed Valley State Prison's conversion from a women's to men's facility
• Served on elite Crisis Response Teams that required intense physical testing and specialized training
• Promoted to sergeant at CTF Soledad and later worked at maximum-security Corcoran Prison
• Experienced the implementation of controversial non-designated yards that mixed traditional enemies
• Describes the unique challenges of working with mentally ill inmates in EOP programs
• Details the psychological impact of repeatedly witnessing violence and death in corrections
• Emphasizes the importance of command presence, communication skills, and physical fitness
• Explains why proper mentorship is critical for new officers and supervisors
• Advocates for better officer mental health support and creating stronger bonds among staff
If you want to connect with Alex, check out his TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram under Corrections Unlocked where he continues to share insights from his corrections career.
Hector, bravo, unhinged chaos is now in session. Welcome back, warriors. Another banger for you guys. Man, today, the cat drug in none other than a former lieutenant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation you may know him from TikTok Corrections Unlocked Alex Duran. What up, alex? What's up Hector? Thanks for making that drive down here yesterday, dude. I appreciate it, man, appreciate it. So, bro, let's start from the beginning, because I know there's a lot to talk about and you have a lengthy career with CDCR. Yeah, where did you grow up at?
Speaker 2:dude, I originally grew up in Fresno, california, lived there for a few years and then I moved to Visalia, lived the majority of my time there and then, as I kind of started my career, I ended up living in Salinas for a little bit Fucking Fresno, visalia and Salinas man All the rough areas.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, how far are they away from each other?
Speaker 2:So Fresno, it's pretty much Central Valley. So Visalia is about 45 minutes from there, okay, and then from Visalia to Salinas about two and a half Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then you told me you started working in the jail first county jail, yeah. So I originally started working in Kern County about 2012, the beginning and I worked there for about a year in Bakersfield as a detention deputy In Bakersfield Mm-hmm, was there more than one detention facility in Bakersfield, or that was like the one?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you had like your downtown jail, okay, and then you had your big jail, which was off of Lurdo, that's the one you worked at? Yeah, that's where we housed the majority of the inmates.
Speaker 1:So basically, once they get processed off the streets, they go to the first jail and then they'll get rehoused in the big jail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but during that time we housed a lot of inmates there and the AB-109 kicked in for the state. Oh yeah, yeah. So when I started there, we got dumped on by at least 500, 600 inmates, so we were just overcrowded in the whole jail.
Speaker 1:How long had you been there before you got dumped on? Were you working there prior to getting dumped on that jail? No, that's what I walked into. You walked into that exact moment in time. Yeah, 20 years old. Because you're young, bro, you're young. You said you were 35. Yeah, moment in time, 20 years old. Yeah, because you're young, bro, you're young. You said you were 35. Yeah, I'll be 35 in two weeks. Oh shit, so you're actually 34. Yeah, yeah, you're young dude. Yeah, um, wow, bro, 20. Now. Did the og deputies tell you oh man, this wasn't like this prior to you showing up?
Speaker 2:no, um, it was less, less inmates you know, know, when I started, kern County was, the detention deputies were real old school, so nobody talked to you, nobody shook your hand. It was one of those just watch and learn. And the good thing about Kern County and the jail system is they had a six week FTO program. So it was actually really cool and it was good for us to learn, because every two weeks you did something different. So the first two weeks all you're doing is watching. You're not doing anything besides watching, and then the two weeks after that you do half and half, so you like assist with half the escorts, whatever's going on for the day, and then the last two weeks it's all you.
Speaker 2:Is there an academy is going on for the day, and in the last two weeks it's all you. Is there an academy? They have? Yeah, they have an academy that you can go through. Um, but at the time I know I'm sorry they have an academy if you want to transition to deputy okay, so at that one streets, yeah, yeah so at that one night you just go through their, their process, their uh, polygraph test, their uh background polygraph to work inside of the jail.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, oh I?
Speaker 2:Oh, I wouldn't have made it bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know how I did to be honest, but yeah, not that I'm a criminal or anything, but you know how that goes, man, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I originally applied for a bunch of places. Right out of high school I worked in the group homes with juvenile delinquents. Oh dude, you were built for this shit.
Speaker 1:oh man, uh, those kids were traumatizing me more probably there than I did in the state. What do you think is worse working with kids or working with female inmates? That's a tough one.
Speaker 2:They're both I hate them both, you know yeah speaking of female inmates, well, I started at vsp not to to jump ahead, but uh, they were transitioning from vspw to VSP, so I got a little taste of the females. Oh, no, dude.
Speaker 1:We'll get to that once we unravel your county time. Yeah, but the county, so what would you say? The tempo was, in comparison to the state, busy, not busy. Well, it was really busy. Violent not violent.
Speaker 2:Very violent, yeah. So, from what I remember, we had CPOD, which was like our. You can pretty much label it like an EOP level four, ad sig. It was just violent, crazy. And the shitty thing about the county is they have buzzards in their cells. So if you work a control booth, that buzzard is going off every four seconds. There's no way to you guys don't have any tricks. No seconds, there's no way to you guys don't have any tricks. No, I mean, you can like mute it. I think you could screen it out, like where you hold the button down, but then you have 50 other cells. All fucking right, you know what I mean. And so, um, yeah, they got a little bit of everything there and, uh, you know, from delano to la, a lot, a lot of southerners, you know, um, so you got that whole big fraction and then we had a tank full of northerners so go through real quick.
Speaker 1:What gangs, real quick, right off the top of your head, were there um, over there, you had everybody.
Speaker 2:we had our, uh, northerners and a big, big fraction of southerners. You know, from delano to um, from delano to la, that's all southern territory. So we had a lot of southerners, a lot, we had everybody. We had a lot of blacks, a lot of whites, and then we had a minimum um, southerners, a lot, we had everybody. We had a lot of blacks, a lot of whites, and then we had a minimum um, a minimum yard from what I remember with, with 20 barracks, big fucking yard and, uh, just chaotic. Well, you say barracks, were they bunk beds? Yeah, just like 200.
Speaker 1:Um, who would be passing through DUI people man.
Speaker 2:Um, who would be be? Who gets to stay there? Oh, anything in anyone. You know it was so overcrowded. Um, honestly, they probably had a little bit of everybody right and, um, it was overcrowded, so, any, I think, like most of the stadiums that were doing small time, like five to ten years, they just kicked them to the barracks, no fucking which was a little scary because we had guys that thought they were tough.
Speaker 2:You know, we had, um, guys are, oh, I'm, I'm m. You know, we had guys that were, oh, I'm, ma Right, and we're like, well, you know, we're going to get some dudes from Corcoran and Kern Valley and they said they're active and they're like, well, hold up, hold up From where? And then, you know, so were they trying to buff um, bluff all the youngsters? Oh, and they, they did. You know, right, we? I didn't know any better, I was brand new, trying to figure it all out, right, um, but when all these state guys started coming in and they were running stuff on the yards and you kick them to a county jail so?
Speaker 1:so help me understand this. There's like, let's say, 100 of inmates, right? Who were these guys? Former state prisoners, were they brand new, about to hit the state, or were they just going to maintain local county time? What were they made up of?
Speaker 2:You know? Honestly I'm not too sure, but from what I remember, most of the state inmates we had it was because they were hitting that five-year term where they only had to do two to five years and they didn't consider them violent inmates, depending on their charges. Were they violent? Oh, fuck, yeah, they were very violent and actually it was more of an intimidating factor, because some of these guys we were getting were running yards and then you kick them to a county jail. So 30 Southerners see an active dude that's running a state prison they got to serve to him now Correct. So they're either going to get tuned up because they were lying or politicking when they shouldn't have been, or they're pretty much.
Speaker 1:So you guys were experiencing that. Oh yeah, it was fucking crazy Actual, influential inmates coming down from the state and fucking checking these yeah it was bad.
Speaker 2:So there was just it was a lot of tension. The officers didn't really talk to anybody. Luckily, I had a buddy that worked there. My buddy, Paco, worked there and I knew him from when I went to college in an SJVC and I ran into him at the I forget, I think it's the max facility, they call it, and you gotta be OG to work there. And they fucking held me there my first day. So I go work there and they fucking held me there my first day.
Speaker 2:So I go over there and, uh, real cutthroat, you know, and me I'm happy, go lucky, fucking want to learn. And I'm like, where am I working? And they're like, oh, you're working this area, I don't even remember the names. And so the officer that I'm working with is walking by and I'm like, hey man, how's it? How's it going? I'm, I'm, I'm Alex. He looked at my hand, he looked at me and just kept walking, Damn dude. And I was like all right, and luckily I saw my buddy and I was like, you know, it was like seeing your parents. You're like oh, yeah, yeah. And he kind of took me under his wing right there and he said hey, bro, I'm going to have this dude work with me today and you can work with so-and-.
Speaker 2:That was kind of my first experience with the jails but yeah, I worked there for about a year. It was very violent. I learned a lot. I had a bad battery there. I was assaulted pretty bad by more than one inmate no, by a two-fiver, Some dude. That was like crisis bed crazy. He battered 40, 50 deputies there. Everybody knew who he was.
Speaker 1:I'm young, trying to prove myself and kind of catch my flow and I'm like when it comes to those type of inmates in your experience, does verbal de-escalation work all the time, or what kind of language those type of individuals understand?
Speaker 2:You know, to a certain extent you know you can only talk so much to a mental health psych inmate, but most of the time there's really no talking. You know whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Well, I get it. I just wanted you to hear him say it. Yeah, that's just. You know, I've seen it all. You've seen it all.
Speaker 1:You've seen psychologists, mental health yeah, Everybody come in and do their part and then at the end of the day, we're dealing with it.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, it's going to end the way he wants it to end, yeah. Yeah, he's going to pretty much get what he wants with the way prisons ran down days, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So CDCR? Was that your ultimate goal, or did you stumble across it?
Speaker 2:You know, in California, when you work for the jails and and you work for like private jails and stuff or maybe it's just me, but I looked at state cdcr, like you know the big dogs, like that's where you want to be you know they make the most money, the best benefits and from what we hear, it's like shit's rocking and rolling, you know. So we look at you guys like fucking spartans and shit, you know. And what year was this?
Speaker 1:2012. Okay, because, yeah, we had this conversation yesterday. We were like dude. At one point in time, cdcr used to be the fucking epitome. Oh yeah, like countrywide, the other states would look at us like, hey, that's the standard to be a fucking guard, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Like when you guys would come in the transportation CDC guys would come in to Kern County, you know, and they're all wearing black, you know, all structured and at the time they had a lot of hash marks.
Speaker 2:Now you've got one French fry type of transcoffs. Yeah, those dudes were all the way up. And you know, the cool thing is all the gold. It looks intimidating. You know what I mean? The gold, all the gold, the gold, brass, the gold. You know belt keepers? Yeah, the whistle, you know. And we see like damn these guys, they look legit. You know, that's what I want to be like one day, you know, and I'm sitting there during the headlights working the jail like man.
Speaker 2:you know that's where the big money's at as far as a correctional and benefits and state yeah so that was kind of my goal, you know, to work for the state you know how long was your process for CCR, from application to academy.
Speaker 1:What was your process?
Speaker 2:for CDCR from application to academy. So when I originally applied, I actually took the test, the written test, and passed it. Two months later I get a call from a sergeant in Fresno. He's like hey, bro, when you took this test you were only 20. You weren't 21. I was like, yeah. He's like so it's kind of violated our standards. You have to be 21 to take that test.
Speaker 2:I thought you had to be 21 at the time of the academy. I think they might have changed it, yeah. But at that time he was like I can't push you through, but what we're going to do because this is a little bit of an issue is we're going to go ahead and just cancel your stuff and we're going to let you reapply in two months or three months when it comes out again. So I didn't know any better. So I'm like, all right, whatever. So when I was 21, I applied, passed the test again and then they went on freeze. So I just kind of laid low for about a year, I think, working in the jails. And then I had that bad incident. I was on leave for like three weeks and then I get a call offering me a prison to go to Academy.
Speaker 1:Did they offer you a prison or numerous prisons, three prisons, which?
Speaker 2:ones. They said, hey, you're in Central Valley, we have a VSP and me I thought that was Pleasant Valley. So I'm like, oh fuck, yeah, bro, let's do it Kalinga. And they're like, yeah, whatever, you start in three weeks. That's the kicker is, this is going to be the first academy that's going to be ran. Since the freeze We've only had, like I think, one academy just went through, so they're just starting up again. And yeah, I just fucking took it you know.
Speaker 1:So you ended up going to the academy in Galt, yeah, and then you graduate and you ended up touching down at Valley State Prison.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the whole time in the academy they're talking about Valley State Prison and the women's prison and I'm like I'm going to a man's prison and they're like nah, bro, you're going to VSPW, it's changing to VSP. So I was confused where the hell I was going for the first two months.
Speaker 1:The sergeants at the academy were talking about Valley State.
Speaker 2:Well, you know how everybody has their little placard that says what prison they're from or going to yeah. So the whole time I was telling everybody I was going to Kalinga, to Pleasant Valley oh, that's what you were telling everybody, yeah. And they're like, hey, bro, there's nobody here going to Pleasant Valley. I said, me dog, me dog. And they're like nah, man, your shit says vsp. And I said, yeah, bro, pleasant valley. They're like, no, you got the, you got the acronym backwards, it's fucking valley state prison.
Speaker 1:And I was like oh, yeah, what's the other one? Pvsp, yeah, pvsp.
Speaker 2:Homie, you're dyslexic, yeah bro so luckily they didn't figure that out in the process. But, dude, I was like fuck it. And so I'm like, well, shit, let me, how far is that from my damn house? Dude? Because I, because I'm like Kalinga's, like 45 minutes, and I was already stressing about that, yeah, and you know so fucking so how far was that from your pad, like was it actually closer, or?
Speaker 2:farther. Oh, it is an hour and 12 minutes, 15 minutes. Yeah, what went through your head then? When you're like, oh, what the fuck? Yeah, I was just like, hey, dude, like, is there like people that like do transportation? I was just trying to figure everything out, because they talked about van pulls, car pulls right, and they're like, yeah, they do that from fresno, bro, but not from visalia. You're fucking. I mean, you may want to relocate, type of shit, but you know that's how it is you know, yeah, you either get a crash pad, a sancho, I mean yeah you you gotta roll with it and I'm thinking where the fuck is?
Speaker 2:you know, madera chowchilla? You know it's a small, a small town. There ain't shit out there. So, uh, yeah, I bought a little kia and we made it.
Speaker 1:Made it work so you fucking have all this experience from working in the county fighting fucking eop2 fibers. You're a big dude, bro. You're ready. You're ready, right? So what do you see when you get there? What's your?
Speaker 2:experiences like. So, you know, when I had that incident in the county, it opened up my eyes to what I was doing. You know, it kind of shook me, it scared me and it made me question myself like, hey, is this really what I want to fucking do? You know, and that's ultimately why I made that transition, cause I'm like man, if I'm going to get my ass beat, I want to get paid a little bit more money. That makes sense, you know. So, yeah, so that was my transition. Uh, but when I went to Valley state prison, you know I I was comfortable talking to inmates, cause in the in the jails, like, there's a lot of movement. So every morning I'd be cuffing up at least 40 to 50 inmates Every morning In the jail, yeah, full shackles, leg restraints, cuffs everything. So I was comfortable talking and cuffing people up.
Speaker 1:Well, what kind of talking are you doing as you're cuffing up, fucking 50 people? They're all going to court, so just giving them instructions. Or are you actually conversing with these dudes?
Speaker 2:A little bit of both. I mean, at first it's, you know, uh, just the bread and butter. Turn around, cuff up, pick your leg up, right you know, open your mouth, check them real quick and then, as we're because we got I gotta take them all to r&r. We talk, okay, hey bro, what are you doing? Oh, man, they got me for this.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, that sucks, and um, not to backtrack, but I actually ran into a former correctional officer that was in jail and I took him back and forth to R and R, at least for a month, and he kind of gained me and schooled me. Oh, no shit, yeah, he was a, he was a, he was a bad-ass CEO. And dude he was, he looked like a straight gangster. You know what I mean. And I didn't. I thought he was a gangster and they started slowly telling me that, hey, that dude's a fucking. Um, he's a CEO. You know he got caught up with some shit, but what the good thing about it was is he was like hey, alex, check this. Hey, alex, those Southerners over there dope, uh, you know. So you were fucking learning dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was getting gained by an inmate. Yeah, and uh, you know, people all don't talk to inmates, this and that. That's how you learn. You know what I mean. Whether you want to or not, there's a variety of ways to learn. Yeah and uh, but I I never really talked to him, I just listened and um, he's like hey, when you pat down guys, make sure you do this and that.
Speaker 1:Were there any? Did he ever attempt to gain something from you?
Speaker 2:No, and that's where you know everyone always said this is it's always going to be a catch. You know what I mean. He's going to try to hook you Right, but he never did that. You know he was always straight with me. To add to that as well, because yeah we're always taught inmates will game you.
Speaker 1:They'll game you. Don't ever trust a fucking inmate. And while that is kind of true, don't ever trust an inmate, right? You don't want to get led to the slaughter. There are times where those dudes have actually kept their word and not came at you with some bullshit.
Speaker 2:No, and you know I look at it like this Hector, if you're a newer officer, you've got to understand how to play the game. You're going to get manipulated and you have to learn how to play. Once you have that experience and you know how to talk to an inmate, you know how to build a rapport. I've got no problem talking to inmates because they know where that line, where we draw that line. But if you're brand new and you don't understand the game, oh, you're going to get tossed around like a dirty magazine. Bro. They're gonna work you day in and day out. I see it, oh, we seen it. Um, and that's the. That's the problem with the younger generation is they see a senior cop talking to an inmate and they're like okay, but they don't understand what that dude did to build that rapport. You know, and I think that's a problem with some of the younger cops no, you that's a fucking x.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that, bro.
Speaker 2:That's an excellent point yeah, and so I feel comfortable, you know, just not not talking, but like letting inmates know what was going on. And I felt like the more you relate to inmates uh, the program for the day or talk to them, the less tension you have but you're also a dude that has good command presence.
Speaker 1:I mean just me conversing with you like you're you're, you know, I mean your posture, your, your tone.
Speaker 2:So that's huge also. Yeah, well, you know, when I started though, you know I've always been a little weird and kind of like a nerd, but when I started I wanted to fit in, you know. So I remember some dude on Marketplace was selling like an old school jumpsuit. So I'm like, oh, I want to look like that. So I bought this jumpsuit, bro. It was like three times my size, yeah, and I'm wearing it, thinking I'm the shit. And where I got clowned, like my first week. They're like whose fucking jumpsuit is that dude? I was like it's mine. They're like no, it's not dude, like you. Just, we all know you just started. That jumpsuit's like older than you. Oh, it was a used jumpsuit. Yeah, because I wanted to fit in, because all the cool guys were wearing, like you know, uh, jumpsuits that were faded I could relate.
Speaker 1:could relate, man, cause I wanted to scuff up my leather to make it look like I had some time in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But um, no, you know most of my little structure that I have. I'm not too structured, but, uh, I started trading. I got um when I was younger. I got beat up real bad and jumped by a bunch of kids and I remember um walking from the skate park to my house, which was like five miles away, and they took my skateboard, they took my bike, they jacked you. Oh, they beat the shit out of me, yeah, but they also jacked you as well, yeah, God damn bro.
Speaker 1:So I'm walking.
Speaker 2:You know, I was like 12 years old, 13 years old, I had blood everywhere, whatever, and this dude hits me up, and you know.
Speaker 2:I'm like hey, man, you all right? I said no, no, not really. And he said, hey, you see that building right there. And I was like, yeah, and I knew what it was. It was a little jujitsu shop at the time in Visalia. He said, hey, why don't you come over here tomorrow at 6 pm? And I was like, okay, you know. So I went over there at 6 pm and I thought it was the jujitsu class that he taught, but it wasn't. Um, he teaches a old hawaiian self-defense uh class and at the time I didn't know who he was. But he let me train there for free for a whole year, fuck yeah and then, uh, they ended up going out of business.
Speaker 2:So he was doing some hardcore training in his garage and, remind you, I'm the only kid there, all these guys are adults and he trains like a real hard. Kajukimpo it's called, kaju Pit is his style of it, and dude's a monster. But it taught me discipline. It taught me how to fight and be comfortable, how to deal with men, you know, and I looked at the dude almost like a father, you know, at the time. So that helped me out a lot in the prison system, just being comfortable with talking to inmates.
Speaker 2:And then at the time, so that helped me out a lot in the in the prison system, just being comfortable with talking to inmates and at the same time, dealing with them if you need to right, because I'm not a big dude, you know, I've always had, I struggled with, you know uh, having the look. But, uh, when you're dealing with somebody and they know your strength, they know, uh, what you're capable of, it just kind of sets the tone and you don't really have to like flex or act hard. You know uh. But yeah, vsp was uh.
Speaker 1:So level two the whole prison was level two. The whole prison all four yards. There's four yards. Yeah, what were the yards structured?
Speaker 2:abcd. That's it. And then they have a a big main yard where all the yards they open. They all open their gates and the officers stand there at this is at the time and they all pat them down and they can all go to the main yard. No, hold on which was the?
Speaker 1:stupid. Hold on. Yeah, you have four fucking yards, one main recreational yard and every inmate from every yard can attend that same recreational yard. Yeah, you see the problem with that 100% dude yeah 100 fucking percent. Yeah, 100 fucking percent, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of like. You know Now did incidents arise from that? I mean, it was real low level, we didn't have a whole lot of incidents, but it was a lot of drug trafficking. Because I mean, it was like the inmates would tell me hey, duran, we're going to go to the flea market, and I was like the flea market's on sundays, wait a second, you're locked up. They're like no, the main yard, that's where we go. You know they call it the flea market because they can get whatever the fuck they want. That's nuts, dude.
Speaker 2:You know inmates that are, uh, doing tattoo work or um, painting bro oh, bro, they all go out to the yard and then you know this dude on a yard that wants shit from a dude on d yard now you ain't gotta say too much, but is he?
Speaker 1:uh, at the time at the location was the CO mentality kind of like. Whatever, let them do their thing.
Speaker 2:You know, when I went, the majority of the officers were very tense. They were very just Tense. Yeah Well, they were tense. Tense from what? Well, you got to remember? You know, 85% of these cops have never dealt or worked with a male inmate. They've all dealt with women?
Speaker 1:Oh, because you were telling me that it transferred over from females to males, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when I rolled up D-Yard was the last yard full of women and they were slowly putting them on buses and transferring them out to whatever the women's prisons are.
Speaker 1:So they flushed VSP with all these level two guys Hold up bro VSP. With all these level two guys Hold up bro VSP. Yeah, at one point in time, it used to be an all-female institution. Oh yeah, is that the one they refer to as Chowchilla? Yeah, okay. So female prison, chowchilla? Yeah. Now, when you got there, that's when they got rid of the women and brought male inmates. Yeah, and what year was that? 2013, holy shit. And all the, all the staff were tense because they had never worked around male inmates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I didn't know this at first, because I'm new, you know. But as I'm working the buildings, I'm telling these guys hey guys, it's a recall, whatever you know, but and I'm, you know, I, I always kept it real with them and they, they gave me my respect. All right, youngster, whatever I'm like, all right, buddy, it's time for you to get off the phone. Come on, man, whatever I just talked to them, normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you're not a dummy, bro, it's like you know your lane, but some of those officers, they were just like get off the phone.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hear you now, yeah.
Speaker 2:They didn't have that flow of feeling comfortable and you Southerners walking around with their shirts off, all blasted up, it's intimidating. If you know you've never seen that I guess I'm glad you're speaking on that, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's the same thing when, the same situation, when you'll have level four, cops go to a level two yard and they want to act level four. It's like, hey, relax bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, pump the brakes a little bit, man.
Speaker 1:Different mentality. Or if they flip a level four yard into a level two, yeah, they still want to hold those level twos to like a level four program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, when I started there, there wasn't a whole lot going on. And you know better than me, like at most prisons, when there's not a lot of violence, uh, your managers stress your cops out. Absolutely. They want to put the pressure on you guys with um, uniform inspections. Uh, you coming to work on time, they start checking you guys because they're not focused on all the incidents. You know they got to stay busy. So, yeah, there wasn't a lot going on.
Speaker 2:We did get a lot of guys transferring from Salinas Valley, from Corcoran, from Kern Valley, and those dudes were gangster, you know, because they've seen it all. And I remember this one big old black dude he was from Corcoran and you know, he was just like egging everybody on. So you're going to let him talk to you, like that man, you should do something. And so all the CEOs were like, yeah, I need to do something. So we're learning from all these guys. And I'm just like I know a little bit. But I was always told, hey, just watch and observe, you'll learn more by watching. And so that was just me. I'm just watching, like, okay, I ain't doing that, um, but yeah, it was. Uh, it was different. You know, I learned a little bit.
Speaker 1:There's some good supervisors there, there's some not good supervisors there, but you know that's at every prison oh, I'm glad I'm learning like I'm learning a lot from you telling me and not only am I learning, bro, but I'm reminiscing at all the variables in working inside of a prison.
Speaker 2:So it's just level two, not a whole lot. I mean, we probably had 100, 150 incidents a year, compared to like Corcoran and Salinas Valley, where they have 1,500.
Speaker 1:But it's funny how you bring up the truth about the different personalities of correctional officers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I've seen a lot of different personalities, because all of them they knew how to deal with women, and not that they didn't know how to deal with men, they just weren't used to it yet Correct. So, me coming in brand new, I was like so you're a fucking sponge.
Speaker 1:There you are, bro Valley State Prison a fucking sponge. Where do you go from there?
Speaker 2:next. So I worked at Valley State Prison and I met a good cop named Perez. He came from Corcoran, so me and him we ran A-yard and I just kind of watched everything he did. Real good cop. So I learned from him and then, right when I was going to leave VSP, they just sent me to OP1, crt. Yeah, so I went to OP1 and you know the two-week operator thing in San Luis Obispo, and the last day of my whole training or whatever it is, I get a call from CTF Soledad and they offer me a sergeant position. So I was thinking like fuck, what should I do? You know what I mean? Like I'm about to become an operator at um VSP. I finally worked my way up with those guys. You know what I mean. I was a PTM for about a year and they finally gave me the opportunity to train with them and be a part of their team and I just passed the Academy, you know. So I'm all gun hole and um, I just fucking took it.
Speaker 1:Took what CTF? Yeah, fuck, dude, I didn't even know you were a PTM, bro, so let's talk about that, because the inquiry minds want to know. Yeah, at what point did you catch wind of the crisis response team? Did any of those members approach you and tell you to put an application, and what was your time like as a PTM?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to remember some of their names, but most of your guys that are structured and look clean, obviously they're CERT.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And obviously there's some that are not, but that's what I saw there at VSP. I saw guys that looked the part, squared away, yeah, and I'm like, man, what do you guys do? And they're like, oh, we're part of the CRT team and I'm like, what the fuck is that? You know what background or anything? And uh, they put out a flyer, like they do at most prisons hey, crt tryouts, um, whatever.
Speaker 2:So I'm reading it and so I call I think his name was more real cool dude, he was a sergeant at the time and I'm like, hey, more, I want to do this, you know. And he's like, yeah, bro, just fucking. You know, this is what it kind of entails. We can't tell you much. But you got to run two miles, yeah, be able to shoot bro.
Speaker 2:And everybody was so negative about it. They're like you can't do that. I was like, why not? They're like, bro, really, look at you, come on, you're not that guy. And I'm like I just want to try out, you know.
Speaker 2:So, honestly, at the time I really just did it just to prove a bunch of assholes wrong, just because I'm like, hey, fuck you Right. And yeah, so I went out there and you know I'm like, well, how do I? Don't have any military background? What do I do? How do I condition myself for this, you know? So I just started watching a bunch of motivational shit and Eye of the Tiger shit and just started running every day. Yeah, and I've always liked to shoot. You know what I mean. Shooting's always been something I like to do for fun. And went out there and the trials were. You know how it is horrible. If I can work the shit out of you. Torture, you made me dance, all this stupid shit and uh, yeah, I passed. I was surprised I passed and, um, trained with those dudes, good group of guys, you know. Um, what is it? The other prison next to them?
Speaker 2:uh, the women's prison, ccwf yeah yeah, so I trained with CCWF, esp, um, met those guys, a bunch of good group of dudes and then, um, uh, I hurt myself so I didn't get get to go to the first operator academy, um, but healed up my leg, kept training, kept training, and then they finally sent me to OP1, graduated OP1 and promoted at the same time yeah yeah. So it was kind of like I felt like I was doing good, you know, and I was excited for what was going to happen, and then so that was that was the challenge.
Speaker 1:I got promoted to lieutenant at the op2 academy. Oh shit, yeah, so I can relate there. So then you come back and you touch down at CTF.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was crazy. So, uh, yeah, I think two weeks later, uh, I was, I went to see, pretty much said bye to everybody, Right, and they're like what the fuck Didn't you just pass the Academy? And I'm like, yeah, bro, fuck you Bye and cool, took off to Soledad.
Speaker 1:Um, and you know I'm a little nervous because VSP is all S and Y at the time. But you know that's one of the perks about the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. I'm always like bashing it or exposing it, but that's one of the perks, bro. The freedom of movement. If you want to work here, you can work here. If you want to be CRT, you could be CRT. Yeah, Go wherever the fuck you want in the state of California.
Speaker 2:You're right and you know. That's one thing I want to say too. Like, if you decide to be a correctional officer, there are so many opportunities and so many things you can do within the department and just because you don't know anything about it, don't limit yourself. Like you can, fucking, you could do anything you want to do in the department. Trust me, you just got to set a goal. You can't do it? Just fucking prove them wrong. It's. It's not that hard, trust me, uh.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I went to solid dad and um as a sergeant as a sergeant, you know and they didn't like me. You know what I mean. Who didn't like you? Uh, I'm not gonna say they didn't like me, but it was just. You know, I look like I'm fucking 15 years old, I'm part of the cert team, an outsider, because they probably wanted their home, yeah, promote. So they're like who the fuck is this fool? You know what I mean. Yeah, and to remind you, I'm a new operator, but you know, salinas Valley, ctf they don't just take anybody. No, that's probably the hardest, strictest team, okay, so those dudes train hard and I'm going to give them the respect because they have that.
Speaker 1:Real quick shout out to the fucking Salinas Valley CTF CERT team because hands down throughout the state the number one team hands down and I only got to train with those guys for like, uh, eight months.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to act like I was one of them or part of them. I got the privilege to train with them and that was about it. Uh, fletcher was running it at the time and he was the commander of the team, and then, via lobos, was the um right underneath the attack leader. Yeah, and they said, hey, uh, come up to selena's valley, we're going to talk to you. And uh, I'm at work at the time.
Speaker 2:So I head up the hill and I meet at the range and, uh, I go to the, to the little um where they do all the trainings and stuff for that room, whatever it's called and they're all sitting down in chairs, like all of the um. What do you call them? The team leaders? Yeah, and um, this is intimidating. You know what I mean. They're all just sitting there all fucking. You know what I mean. I'm like I think I'm in the wrong room, you know. And they're like nah, sit the fuck down. You know what I mean, and you know they want to interview me. What are you about? What have you done? Why should we put you on our team? You know, they're straight up dudes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely oh.
Speaker 2:I'm, yeah, I'm tracking bro. So I'm like, uh, you know, trying to like not piss my pants, and I'm just like, dude, I'm just, you know, I just went to OP1, you know, um, I want to be an operator Like this is what I want to do. I want to learn, I want to grow and, uh, you know, I don't know about this cat. You know he looks a little jaycattish and Fletcher was like hey, check it out, be here tomorrow at 3 am. We're going to put you through a little sums up. And I was like, oh, my God, so what am I going to say? Right, right, and I'm thinking like I'm going to get a free pass, not at three in the morning, you're not, no, no, so, yeah, they, uh, I'll never forget that. You know, they put me through it for, like a mini trial. Yeah, yeah, and um, three in the morning, get there and I'll keep it short. But, man, they, they say we're just start off, you're gonna run your two miles. I was like, all right, yeah, so, you know, I, you know they're like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna put my running shoes on, like, no, alpha up, no, alpha up, you're going to run your two miles in all your gear and I was like I've never done that before. You know what I mean? That's 30 fucking pounds of weight.
Speaker 2:So I ran my two miles full alpha gear and then went to go shoot. And I'm looking at the you know they shoot a Glock 34. I'm looking at this Glock and they're like shut the fuck up and shoot it. And I was like I've never shot a gun with all black irons. You know and I don't know if that was something they did just to get me to throw me off you know what did they do? What was wrong with the sights? I think at the time we had the only girl in the. I never heard of that shit. Yeah, I've never shot like that, but some people shoot that. You know where it's. Just, you have all black sights and you know I don't know how that works, I don't shoot it, but I did that day, yeah. So I ran through the course, did that, and then you know they fucked. Cool, you're all right, you know what I mean. We'll let you hang with us for a little bit. Yeah, and some of the other guys were pissed off. You know what I mean On the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like, we don't want this fucking kid here.
Speaker 1:I don't blame them. That's a consensus. Dude, I've got bro even on YouTube. You garnish hate. You're a sergeant. Are you working at the prison while you're trying out and doing back?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so at the time and I don't know if it's this way anymore Salinas Valley has the biggest fucking budget for CERT. Those dudes train hard. They train more than anybody in the fucking state, so we were training four or five times a month. What the fuck? Yeah, bro, it was cool, and you know, they have their own Hummer. They got a bunch of cool shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, badass fucking van.
Speaker 2:Have you seen their Hummer? They have no, it looks like something from fucking World War II and shit. It's crazy. So like this is. One thing that was cool is we'd be working and then Fletcher would get on Central Control Radio and he's all for CRT purposes. Only we have an escaped inmate the outside of Salinas Valley. Any CRT operator report to the armory and he did that shit for fun. So those dudes were squared away.
Speaker 1:You know? No, definitely fucking squared away, bro. Yeah, so what was it like working at CTF at that prison?
Speaker 2:So it was cool. There was only like two dudes on the whole CERT team from CTF. The other 32 guys were from Salinas Valley, so it was an honor to be considered one of them for the short time I was there. It was different. You know, honestly, ctf is a really good prison to work at. I enjoyed working there. Everybody was really helpful.
Speaker 2:Remind you, I started in the jails where people wouldn't even shake my hand. You know what I mean. They're like fuck you. And then I go to CTF. I had my first incident. I had three sergeants come up to me hey D Durant, you need help with anything. That's how it is, that's how it should be. Hey, d, let me do this part. Hey, I'll do the lockup order. And I'm thinking like, okay, and it was just really camaraderie was still there, that's how it should be which they don't have anymore. But it was something that made me feel good as a supervisor. I knew I had help. I didn't know it all, so being able to get that help. And then my brother worked there too. He was a sergeant there. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so we had different last names, so so he was always helping me out too. You know what I mean, because I'm new, trying to figure it out. I only worked as an officer for three, three and a half years, so he would help me out.
Speaker 1:He'd call me. You know, Was the layout of CTF different than the layout of Valley State Prison?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Valley State Prison, you have four yards and then you have one big yard. That's it, real simple, okay. And then CTFf, solid dad. Um, you have your central facility, which is just one big building and there's wings in there and, um, all the wing, each wing, you know, you have I think it's two or three tiers, I can't even remember old school, right, yeah? And um, you have they had an ad seg there and then then you go all the way to the other side of the prison and you have a, a north facility which was like S&Y, two yards over there. So you had your GP, big old GP area and then a big old S&Y area over there. And, yeah, it was cool, it was different, and that was my first time working with big GP inmates, you know.
Speaker 1:Now, what about your role as sergeant, bro? Because now you got people coming up to you. Hey, what's good morning Sarge without weird hearing? Sarge in and being in control or in charge, I should say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was privileged, I was honored to be a supervisor. I was like, man, this is cool, I got chevrons. I was excited, I felt honored to wear stripes. At the same time, there's a lot of old school dudes that work there. So I knew my place. I knew like, hey, just because you got stripes, you ain't better than nobody you got to put in your work. And my brother told me right away he's like hey, alex, these dudes know a lot of shit, so ask them for help Because they have 20 plus years in the department. So you know, and I think that me asking people for help, as even though they're like, okay, this cool, this kid's real, like he's not trying to act, like he's somebody, he's not right and I would tell them straight up hey bro, I don't want to do count here, what the you know, can you help me?
Speaker 2:and uh, you know, because when count didn't clear on first watch, the central control called the sergeant. But hey bro, go fix your fucking area. So I'd go with the snes and we'd uh do counter. But I always went with them. You know, I wanted them to know. Like I ain't gonna ask you to do anything. I'm not gonna do facts, uh, but remind you, I'm a kid, you know, I'm 23 years old, or 24 or 5 years old at the time. So it was challenging because the majority of people gave me the cold shoulder.
Speaker 2:And you know, you just until they feel you out and get to know you, yeah, and then, uh, it was nice having my brother there because I did make a couple little mistakes and he you know, hey, alex, what happened, and he you know, hey, alex, what happened yesterday.
Speaker 1:And he helped me with the little stuff, since we're on the topic and it's a perfect time, like what advice would you give to a new, young supervisor? A new young supervisor yeah embarking into that new role.
Speaker 2:Man, there's a lot of supervisors I've promoted the last couple of years. Just understand that there's so much stuff that you do as a sergeant, you're not going to know everything, so don't act like you do. And as a sergeant, you need to understand. You have to know how to network, you have to know how to use your resources, because you're going to have incidents, you're going to have situations that you're not going to be comfortable with or you're not going to know how to do, and that's why it's very important you know how to network and not be afraid to call and ask for help. But when it comes to your officers, treat them with respect. And you know a good leader told me this like hey, Alex, you can have people try to believe in you, but when you can get an officer to believe in himself, that's when you became a real leader hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you will get first exclusive dibs on the video before it airs to the public and you'll get to ask the guest special questions that you have in mind.
Speaker 1:So that's also another way to support the channel. Thank you, guys, appreciate all of you. Keep pushing forward. Make sure you hit that link in description below.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what he meant at the time, but I would watch him and he kind of mentored me and he would talk to the officers and show them how to grow. And when you instill that in officers, man, the facility's tight, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's about it. It's often been said uh, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah and um, yeah, you got to really just slow it down. Another thing too as a new sergeant, you're not an officer. That's the big one, dude, yeah, so don't act like it. And when an alarm goes off and you want to run, slow it down.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of shit you got to do as a first line supervisor right, take a deep breath, understand. Like. You got to make sure what's being put on the radio. You got to make sure all the assistance you need is getting to your facility. Do I got to call ISU? Do I got to call central control? Do I need an ERV? Do I need additional staff? Do I need to call for a code two and scan, scan the whole fucking yard. Let them know you're watching. You know you're a supervisor.
Speaker 2:You have to be in control with your eyes, and a lot of people don't do that. But I've seen OGs do that where they walk into a building and they'll scan the whole day room and when they look at every inmate it just kind of sets the tone. I thought that was normal to do, bro. Bro, no kids run into buildings. Hey, get down. And they're just looking at what tunnel vision? Yeah, and I'm like bro, you know, this guy's fighting right here too, and uh, it's crazy. But uh, I mean, I could say a lot about it, but just to keep it short, just just humble yourself, understand? You're not an officer and, um, you got a lot to learn.
Speaker 1:So be open to listening. You are a very sharp and experienced individual. Okay, it's not just safety and security they have to worry about right. It's also policy procedure directions from their higher-ups. How would you advise them if they're directed to do something that feels kind of off or even actually violates policy?
Speaker 2:You know it's difficult to answer that because, man, things have changed so much, right, but if you're being asked to do something from a manager perspective or from headquarters that you don't agree with, dude, you need to know policy, you need to research everything to the T, because nobody's perfect. There's a lot of managers, there's a lot of people making mistakes and you could catch them as a first-line supervisor by reviewing policy, by reviewing older grievances, older staff complaints. You got to dig a little bit. You know what I mean. But if you question something, you have a voice. Just because you're a first-line supervisor doesn't mean you're nobody. Your officers are looking up to you to be that voice. So put yourself out there. It's going to be uncomfortable, but that's what you chose to do. So I mean question it if you don't agree with it, because your officers are going to question it and you need to give an answer to them, whether they like it or not. Don't be that guy like well, I don't know. You know what I mean, because that would always piss me off. So I always just try to learn as much as I can or know as much as I can, and if I didn't agree with it, I would just say hey, lt, is it cool if we talk for a minute? Yeah, can we talk to the captain just for five minutes? And my approach was always different. I'll say hey, cap, I don't want to bother you, but, like, can you explain this to me so I can explain it to the guys? Yeah, and that approach helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:And you know some of the stuff that I didn't agree with. He didn't understand. Who didn't understand? The captain was like what are you talking about? I'm like well, yeah, they told us. We got to. You know, make these guys, these COVID guys, come over here. Right, what the fuck? I'm like yeah, that's what the member says. He's like hold on. So then he calls you know, you're right, aw, fuck, don't do shit. Don't do shit, we're going to have a meeting, we'll get back to you. So sometimes you can catch stuff, not all the time, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Speaker 1:No, you're right. Oftentimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing within the department. Also, you can catch inmates that are housed where it's not supposed to be housed right by running housing unit, count rosters and fucking like, looking at dudes, fucking classifications and be like wait a minute, this motherfucker's not supposed to be here.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah happens all the time, dren, why is this guy in the yard? I was like, well, he lives here, bro, he was supposed to be transferred three weeks ago. I said, shit, should we go get him? Yeah, you know, and you know, people make mistakes, counselors make mistakes, whatever.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, but just deal with it as best you can, so did you enjoy your time as a sergeant I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of my career was a sergeant. I was a sergeant for like seven years, oh yeah. So and you know, I did a short amount of time at soledad awesome prison to work at good group of Um, and then I had some issues with um, um, my daughter and child custody stuff. So I went to court for that and pretty much I didn't have a judge during this child support case. And you know they're like, hey, if you want to see your daughter, you need to move back to the County and show that you want to be around her. And I'm like, okay, you know, that's my daughter, you know it's my blood, I'm going to be there for her. And I'm like, okay, you know that's my daughter, you know it's my blood, I'm going to be there for her.
Speaker 2:So and I was thinking like, how am I going to do this? I just got put on this CRT team that I look up to these guys about. I just promoted as a sergeant where people are helping me out. I get the, the, the time, the only time I'm ever going to be able to work with my brother, and I got to leave all this and it was like I kind of hit that point in my career where I was actually happy to go to work, I was proud of what I was. Oh, that's a good fucking feeling, bro. Yeah, and I went to interview at North Kern and Corcoran, and I interviewed at Corcoran once before and they didn't pick me up. Did you interview for?
Speaker 1:Corcoran as a lieutenant once before, or for sergeant, just sergeant just sergeant.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I got picked up. My first interview as a sergeant, my first interview as a lieutenant.
Speaker 1:But um damn homie dispensa. I got lucky. Took me like four or five fucking times.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you bro, I'll tell you a story real quick. So when I went to interview at corcoran the second time, I did not give a shit. I was disgruntled, I was upset that I had to leave. So when I went in there, you know how the panel goes right, yeah, and they're asking you these questions and I knew most of the stuff as a sergeant. You know the hearing process, the basic questions what do you do if there's a fight on the yard? How do you lock up an inmate? What are the duties of a sergeant, Whatever? But the last question most people will ever ask you for all your interviews is you know, do you have any questions for us, or why should we pick you up? And that's where you sell yourself, you know.
Speaker 2:And I was fucking disgruntled, dude, and you know, a little cocky at the time. I was like why should you pick me? Let me tell you why you should pick me. Because I got my two-piece in the car and I'm to work and I'll work any motherfucking yard at this prison. I didn't cuss, I'm just joking, but I said I'll work any yard at this prison.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't want to work. I'm here to work, so you need me to work tomorrow. You need me to work right now, you let me know. But if you don't need me, you guys have a good day. Fuck out of here. Yeah. And the one guy was like hey. And so I'm thinking fuck you guys. You know what I mean. I left, you know, drove back to my house the next day. They're like hey, is this, are you Durant? I was like, yeah, what's up. They're like oh, sorry, man, we're going to offer you a position. It worked, it worked. I was like are you sure I was the last thing? I expected, dude? Yeah. So I was like wait, are you sure? They're like, yeah, full time. I was like Fuck bro, Wait, are you?
Speaker 1:As a sergeant or as a lieutenant? I transferred as a sergeant. I didn't know that. Yeah, so you interviewed first as a sergeant. You transferred as a sergeant to Corcoran.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because of my child support issues. Yeah, came to Corcoran with one year as a supervisor so that way I could establish custody of my daughter, right. And so I went back to court and they were like, okay, cool, so holy shit bro.
Speaker 1:So technically this is your fourth correctional facility you've worked at to include the county. How was that?
Speaker 2:So Corcoran's a whole different animal. You know what I mean? That's a maximum security prison for all the people that work in other states. You guys call it super max. We only have max, we don't go any higher. So yeah, corcoran was rocking and rolling. It was scary.
Speaker 1:Right out the gate, like initially. I mean, did you hit the ground running? Were you seeing any shit you had not been exposed to thus far in all your experiences, oh yeah, been exposed to thus far in all your experiences?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, corcoran broke me in. You know they. They beat the shit out of me there. Um, when I started there, remind you, I talked a big game and I regretted it the first day I walked in. I talked all that shit in that interview and they're like, yeah, this kid's about it. Put him in um or level four, eop ad sig level four eop ad sig.
Speaker 1:How many ad sigs did corcoran have?
Speaker 2:fuck dude I mean, I mean at the time you have 4A which has your shoe, which had LTRH long restricted housing. Okay, they had everybody there. They had like four lockup units just on 4A.
Speaker 1:And then the one you're talking about was level 4 SMY, eop, like the worst of the worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, corcoran, you know you have a four side and three side, three side um. On three a facility you have your level four EOP and then in the middle of the prison you have a um, an administrative segregation for just triple C inmates In the middle of the prison, yeah, next to our uh um, like our R and R um, what do you call it? Correctional Treatment Center, our little hospital? Yeah, there's like a little isolated, that's interesting Administrative segregation in the middle. And then on 4 side, on 4A, you have all your lockup units and then before they had 4B, which is lockup, but when I got there they were transitioning 4B to a level two facility. Is there any mainline there? Gp it was. Yeah, well, not anymore, but 3C was level four GP, 3c was level four GP and 3B was level four.
Speaker 2:180 or 270? Smy, 270, I think ABC. Abc was open or ABC was closed. No, I mean the building you walk in you have a unit or a section B, section, c section, so that's 180. With walls? Yeah, with walls in between, no walls, okay 270.
Speaker 2:Oh 270, yeah, never understood that. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have lock-up units all over the fucking place. You know, like I went to VSP, they have one lock-up unit. You know, 50 fucking inmates and then I go to Corcoran. It was this whole other ballgame.
Speaker 1:So what are some things? You see, that's where they assigned you or that's where you ended up in that.
Speaker 2:When I went to Corcoran I was a second watch coverage, so they're like hey, put this motherfucker Plugging you in there, yeah, put him everywhere.
Speaker 1:Let's see what he's about Describe to the crowd what kind of fucking sound sight smells.
Speaker 2:You'll hear in a lock-up unit like that yelling man. You know so. Corcoran was is old school, you know so. My first um day they put me in it was 304 at the time. So it's 304, level 4 eop. So you walk into that building, you know. The control door opens up.
Speaker 2:You walk in and all these motherfuckers see your nice shiny little chevrons fuck you every inmate is like this fucking head on the glass and they're like, look at that pretty ass, little fucking mario lopez bitch. And I was just like, oh my gosh, here we go. And they're like, damn homie, look at your little ass. Like they just. It's probably the first time I felt like I was like man. This is what it feels like to be catcalled when you're a woman. Facts it's horrible. So after that I never catcalled any woman in my life. But it's very loud, it's cold. So you know that's one thing. People never tell you Prison's cold.
Speaker 1:There's cement everywhere, and when you're cold you kind of stiffen up, which is not a good thing. Wait a minute, is it?
Speaker 2:cork rim where jaime osuna cut off that dude's head. Yeah, right there on 4a, was that your time frame? Yeah, no, yeah, I wasn't working that day, but uh, uh, randolph, he's an aw now.
Speaker 1:He was the lieutenant there so this is a unit that you're talking about, or a different unit or similar?
Speaker 2:no, so 4a was our strh or yeah well, asuna, he was eop, you know at the time, yeah, as a mental health status. So he went to 304, okay, so 304 and 481 were your two worst areas at corcoran. Oh my god, yeah, you know. So you know. 4a was violent, you know what I mean. Yeah, but like, but you had, you had your gangsters there, you know what I mean. Like you had some shot callers there, like your general population guys in your humble opinion, bro.
Speaker 1:Would you rather deal with gp gangsters or fucking eops?
Speaker 2:gp all day long. Exactly, I'd rather fight a fucking gangster. They'll fight you fair, they'll beat you up and all right. Cool, you know what I mean because I've been beat up a lot. Um, but they're straight up about it, right? An eop guy? They'll fucking cut your throat and they don't even care. Weird shit, huh, yeah, all I know is EOP. My first building at Valley State Prison was the first building they ever converted on A2. Yeah, it was a brand new EOP building. Nobody wanted to work it. So I'm like, hey, there's Sunday, mondays off on a bid, bro, nobody wants it. They're like, hey, you don't want to go there, youngster. So my first building I worked a level two EOP.
Speaker 1:So what advice would you give again, with your experience of a CO maybe he's worked around GPs his whole entire career, transferred to a joint where there's EOPs and the fucking wild ones we're talking about what advice would you kind of school him like? Would you say like hey, be careful around these guys. They're more impulsive, definitely?
Speaker 2:So and we would get this all the time because 3C was level 4 GP, so we'd get officers from 3C to get held over to my yard, which was 3A. 3a is a level 4 S&Y and we had EOP at SIG, so we would get EOPs like overflow. The mentality is different. You cannot talk down or cuss or try to be rough with a mentally challenged inmate, so they're very unpredictable and the majority of them are taking psych medications.
Speaker 2:If you look at all the incidents and stuff going on in the world, a lot of it's due to people that are taking psych medication and they're not mentally stable because they're switching medication or they go off or whatever that's happening in those areas. So you got to be patient, you got to know how to talk to them and you got to be careful with how you talk. And I use a lot of my body language to talk to people Like I don't directly talk in front of you, it just it comes out violent. So I always approach somebody on the side, I always let them talk and explain everything and then I'll say what I have to say. But if you try to approach one of them and tell them something dude, it's like startling a fucking deer bro.
Speaker 2:It's like grabbing a pit bull.
Speaker 1:It's like grabbing a pit bull. It's like grabbing a pit bull. That's why we call them EOP whispers yeah, the cops that are really good at talking to these dudes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of those cops are pretty much EOP themselves, correct, they got issues, facts, so you bring that with that and sometimes it works out. No, but it does work out. My first big extraction I did was because a stupid officer that worked on a general population tried to down talk an inmate in an EOP ad seg and it was something really stupid. And I have a good rapport with this inmate, very violent inmate but this stupid officer said something disrespectful to him. You don't do that.
Speaker 1:Was that the inmate's name that you stated earlier? Yeah, we're talking offline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, and he said something disrespectful to the inmate's name that you stated earlier. Yeah, we're talking offline. Yeah, okay, and he said something disrespectful to the inmate and it just is something that simple calling somebody a bitch, somebody walking by you and you not addressing them. That'll get you a whole incident and that's what happened that day. But you got to be careful with those guys, with the EOP guys. Back to your question. Well, not to be careful with those guys, you know, with the EOP guys. Back to your question.
Speaker 1:Well, not to mention. I mean oftentimes we think EOP, we think of the fakers. Right, we've all dealt with the fakers, yeah yeah. But then there's the ones that are literally whatever they're dealing with schizophrenia, psychosis, psychotic episodes, that's fuck. Had you ever encountered that kind of motherfuckers off the?
Speaker 2:rocker. Oh, man dude. Yeah, you know, like you said, you got to remember in the prison system a lot of your general population inmates. When they get washed up and they go S and Y, there's more privileges and program for EOP inmates so weird. So if you're a smart inmate, you're going to go tell a psychologist, oh, I don't feel too good, and then they'll evaluate you and you're going to fake a test and then you're going to be in an EOP program. Now you have more opportunity, you have more visiting, you have a bunch of shit. So a lot of inmates are going EOP for that purpose only. And then they avoid all the issues from these two fivers Northern Riders on the S&Y game, because they're segregating themselves.
Speaker 1:So they're segregating themselves, so they're smart, but CDCR just pulled a fast one on them around 2019 and made them non-designated, bro, meaning they can go wherever the fuck now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can tell you about that too, did you?
Speaker 1:encounter that? Yeah, yeah, I did. And did you have inmates refusing to get rehoused?
Speaker 2:So I ran 3A for two years as a sergeant, a level 4 S&Y, but we had our EOP building there, so I got real familiar with the EOPs, dealing with them. Going back to I think you mentioned something earlier so there was an inmate I had a good rapport with. He was EOP very slow. You know the mentality of a five-year-old, so you have to talk to him very slow, explain stuff to him. One day he snapped, sucked her officer right in her face. Female officer Cracked her Boom boom, cracked her right in her face, boom, she fell over. Male officer sees it, goes over there, boom boom, starts throwing blows and they're going at it. They're fucking going at it. And he was one of my good officers.
Speaker 2:Officer, this is one thing you got to understand as supervisor. When an alarm goes off and you don't hear anybody on that radio, that's a scary thing, dude. It gets me my blood going Because I don't know if an officer is fighting, I don't know if an officer is getting hurt. And then you know most of the ones were false alarms and stuff. But that's why, as a supervisor, this is something I always did when an alarm went off, I would tell the control booth control, what do we got Control? What do we got? Because everybody needs to know what the hell we're running into. But those scared me, and that was that one where nobody was on the radio.
Speaker 2:So me and my guys got there and you were the sergeant on the facility. Yeah, yeah, we had an EOP building there too. I forgot to say there was an eop I'd say an eop building. So we get there, we deal with the ma. Uh, we take them up to program and I won't say too much. But, um, yeah, don't say too much. I saw, I saw his personality change and it was scary, dude. He went from looking me in the eye saying some horrible things, like I'm gonna kill you, like I killed that fucking girl, yeah, crazy. And then, oh, hey, duran, everything okay. And I was like motherfucker, hold up, hold up, yeah, dude, and that was him. He was bipolar, he was schizophrenic and that's the kind of shit you got to understand when you deal with those inmates.
Speaker 1:I need you to please for the record loud and clear, because I've been doing this YouTube shit for two years and every time I mention a staff assault, you have everyone and their mom saying, oh, inmates, don't assault COs for no reason. You just gave a perfect fucking example of Mavagas switches flipping. Do inmates attack COs for no?
Speaker 2:reason All the time. All the time. If you look at it like this Hector, all of your violent, disgusting, like rape type of stuff that inmates have done to officers, they've all been at your low level areas where people don't have their guard up. You know what I mean. Like your crazy, violent, you know rape, murder, stuff statewide. In the last 30, 40 years they weren't at a level four maximum prison. They're at a level two area in a dining area, somewhere where nobody has their guard up. So, yeah, that kind of shit happens and that's why you know you're going to go a long time and it's easy, there's nothing going on, but it's complacency. It's complacency. You're in an area where there's a lot of people that were taken out of society and put here for a reason and that's why you have to have your guard up. You have to you know what I mean Be able to use your peripheral to observe stuff and be sharp.
Speaker 1:Not just that, you have death row condemned inmates on level two facilities now no-transcript.
Speaker 2:They changed protective custody to naming it SNY sensitive need yards. So all your guys that were washed up or taken off of a mainline went to SMY. Well, the state said fuck, all these SMY inmates are politicking and making gangs just like they were on the GP. So what we try to do is not working. We have more violence on SMY yards, we have more gangs that we don't even know about, because all your, your sedanials, your northenials, your whites, your blacks, they're like hey, bro, I'm a gangster, just because my homies don't think I'm good. I am good. So some of these dudes are smart. So they start politicking, they make their own game, they get numbers, and with numbers you're strong. And so the state said what the fuck are we going to do? You know?
Speaker 2:And so they said hey, let's make them, whatever they you know those politicians decided to do. But, um, so they just said let's just throw everybody together because whatever we did's not working. And you could ask a lot of even the counselors are like what the fuck do we do? Right, when I was the watch commander, we had counselors from uh san quentin that were transferring inmates not putting proper uh documentation because they were scared to put their name on the paperwork. Yeah, I'm like hey, why aren't? Is this guy coming to this yard or not? You said he could come here, but your classification stuff you're not actually wording that. So is he locked up or not.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see what you're saying. I think I encountered that. What do they call those notes? Case notes or whatever? They would leave shit very vague. Or it'll say receiving institution will designate the appropriate housing. Yeah, and put it on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like, hold on. You just sent him to us, so where is he supposed to go? Oh well, you know, wherever you think? Whoa, it don't work that way, but that was their way to cover their ass, right, and you know, everyone has to cover their own ass, but yeah. So we opened up our first non-designated yard on 3B and 4B and at the time I was a third watch sergeant. Two years on, 3a Finally approved myself, established myself with the guys, things were good, Yard was good, and then I got offered to go to second watch by Goss solid dude and so I went to second watch as a relief. They said, hey, duran, so-and-so's running the yard, we need another sergeant to. They needed some muscle on the yard, pretty much. So they brought me over to 3B and they said, hey, we're bringing this, all these dudes from these private jails and stuff, and they're going to come to non-designated. And I'm like, okay, they're like we need you to. When they come here, we're bringing them in 30, 40, 50 dudes at a time.
Speaker 2:Was the yard empty starting off. No, we already had a bunch of like S&Y inmates there. S&y inmates. So they were S&Y heavy initially, yeah, and they just started sitting.
Speaker 1:Well, they just changed their status Now what would happen every time they would bring a GP onto that facility.
Speaker 2:So when they switched it to non-designated 3B. It started off slow, nothing really going on. We were having more issues with the Southerners. They're just you're not taking me there. And the counselors are like, well, we're going to recommend you for non-designated and they're like I ain't going there, you're fucking out of your mind. So then what happens there? You know we get stuck having to take them physically, take them. And you know I always kept shit 100. You know, I would tell a Southerner I say, man, you understand, I got to put you on 3B. He's like, yeah, dred, no disrespect, but I got to do what I here to the holding cell and if you want to take off on us, take off on us. So it was always respected, you know.
Speaker 1:Explain that more. Take them to the holding cell. So what would you tell them?
Speaker 2:So, like if I had to take an inmate from like R&R to the facility, I didn't want any issues to arise in front of medical, in front of free staff.
Speaker 1:So you would tell the in&M Dave, you're going to do your thing, do it at the yard, and you know it was respect, right.
Speaker 2:He's like hey, dren, I got to do what I got to do, right. And I said, well, that's cool, but I don't want any females to get hurt, I don't want any free staff to get hurt because we start fighting.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people have this question. They're in their mind dude. You know, honestly, it was just one of those things to where you do what you're told.
Speaker 2:Right, and it wasn't just like they're telling us, they're telling the whole state. So anybody that was converting to non-designated yards. They were slowly doing this with lower-level inmates that didn't really have a voice so they wouldn't do anything. So they started with your level ones, your level twos, guys that didn't have a lot of time in the prison system, intermingling them. You know, you got. You got child molesters, you have northerners, bulldogs, whatever, and they're putting them all in the same yard. And you bring a 20 year old kid off the streets, that's a bulldog. What is he going to do? I mean, he don't really know any better. And you bring a dude from like Salinas Valley, that's a bulldog. He's going to fight everybody. You know that's just the way it is. And so, yeah, 4b, when 4B made non-designated bro, it was crazy. Honestly, it's going pretty good from what I heard. You know it's mellowed out. No, you're saying that now, but what about initially? Oh, no, it was off the hook dude.
Speaker 1:But did a lot of inmates get hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the time it was crazy.
Speaker 1:From your perspective, do you think they have valid lawsuits coming from that?
Speaker 2:No, I mean they dot their I's cross their T's with paperwork, so it's like putting your signature on something. If you sign it, you own it. So they would make a lot of inmates sign shit, in my opinion, or agree to shit.
Speaker 2:I thought they were fucking just admonishing them. You know, yeah, when they would go to committee and talk to these inmates, they would pretty much say, on there we're making the recommendation that you're going to non-designated. And then you know, I would scan all the way down to like the comments or whatever. And the A&M said, fuck you, I'm not going there, but it is our recommendation that he go there, try it out, type of thing. Right, and yeah, so real quick, hector, we'd get R&R. And I would call the R and r sergeant hey, bro, what's going on today? And he'd be like hey, dredd, you have five bulldogs coming to your to three. I didn't, I didn't work for me, but I would get held there a lot, yeah, and he'd be like you got five bulldogs. So I already knew what that meant. You know what I mean? Those motherfuckers are gonna, they're gonna take off. So they would ask we would escort them to the facility. And it was just, you know, it was game time.
Speaker 1:Was the Bulldogs getting off any different than the Surrenos getting off, or did they all look the same?
Speaker 2:So we try to do it controlled. So if we could release one at a time and take them to their cell, we would. But it's just like the second we open that door and there's inmates around. They're just going to take off. The Bulldogs are very structured. I mean, the Northerners are very structured.
Speaker 2:So the Northerners would never leave R&R by themselves. So they would say, hey, if you're taking us, you're going to at least take two of us. So they were always getting off two or more. Yeah, they'd say, you could either extract us here or let us go out two at a time. That's interesting. So what they would do is we would take two to three northerners and we'd put them in a unit and what the northerners would do is they would lock arms and then they would just go at it and start fucking going to town on dudes. But they would lock arms so they knew they were together as long as they could. And the chomos were getting their ass beat right. All these washed-up dudes were getting their ass beat. So the chomos got sick of it and they said we got to do something. We got it, we got to protect ourselves. It was fucking weird. And so all these fucking you know guys that are in there for disgusting crimes. They started having meetings and they started forming like a little alliance. No way bro what the bro.
Speaker 2:So all these guys said, hey, when these guys come into the building, we're all gonna stick together, we're gonna fight together. So I'm watching avs and I you know, I see fucking 20 chomos taking off on four northerners. I'm like this is some weird shit would the northerners come out on top?
Speaker 1:no, no, the fucking chomolestri would. Fucking son of a bitch man.
Speaker 2:That's a horrible ending to the story. Yeah, I mean not all the time, but yeah, you know, I probably saw like maybe eight fights like that. I didn't even work that yard.
Speaker 1:So the way they were we, they were doing it in Donovan was you would get four Southerners touch down the minimum yard and then, one at a time, they would. We would tell them just to walk into the dorm by themselves, yeah, and then we'd walk in behind them and they'd be on the ground laid out. No suspects, yeah, no, I believe it. And then you roll them up for safety concerns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly what we did. And they would get mad at me. The Southerners? Well, yeah, bro, they do. Ain't nobody trying to get fucked up? No, no, no, I mean like I, I would say, hey, I gotta roll you up. And they would get mad like, no, put me on the fucking yard. You already brought me here, motherfucker. Put me out there. And I'm like no, I can't. You already. You already tried to stab those two guys. You're right, you brought me here, let me get down. I'm like you already got down, but they would. They wanted to prove themselves facts, yeah because what a shit storm.
Speaker 1:It was it shitstorm, bro, it was bad. That's horrible, man. Yeah, with no direction from the top, dude, it's just like hey, fucking mix them.
Speaker 2:No, well, most of the times that all the inmates would arrive, the managers were gone anyways, true, so they'd be like, hey, let's see what's going to happen in the morning, you know.
Speaker 1:Now did you guys.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I had a Southerner take off on me on 3B non-designated. We were escorting him and he was like, hey, bro, I ain't going to fucking be here. And I'm just like, hey, man, this is where you're going. And nowadays they just, oh, I'm in crisis, I'm going to kill myself. So you got to whatever, do the CIT stuff. And so we did all that. Right, mental health came and evaluated him, lieutenant, sergeant, and then mental health cleared him. They're like, no, he ain't in crisis. Yeah, so when they clear him, what do we got to do?
Speaker 1:We got to take him back to the building you know, did you ever experience a crisis intervention team, a CIT, where they have a person from mental health, a person from medical and then a custody? Yeah, 100 times, probably more. Could you explain to the crowd that's a duty that a sergeant or a lieutenant has to do, man, let's say you have an inmate and he alleges he's suicidal. What the process would be then?
Speaker 2:So the first thing as a sergeant, if you have an inmate that's crisis bed, go on Psalms and look him up and look at his behavior pattern, see if he's ever tried to commit suicide and then kind of look up his notes to see how many times he's been crisis-bid. So you have an idea of what you're dealing with. And then when you do a mental health crisis-bid, you have a licensed psychologist, you have an RN, and then you you're the only person there from the custody side and the three of you go into the area. The psychologist will ask some questions and she does her mental health assessment and then the RN evaluates him for any type of injuries and then you, as custody, your role is to make sure he doesn't have any enemy or safety concerns on the yard, because most of these inmates will say I'm suicidal. So that way they can go to a holding cell and they can say hey, bro, I'm no good on the yard, like you got to get me out of here.
Speaker 2:I owe homeboy uh fucking 86 soups and he's gonna fuck me up. Yeah, so I gotta go. And me I was always the kind of supervisor at the time like if you created yourself in depth. You clean up your own mess, I ain't gonna help you out. Worse shit, oh 100 that's all you.
Speaker 2:But you know, if you had serious issues, yeah, I'd help you out, but that's how. That's how the um, mental crisis bid or CIT shit goes. They evaluate them. Most of the time you're waiting on a psychologist to get there. Depending on who the psychologist is, they'll either send them or they won't, but either way, after they leave, it's your responsibility to get that inmate back to the building or to wherever he's going to go. And that's kind of where it becomes our issue and we get, you know, battered, assaulted. That's how I got battered on 3B one time.
Speaker 1:Could you explain what a medical emergency cell entry is and when one would need to transpire?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so people get it confused. You know, you have your controlled use of force, which is your big extraction where you have to set everything up. You have your medical cell entries and your emergency cell entries. Um, so for what did you say A medical, yeah, emergency cell entry.
Speaker 2:So for an emergency cell entry, I mean it's going to be, it has to be an emergency. So, uh, your officer observes the inmate down, uh, doesn't appear to be breathing or whatever. Or if an inmate boards up and you can't see anything in his cell, those ones are the fucked up ones. It's your responsibility to make sure the inmate is live and breathing. So we would do an emergency cell entry. And you got to be careful with those, because most inmates will set you up just so you go in there.
Speaker 2:But with an emergency cell entry, if it's an ad sec setting, at least make sure your officers have the bare minimum a shield and a helmet. And most of those officers at Corcoran are good enough to where. If there's a situation, they'll deal with it themselves before I get there. But if it's like somebody we know that's going to be an issue, they'll call me hey, duran, so-and-so, he fucking boarded up, we're going to go in. So I start heading over there so we can assess. But with that, make sure your officers have a shield, a helmet. Rack the door. They go in there, uh, hold them down, cuff them up leg restraints, pull them out and then have medical evaluate them.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't always look that nice sometimes, you know no, because you're right, they'll play possum and they'll fight sometimes when the door opens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, so real quick with medical cell entries. You know emergency cell entries, like I said, those can get real sketchy real quick. So I would always. You know, I'm not going to say fuck with inmates, but I try to work them as best I could. So, for instance, we had this dude that board up all the time.
Speaker 2:So the hey Durant, so-and-so's boarded up. I'm like all right, cool, just, I'll go over there in one minute. So I'd go up to the cell and I would go to the adjacent cell and I'd be like hey man, hey, is this your fucking mouse that's right here trying to come out. And then the dude would pop the thing to look. Well, I just observed he's live and breathing, right, so we don't got to go in. And he'd be like mother, you tricked me. I'm like I didn't, I didn't tell you to look. But you know we would do shit like that because most of the time these guys are fucking around, they're not being serious.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, and if you guys, if you have an inmate boarding up as a supervisor, do your homework, pull them up on psalms and see how many extractions he's been in, see how many officers he's battered, because a lot of these dudes have battered 30, 40, 50 officers. Do you really think if he's boarded up he's going to be hurting himself? No, he's not. So try to build a rapport with that guy. You know what I mean To keep your officers safe, but yeah, those ones. They happen all the time. They happen all the time. They happen every day at Corcoran.
Speaker 1:Throughout this interview thus far you've mentioned a lot of ways to research, just like to gain knowledge, Like right now you just stated like hey, look up their SOM, See how much battery on peace officers they have. What are some other tips or tricks that you would look up? What are some advantages or stuff that COs are able to look up inmates in their own housing unit to get knowledge on the inmate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just that right there. Like if you're an officer and you're having issues with inmates or you want to know what inmates are about, I usually just start with their disciplinary. I want to see what he's capable of. I want to see what he's done. If you suspect a guy of doing dope or passing dope, look him up. If he has a bunch of paraphernalia and drug stuff, well, yeah, you probably just observed him passing dope. But same thing with extractions.
Speaker 2:Before we do a controlled use of force, I would pull up an inmate's disciplinary and I would read his controlled use of forces to see whether he likes to gas staff, whether he likes to bite staff, if he likes to kick, whether he likes to use a weapon. Because the majority of inmates are going to do the same fucking thing over and over again. They kick you the same, they hit you the same. In an immediate situation you just react to what you know. So, the bare minimum, just review disciplinary.
Speaker 2:But on another note, like with inmates that are like suicidal or you know, you got lifers. You know, at all these places Some of these dudes get tired, right, and when they get tired they're done and they don't want to be there. So I would always try to look up, you know where they're from or who's visited them, just to kind of get a touch for them as a person, right, because I've had guys say, hey, dredd, I can't do this anymore, man, I'm fucking done. I I've had guys say, dredd, I can't do this anymore, man, I'm fucking done, I'm going to, I'm done, dude. And I knew what they meant. You know what I mean. Dude tried to kill himself twice already and he's like Dredd, just let me be. And so I'd look up his family, see what he's about, and you know and I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but this is just something that I did though you're here, like you could still be riding him, you could still be trying to communicate with him. You know he'd rather have you here than not here.
Speaker 1:And we're both we're both former lieutenants, bro. It would not be in the wrong to allow the dude to make a phone call home or to a family member.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you you said it, dude. I've done that twice. Where a dude hit a rock bottom, he's down 16 years. His lady finalized the divorce paperwork. Dude has no hope. You know what I mean. And just because you're fucking wearing green doesn't mean you can't be real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like hey, dude, pull him out of the phone. Right there, man, Make a call.
Speaker 2:And I'd be like hey, man, it's cool, you want to talk to your mom Really? Yeah, man, I'll give you a call right now. Whole mentality changes. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Now what I just said was hey, you're not in the wrong to. If an inmate is feeling down and out at the end of his freaking ropes man to give the dude a phone call, let him call somebody that fucking actually cares or loves about him, right, yeah. But I want you to balance the scale, and where it starts to become unrealistic when you have inmates wilding out out of control and now you're rewarding bad behavior.
Speaker 2:Man, I was thinking that before. You said it too, so you got to understand it. If you're a newer officer or an officer, you don't reward bad behavior. I'm not going to go give an inmate a fucking phone call just because he's asked me 22 times. I'm not going to go give an inmate a fucking phone call just because he's asked me 22 times. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You don't bend the rules for people just because they're trying to fucking game you. If somebody has something coming and you know you want to do something right and you're in the position to do something right, honor it. But you don't bend the rules. You don't just start giving up the house for no fucking reason and it creates a lot of issues that you don't see yet. And even for OGs that run housing units and they just let the whole fucking house go, it's like that unit is a representation of yourself. So everybody that walks in there knows you're fucking weak, you're lazy, you don't care. And every new officer that's what you're showing them. So if you're a new officer and you're like man I don't know any better So-and-so allows them to jump on the phones all the time or to smoke on the benches. I guess I have to allow that too, and that's why we get a lot of shitty cops is because you know monkeys, see, monkeys do. So it's like for you officers that are 5, 10 years.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, you guys are the most knowledgeable and the most valuable because you can be that officer that you wish you had when you were new. You could show them all the things that you wish you would have shown, been shown. You could do all that. You know everything. You know enough now to where you know what's right from wrong and you know how to talk to inmates. So, like on the flip side, if you were just to give knowledge, share knowledge, to these kids, these newer officers, I think it would just change the whole mentality. Man, well, how huge is mentoring? It's huge. You know what I mean, that's, you know they created that whole Sergeant Mentoring Program and it started off good and it went to shit. But you know we all need a mentor.
Speaker 1:you know you mentioned the Sergeant sergeant mentoring program, but I'm talking about partners on the yard, shoulder to shoulder, back against the wall how critical and vital is it for to run scenarios to with each other, communicate hey, so and so, fucking so, and so he owes money, so and so he got bad news, right? How important is it to fucking talk amongst partners? That's a big deal, and I've heard officers say this oh, I don't talk to inmates. I don't talk to inmates. That means you, right? How important is it?
Speaker 2:to fucking talk amongst partners. That's a big deal. And I've heard officers say this oh, I don't talk to inmates, I don't talk to inmates. That means you don't know your fucking inmates and you don't know your yard. Like we don't run shit. Those inmates run everything. We're just there and there's a mutual respect. For instance, when I was a yard sergeant, every inmate that came out had to see me. So they'd come out and I would direct them and all the officers would pat them down, but they had to see me first. They had to walk out of the what do you call this little controlled area out of the building, the rotunda? Yeah, they'd walk out of the rotunda, were you guys releasing one building at a time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they'd walk out of the rotunda. I was standing right there, okay, and then I would direct them to go to the left and you have like five to ten officers lined up against the wall Right. So why I'm saying this is every—.
Speaker 1:Would they come out in their boxers and without a shirt? Yeah, for a while yeah, because I had a warden yell at the cops for making the inmates do that. He said the cops were humiliating him.
Speaker 2:He's probably never—he didn't come up as a cop Well he did.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh shit. Yeah, you know, um, this was right after, right after they brutally stabbed two fucking cops and almost killed him, bro.
Speaker 2:A week later, dude, when I went to 3b and I was a yard sergeant for one day, I was so scared out of my mind. They're like, hey, duran, you're the yard sergeant. I said, yeah, I'm just here for the day. Like you know what happened to the last yard sergeant? Right, I was like no man. They're like well, he's out. He got socked in the face, knocked him out cold. I was like when Yesterday I was like, do I got to be right there for yard? They're like, yeah, and it was real active. It was level four SMY. The two fivers were running the fucking yard, but they wanted to assault staff. You know what I mean wanted to assault staff. You know what they did? Oh, yeah, I think they had a little green light on staff. What was their motive? Fuck, I don't know. I was so new to that facility, I just knew a lot of people were getting battered and assaulted, but that was what they told me. They say that that last sergeant he got fucking, did you guys?
Speaker 1:have avss and body one camera. No, not at the time, nothing okay um, back to your question.
Speaker 2:Um, I made it a point to address every inmate. Hey, good, good morning, good morning, how you doing, good morning. I got a feel for everybody's tone and most of your inmates you know. Hey, what's up, dredd, what's up what's up. And then the guys that don't talk, you know, but you get a feel for them. You know what I mean. And if a guy came out wearing glasses I never wore glasses Well, I know he probably got two fucking shiners, or a guy that puts his head down and usually talks to me, I know he's probably having a bad day and it kind of lets me know oh, maybe something's wrong with this dude or maybe I got to watch out for this dude. But yeah, you got to make it a point to talk to these inmates. Like, communication is where everything starts.
Speaker 1:With that being said, man, a lot of these newer breeds and I need to make this fucking clear, man, I'm not putting a blanket statement or labeling a whole generation yeah, but it almost seemed like as a newer generation came to work, they considered it more of a job than a career, meaning they weren't putting in the effort to do their research and learn the yard and learn their inmates. Yeah, um, could you explain how important it is to treat it like a career? Maybe because your life fucking depends on it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to understand like the person you don't like, the person you don't talk to, could possibly be having to save your life one day. Like you could be in a scuffle with an inmate, you could have to do an extraction, you could have to escort somebody, and that person that you know you want to shine off or act like you're better than that person can be fucking you know getting busy with you one day. So you got to understand like you really got to have that camaraderie. You have to understand that it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. You're going to be doing it for a long time and you're going to have, you know, your good days, your bad days and days you want to quit, but you just got to keep fucking pushing. You know what I mean. But it ain't no job, it's a whole career and it could be a good career if you make it one Facts.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of wolves out there, and I'm not just talking about inmates. Right, you have to figure out how to be a sheepdog. You know that's something that takes time. I never fully figured it out, but that's what I looked up to. You know that's what you mentioned mentors. I had a lot of good mentors that guided me and I looked up to and my goal was to be like them one day. But you know my, my career got cut short, but yeah.
Speaker 1:How important, and can you give some report writing tips, especially from a fucking former lieutenant bro that was putting together incident packets Like what kind of shit is required per dom and what kind of shit were officers leaving out?
Speaker 2:You know, it really just depends, like for starting off, writing you got to understand corrections is very, very detailed. You got to explain a lot more shit than most police officers. You have to be down to the T with what type of arm you used, what you did, how he landed. You explain so much shit. It's stupid. But just for the bare minimum, when you get to work or you're working a building and you start looking up inmates, look up their disciplinary and look up some of your biggest stuff, the biggest things that you're going to deal with is you're going to have a fighting and you're going to have batteries and then you're going to have your medical emergencies that could turn into a, an incident. But just start reading those reports, reading those reports. Talk to your dispo officer. Your dispo officer is dealing with reports all day long.
Speaker 2:Um, and just what I did for me is I created a template just to make it easy. Even as an officer, I'm like I don't like using my baton. I like to pepper spray people. So let me figure out my distance, let me figure out how they're writing and just kind of create a little template for yourself, because you know what you're going to probably do the majority of the time. If you're not a baton guy, well, you're probably not going to use a baton. If you're a pepper spray guy or you're hands-on, review those two things right there. Um, you know physical reports, uh, um, pepper spray stuff, distance, um. But yeah, as far as like managers, there's a lot of stuff that they're looking for.
Speaker 1:Uh, closed body searches. Unclosed body searches. Searches of the holding cell decontamination yeah, all the repetitive stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, my my first controlled use of force, you know I don't know what the fuck I was doing, but there's so much stuff involved, so much policy and I'm just like damn, but you know, but there has whatever any type of incidents already been done in prison. You just got to look it up. You know there ain't nothing that we haven't done so well, except for the, the uh delano escape cedar hernandez oh yeah, that was kind of a new one that's different.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a wobbler. Yeah yeah, I don't know about that one, A wild card man, which resulted in a death too Son of a bitch. But so that's report writing. What other tips would you give COs embarking on this career field?
Speaker 2:You know, at one time you used to have to be somewhat physically fit for corrections. It was mandatory. You did like your physical once a year, I think. Now they just pay you for it, which is crazy, but this is going to be your career, so you got to understand. The majority of time, yeah, you're going to be sitting on your ass and it's going to be very mental, right, you're going to struggle mentally than physically, but you have to be physically fit. In my opinion, like, but you have to. You have to be physically fit, in my opinion, like the majority of people that are physically fit or disciplined. You know the majority of corrections are not physically fit and then they lack discipline and it just trickles down from there.
Speaker 2:But I mean, if this is something you want to do and you want to be a correctional officer, try to get in some type of good workout routine.
Speaker 2:Try to get into some type of basic martial arts, like you got to know how, to the bare minimum of fighting at least, and I don't mean to say that in like a you know derogatory or like bad way, but you might have to save or help your partner out in a situation and you don't want to be that guy trying to figure out how to fight in the middle of that situation.
Speaker 2:Right, um, figure out how to like, like, carry yourself, like. Command presence is a big deal in prison and when you hit a yard or you hit a building, you're going to have 100 or 200 dudes looking you up, sizing you up, looking at how you wear your belt. And it all starts with command presence, with being dressed properly, with carrying yourself properly. All the little stuff that you don't think about. Those those little things you have to develop on your own. But if you're thinking about getting into it, figure out some type of basic workout routine that works for you, maybe looking at some basic martial arts and, um, understand, you're going to be uncomfortable a whole lot in your career, like you're going gonna always feel uncomfortable every day you show up, bro even at the pad wondering, fuck, did I do that?
Speaker 2:yeah, did I do that yeah, like, as an officer, you're gonna be uncomfortable with situations, with your surroundings and inmates. As a supervisor, as a manager, you're uncomfortable with paperwork you submitted or fucking incidents you cleared. You know you're like oh shit, um, you're always going to be uncomfortable, but you have to try to figure out how to be comfortable being uncomfortable right, I could say it that way but um well, that'll bring you to, and you mentioned mental health, uh, positive coping skills, man.
Speaker 1:How important is it for a law enforcement officer to have a life outside of the job and positive coping skills?
Speaker 2:It's huge. It's huge man. You have to like I don't really know how to say this, but I mean I think every guy's probably done this You're going to reach a point in your career where you hit a low and you hit a wall and you're going to feel isolated and alone and you're going to try to reach out to somebody. You're going to call somebody and you're not even going to know what to say. You're just going to call somebody because you know you need help, whether it's your brother, whether it's a friend, whoever. The majority of the time we will never say anything.
Speaker 2:You know, because there's been a couple of times I've called people just because I needed to talk, but anything. You know because there's been a couple of times I've called people just because I needed to talk but I didn't know what to say. You know I'm thinking fuck, what do I say? What do I say when somebody calls you? That is law enforcement or in corrections. If they call you at two in the fucking morning, I'm not talking about a Sancho girl, I'm talking about like a dude calling another dude. If somebody calls you, understand that they're calling you for a reason. Honestly, it's a cry for help. So, fucking, if they're not talking, try to talk to them, try to listen to them, try to be there for them. I've had a few people call me, text me in the middle of the night and I knew they needed something.
Speaker 2:I just didn't understand at the time. You know what I mean and I feel like the majority of us are so isolated and don't know how to talk. We have to be there for each other, like we have to be able to say what's up, man, nothing. And I I knew just being there with that person was all he needed. Right, I didn't need to talk, I didn't need to fucking uh, you know, be a pastor, fucking priest. You know I didn't need to nothing, I just needed to be there with him in the moment and I did, and you know it helped him lift whatever shit he had going on at the time. And you know those kind of things are big. You know I've seen a lot of horrible things and people take their life and stuff and I think we need to understand, like we need to help each other out as much as we can.
Speaker 2:Like we're battling our own demons. We're fucked up in the head. You know you're not working at a bank where you're eight to four signing checks off whatever. No, you're working in an area that's dark, that's cold. You're going to be immune to seeing fights. You're going to be immune to seeing blood, dead bodies bro. Yeah, people kill themselves. That whole asuna thing was a mess.
Speaker 2:uh, overdoses hangings yeah, well, I went when asuna did all that. Um, he went into r&r and I talked to him for a minute and I remember him I was amen, you good. He's like, oh, I'm just tired, what the fuck bro? You know how disgusting that is. I was like goddamn. But you know, to us that's normal, right, and I'm sitting there eating my fucking Smucker's BB and J sandwich, right. Like oh, okay, that's cool, but you walk away and these little things they kind of build up in your head over time. But yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Well, what it does? It desensitizes you and in turn, and in my case, it affects your relationship with your spouse.
Speaker 2:Man. Yeah, 100%. People say, hey, I'm worried about so-and-so when they go to work. No, worry about him when he goes home. Worry about him when he's at the house and he's isolating himself and he's not talking to his kids. That's when he needs the most help, because he shouldn't be just by himself and he's not going to feel comfortable to talk. But that's you as a partner, man or woman. You got to talk to your partner, you got to help your partner because he doesn't really understand how to deal with what he's dealing with. And it starts there at the house. You know what I mean, which is normal.
Speaker 1:It's normal for people not to understand what they're initially experiencing, but I mean, that's why we have these platforms and people like you come on and explain these situations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've learned a lot from you, man, and I try to pick my head up and keep trucking. And you know there's a lot of negativity, a lot of people put me down and shit on me my whole career. But I always just kind of told myself like I want to be the person that's going to be able to help somebody any way I can. And you've been doing that, dude. I've been trying, you know, and little by little I get little feedback. Hey, alex, thanks for doing this, thanks for doing that. And like me mentally, um, you know I struggle with depression and anxiety, but being able to help somebody as a man like that makes me feel good. You know, I feel honored to do that and I'm not helping it like the whole world, but if I could help one person, dude, man, it's huge.
Speaker 1:so you're on tiktok, man, you're on tiktok under corrections unlocked. Yeah, yeah, corrections unlocked. And I actually my manager, he's the one that books these studios and I told you, man, he sent me your screenshot. I'm like fuck, I know that dude, I've watched his videos and I appreciate your get down, bro, your style, the way you present yourself and the tips that you give the public, man, especially these new cops. So where can they find you? What kind of content can they expect from you on there?
Speaker 2:You know, when I started the whole thing, I was just trying to give tips to help people out with things that I've experienced and issues that I've struggled with, and it was just to kind of just show you like hey, this didn't work for me, this is what I recommend. And when I first started, like, it was just full of negative who the fuck are you? You don't know anything. And negative who the fuck are you? You don't know anything. Stop trying to act like you know it all. But not once did I ever talk about like what I've done or who I am. That's not my get down. I've always just wanted to help.
Speaker 2:And so I started doing that, started doing that and then I had my whole issue at work. So for three months I just hit a wall. I didn't record, I didn't do anything, and a few people reached out to me and said hey D, just because you don't work there doesn't mean you can't talk about it. So I did a couple videos and started getting a lot of views and it turned into a real positive thing, not only for people but for myself. You know what I mean. It makes me feel good to help people out. But yeah, it's Corrections Unlocked. Alex Duran is my name and I just started a little YouTube page a couple months ago. I'm still trying to figure out how to do all that.
Speaker 1:What's the handle on that?
Speaker 2:You know, I just haven't figured out the whole recording stuff. Don't worry, man.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about it offline. We'll get you going dude.
Speaker 2:But just Corrections Unlocked. That's my name on TikTok, on YouTube and Instagram. I just made an Instagram account. Hell, yeah, bro. Yeah, I got six followers.
Speaker 1:Fuck, yeah, man, that's where you start, dude. Yeah, this is a lengthy process, man. It's daily and, like you said, it's all about helping and giving back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I just record to record, but you know, talking to like therapists here and there they're like, hey, why don't you just talk about things that you know and things that you like to do if it helps you out? So I stepped out of my comfort zone to do that Cause. Honestly, dude, I'm a quiet person. I'm kind of weird and goofy, um sort of put myself on a, on a camera and talk. I was like what the fuck am I doing? You get used to it, dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it turned into a positive thing for me, but yeah, you could you could hit me up or reach out or watch my stuff on tiktok on corrections unlocked cool man. Well, I want to thank you, dude, for coming down here.
Speaker 2:Bro, I was a long drive man and sharing a lot of fucking wealth and experience and knowledge.
Speaker 1:Dude I appreciate it, hector. Appreciate the opportunity man. Anytime, bro, hit me up. You got my number and we'll chop it up. Dude, cool. Well, there you guys have it. Folks, man, you guys asked for. You want to hear more people from cdcr? We brought in a good former lieutenant today. If you like what you saw, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Love you keep pushing forward unhinged line. Hector's legend, engraved living life raw, never been tamed. From the hood to the truth entails pen.
Speaker 2:Hectorector Bravo unhinged Story never ends.
