Where’s The Spoon?

So when you work with the public, in any capacity, you experience things.  Things that might be funny to some and disturbing to others. It all depends on how you look at the situation.  With these experiences, come great stories. I got stories. I got stories that got stories. If you are in law enforcement, or any other form of public service, I’m sure you have your fair share.  We all got them. Some are funny, some are sad, some are downright disgusting... The best part is, they are, for the most part, public knowledge, so everyone can hear them! (And there was much rejoicing… yayy…)

But with great stories, comes a great responsibility to share said stories, if you so wish.  If you are a cop and are in any social gathering, there is ALWAYS that one guy (or gal) that has to ask “So what’s your craziest cop story?”  This gets one of two responses from me, depending on my mood. 1) Immediately tell a cop story, never letting the WHOLE truth get in front of a great story.  Or option 2) Visible eye roll and tell them that I can’t really talk about them… Most of the time though, I will share my stories. I typically don't mind. Some folks in law enforcement are not big into talking about work outside of work, which I get. It’s important to have separation. I’m a big believer in that.  Most of the time though, I don’t mind sharing a story or two, just as long as the recipient of the story doesn’t go “okay, well I can just use your name when I get stopped for speeding to get out of a ticket, right?!”

No. No you may not. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves…. which is another blog post in itself. #coplife

I’ll bet at this point you are wondering about the title of this post…. “Where’s the spoon?”  Well, let me tell you a little story about a time when I wasn’t yet a police officer...

For those of you that aren’t aware, I used to work in a jail as a Correctional Officer, or as we were called, a “Special Deputy.”  (They called us “Special Deputy’s” so we could read county warrants when they came in.). I spent over 2 years as a member of the Thin Grey Line and I gotta tell ya, it was awful, but it was worth it.  To those of you who choose to work inside the correctional facilities all around the US and abroad, I salute you. You are a special kind of awesome, and you deserve to be commended.

During my time as a CO, I experienced quite a few crazy people. Like, legitimately crazy people. And I’ll be the first to say, jail is not the place for crazy people, but what are you supposed to do with them when they commit crimes?  Anyways…. with crazy people you will experience some interesting events that unfold in the people zoo. Being locked behind bars with no way out can drive a SANE man to insanity, so you can imagine what it does to those who ain’t quite right in the head.

This particular story is about a guy that used to come into the jail all the time and cause… issues. Now, of course, I will be changing the names of people to avoid any issues, so we will just call this guy Chad. Chad was a “Frequent Flyer” at the jail.  So much so, that when he would come in it was like Norm on Cheers. (For those of you that know that reference…. I’m old.) It wasn’t a happy ”CHAD!” when he would arrive at our facility, however. You could hear the resounding sigh and eye roll whenever he was brought through our doors.

It wasn’t so much that he was a killer or a gang banger. Oh no, Chad was a meth addict that had very few functioning brain cells left in his head. His mind was like a bag of cats, and he knew it. I’m convinced that he played his crazy up quite a bit with us most of the time, which is typical of most frequent flyers. The night he came in for attempted armed robbery with a plastic gun was definitely an exception, though...

I knew Chad. Chad and I actually had a fairly good rapport with one another. He would act crazy, and I would talk him down. We would go through these cycles. But not this time. This Chad was different. This Chad had a different happy-crazy look in his eye. His initial response to being locked up was ALWAYS “I’m gonna kill myself” so he would immediately be put on suicide watch.

Into the “Turtle Suit”  he would go and into the padded cell. Easy fix. Good luck trying to hurt yourself in there, Chad! The padded cell was lined with a special rubber material encased in a plastic liner that was darn near impossible to tear. There was a bench on the wall covered in the same material. I can still smell that room.  Clean or dirty, it always smelled the same: like fermented herring dipped in cat pee.

The only issue this room had, safety wise, was the metal grate in the floor at the center of the room.  This metal grate covered a flushable floor drain that was an insurance policy against the inmate flooding the cell.  The drain also served as the toilet for the person in the padded cell. (There was a restroom inside this padded cell, with a closeable door, but it was typically locked for suicidal subjects, so they couldn’t hide inside the room.)  This grate would serve as a place for one to hit their head and cause bleeding. “Hi metal grate on the floor, I’m Chad’s forehead, have we met?” I can only remember one time when he split his head open on that…

The suicide gown, or “Turtle Suit” as we would affectionately call it, was a dark green gown with a velcro closure in the back.  Think of a hospital gown but made of a material that could not be torn or tied into a knot. They were given this gown to wear and their clothes were taken from them.  No socks, no underwear, no shirts, no pants. Just the gown. I guess it was super uncomfortable because the folks on suicide watch would never wear it, which meant that they were naked.  On camera. All the time. So many sausages… and quite a few sausage wallets...

So for the next few days, there he was.  Naked Chad in the padded cell. Either sleeping, screaming, or doing headstands.  He was a man of many talents. One fine day, Chad decided that it was time to ramp up the crazy a bit.  And by a bit, I should say a BITE.

*DISCLAIMER*

(If you get grossed out, now might be a good place to stop reading…)

Chad, naked and laughing, squatted down in the middle of the floor, away from the floor drain, and crapped two turds onto the floor.  Chad then stood up and turned around to revel in his glory. Then, without hesitation, Chad bent over and picked them up. One in each hand.  Chad then walked over to the door of the cell and began to draw on the window with his homemade crayon. With the other, he began to take bites of it as if it were a Snickers bar.

At this point, myself and the other CO’s were formulating a plan to figure out what to do with him.  We contacted our OIC, we will just call him Jim, and advised him of our situation. Jim had to come down and see the issue for himself.  Jim went down to the area where the padded cell was and observed the situation. At this point, the smell of human feces had made its way around the entire area.  There was no escaping that smell. Jim approached the window and witnessed what Chad was doing.

Now, Jim was the kind of guy that sort of talked out of the side of his mouth, much like a pirate.  He would always call people “Bud” and, typically, always had a smile on his face. But not this time.  Jim looked as confused as a hungry baby in a topless bar. As he approached the window, he got Chad’s attention.  Chad put his face up against the window and said “Hey Jim, tastes pretty good! You want some?!” and then began licking the window.

I will never forget Jim’s response.  It was a simple “What the f@#$, bud?”  Now, take that phrase, push your mouth to one side and say it out loud.  That’s what it sounded like. Hard to not laugh.

So, eventually, Chad was hosed down, showered, and the room was sanitized.  For now.

While you are on suicide watch, you are not given a normal meal.  You are given a paper bag meal, which typically consisted of a peanut butter sandwich, milk in a small carton, and some form of vegetable.  This way they are not given a hard tray or cup to harm themself or anyone else with. This is the meal Chad had been receiving for a few days, and everything had been going fine.

After the initial crappy situation, Chad calmed down a bit.  He had come down from his high, detoxed, and was now a bit more docile.  Or so we thought.

One day as we were retrieving the trays and remnants of lunch, we noticed that Chad did not give us the paper bag or any of the trash.  This was a requirement while they were on suicide watch. We asked Chad where his garbage was and he just giggled. We opened the door and checked the floor drain: no trash.  Chad then began cackling. He would not tell us where the bag and other items, including a plastic spoon, were. So, using our investigative skills, we reviewed the cameras for his cell.  This turned out to be a great idea and a terrible idea.

Keep in mind, Chad has no real clothes, just the Turtle Suit.  While we were inside the cell with him, Chad had himself covered with the gown like a blanket.  We couldn't see the horror that we would later see…

As we were reviewing the video we were able to see exactly what he had done with the paper bag, the milk carton, and the other trash.  He had inserted it into his rectum. All of it. He did it all under his makeshift blanket, so we couldn't see exactly what he was doing but after reviewing the video, it was pretty clear what was going on…

So then we asked him about it and he simply said that he “wanted to.”  We then began the waiting period of when it comes out. Have you ever had a dog eat anything of value?  Money? A ring? And then you had to “wait it out” and then collect the object later? I did that with a $20 bill once.  I was able to recover more than half of it, so the bank replaced it! Anyway, we were then forced to observe his cell constantly, awaiting the arrival of the paper sack and other foreign objects he had stashed deep inside his prison purse.

Fast forward about a day and it finally comes out, in no particular fashion.  And of course, it was all over the floor once again. So, as we made entry into the cell to remove the…  unfavorables, we started looking at it to insure it was all there.

Brown paper bag, wax bag for the sandwich, milk carton…  wait, something is missing. Where’s the spoon? I looked at Chad, who was standing at the back of the cell, covering himself with the Turtle Suit and asked him “Where’s the spoon?”  Chad just smiled and removed the gown and showed me where the spoon was. It was in his urethra. Which, in case you didn't know, that’s the hole of the penis. He had shoved the handle of the plastic spoon into his penis. All I saw was the scooping part of the spoon, just hanging out of this man’s penis. (Things you’d never think you would ever see…)

He giggled, reached down, and just pulled it out.

I’ve never almost puked before while on a scene. I always keep my cool, hold my food in, and manage to not care about the gross thing. I literally almost puked. He acted like nothing was wrong. Just tossed it into the trash bag and laid back down…

So yeah, long story short, if you cannot find the spoon, it’s probably in their prison purse…. or in their penis.

I hope you enjoyed this story, as gross as it was, it’s true. This is the reality that we face, day in and day out, in policing. Especially in the corrections area.

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#washyourhands

-Logan