Specific security procedures are followed in order to safely switch officers in the towers. It would be inappropriate for me to divulge those procedures; however, I can tell you that they were well thought out. There have been no security breaches with this ever, which has been over 100 years.
While in the tower, we are to observe, report and log everything; from bad weather to unusual activity like fights in the yard, smoke or fire, unauthorized people anywhere, people taking pictures from outside the prison perimeter, gang groupings, hot air balloons or low flying aircraft.
ESCAPE VIA THE SKY
You can see from the overhead picture of the prisons in the front of Prison Puzzle Pieces volume 1 that a tower officer at Stillwater Prison could observe, report and possibly be needed to fire upon a helicopter attempting mischief at the Oak Park Heights Prison and vice versa.
However it would be rare to get the go ahead to fire due to not knowing if there were a hostage in the helicopter and for the safety of civilians on the ground should you land that perfect shot that would bring it down.
I have no idea if the hot air balloon that I was in when I took the pictures was reported or not. We went up on a calm day, so we didn’t travel far. The best the hot air balloon guy could do was to take us up higher than he had ever been before.
BALLOON CAUTIONS
Nothing is allowed to fly over the institution. An officer in a tower noticed a hot air balloon fly over the prison. As this is not allowed, we have to document it, but it is unlikely that someone would try to escape in a hot air balloon. It is possible that someone might try, but it would be impossible for them to get away. We would just have another body or more to add to our inmate collection. The tower officers, with all of their fire power, would have that balloon shredded to pieces in no time.
PRECISE POLICIES FOR SHOOTING PEOPLE
Before discharging a firearm
•Identify yourself
•Order to stop
•Fire warning shot – into ground if possible
•Call for assistance
•If there is no time to do the above you are authorized to prevent the escape with the use of deadly force
•Don’t shoot aircraft as it may contain one or more hostages
•You may fire upon inmates attempting to board
•Fire upon inmates with weapons
•Code 5 is a possible escape, step outside on the catwalk with weapon on your shoulder until the code 5 clears
OLD, SMALL, FILTHY
Seeing as how we are on towers now, I may as well tell you a little more about them. First off, I only worked the towers early on while I was doing my time working at the prison. I did a lot of tower duty during the winter of 2000 – 2001.
The towers were in terrible condition. As you entered the towers, you would see junk piled at the bottom of the narrow metal spiral staircase that led up to the top of the tower.
Officers must have been a lot smaller 100 years ago when this place was built in order to easily get up those stairs. If you slipped on them, you wouldn’t fall all the way down; you’d just get wedged in them because they are so narrow. Cases of toilet paper and paper towels were crammed under the stairway. It was filthy at the bottom with debris, dirt and bricks that had fallen out of the walls.
Once you maneuvered your way to the top, you found what was like a filthy little hole in the wall in the sky. The entry had a radiator in it and a gun rack.
There was a small room to the side with a toilet, a sink and a window in it. You hoped you never had to drop your drawers in this place or you’d be mooning anyone outside that window. You had to shuffle out of the bathroom in order to have enough room to get your pants back up and get your utility belt back on.
Facing inside the prison walls was a little cubby hole with a stool to sit on where you could post up and watch what was going on inside the prison walls. I’m not saying this place was a total rat hole, but I think I caught termites from the window sill.
I spent a lot of time cleaning up after those who had been in the tower since the last time I was there. Whenever I was relieved, the officer relieving me would always comment on how clean it was.
It seemed as though all towers were a little different in their layout and size. The two towers by the gates in the wall were better maintained and larger than the other five, but you would still think they were being rented out by slum lords. Some towers you could step outside on a platform or catwalk and others you were just locked up in that little outhouse in the sky.
SLUMS NO MORE
A few years before I retired, all of the towers experienced major renovations. I was never up inside of them after the renovations. Officers that were up there told me that they were great now. I did see entire top sections being torn off and replaced. Catwalks were added, at least in some areas. The entire wall was also renovated. It sounded like the wall and towers would be good for another hundred years.
GRAFFITI
The graffiti on the walls inside the towers was like what you would see from juveniles in a junior high school lavatory rather than mature adults working in a potentially volatile environment trying to support themselves and their families. You could tell by the content of these writings that those who wrote them were ignorant buffoons. I’m telling you, Plato doesn’t work here. These foul writings and artwork slammed and degenerated inmates as a group and specific officers and big shots. Some of it was from decades ago, probably making it of historical value, like the hieroglyphics in Egypt. Some of it was current communications. That means that I was working with some of these idiots.
PENNY WISE AND DOLLAR FOOLISH
Every tower had binoculars. I should say that every tower had binoculars that were total crap. They may as well throw them out. I could see better with just my eyes. The amount of money I saw wasted in this place, they could have easily afforded decent binoculars for these towers. Hopefully they have replaced them by now. They had a policy that stated never to use the scope on the rifle as a binocular. That’s common sense, but isn’t it also common sense to have decent binoculars available?
TOWER 1
Tower 1 was a deprived tower. It had a micro wave, but it didn’t work. It had a radio, but it didn’t work. It had fewer weapons than the other towers, but it was sufficient. It had no catwalk and was very small.
It didn’t even have a stool to sit on. There was a chair, but no stool. You could only see out of the windows if you were at the height of a stool. Who is going to stand eight hours straight when there is a chair to sit on every once in a while?
A captain passed by below my tower once when I had sat on the chair to rest my
