Goofy stuff rarely happens to the morning shift crew, but Albert, one of the dayshift drivers had a doozy that I still can’t believe.
Albert gets a call for a lock-out, not unusual, locking your keys in the car is an embarrassing, but hardly rare occurrence. After all, there’s a reason they make the tool kits for jimmying them open, and we all cary one in each of our trucks. The address for the locked-out person isn’t even that odd, 100 Penitentiary Road, Yes, it’s at the local State Prison. Between the hundreds of guards, employees and visitors who go in and out of there daily, tows and services aren’t a rare occurrence either. But when Albert gets there, THEN the fun starts.
They actually open the big steel front doors and wave him inside the prison, through the yard and to the far side of the compound where a DOC van is sitting with 4 guys in orange jumpsuits inside of it. Standing next to it is a flustered-looking corrections officer who clearly is or has been getting verbally reamed out for at least a few minutes. Some of the more astute of you in the audience can probably already tell what happened.
Seems Correctional Officer Fife loaded 4 inmates into the van for transport to a work detail, and then locked himself out of the vehicle. Said inmates, being shackled at the hands and feet, are unable to reach the front door, the only door that opens since the rest of the doors are obviously set in “will not open from inside” mode as you’d expect with a prison van and can be of no assistance. Fife had to call his motor club and request a tow truck for an unlock service. It was all Albert could do to keep from cracking up as he unlocked said van for them.
I think one of the other CO’s who saw the whole thing happen and were giving Barney a hard time about it said it best “You called a tow truck? You mean you couldn’t find ONE guy in here who knows how to break into a car??!”
Albert gets a call for a lock-out, not unusual, locking your keys in the car is an embarrassing, but hardly rare occurrence. After all, there’s a reason they make the tool kits for jimmying them open, and we all cary one in each of our trucks. The address for the locked-out person isn’t even that odd, 100 Penitentiary Road, Yes, it’s at the local State Prison. Between the hundreds of guards, employees and visitors who go in and out of there daily, tows and services aren’t a rare occurrence either. But when Albert gets there, THEN the fun starts.
They actually open the big steel front doors and wave him inside the prison, through the yard and to the far side of the compound where a DOC van is sitting with 4 guys in orange jumpsuits inside of it. Standing next to it is a flustered-looking corrections officer who clearly is or has been getting verbally reamed out for at least a few minutes. Some of the more astute of you in the audience can probably already tell what happened.
Seems Correctional Officer Fife loaded 4 inmates into the van for transport to a work detail, and then locked himself out of the vehicle. Said inmates, being shackled at the hands and feet, are unable to reach the front door, the only door that opens since the rest of the doors are obviously set in “will not open from inside” mode as you’d expect with a prison van and can be of no assistance. Fife had to call his motor club and request a tow truck for an unlock service. It was all Albert could do to keep from cracking up as he unlocked said van for them.
I think one of the other CO’s who saw the whole thing happen and were giving Barney a hard time about it said it best “You called a tow truck? You mean you couldn’t find ONE guy in here who knows how to break into a car??!”
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