There are times I'm not proud to be an Officer

Yesterday while at work, this is just a tidbit of my fun...

While an inmate was incarcerated, he asked to make some phone calls to his boss. Not a problem for most people, however Mr. B is a known transient and does not work. Regardless of his odd statement, I allowed him the opportunity to make the phone call. This particular inmate had been in custody for over 24 hours at this point and had been in a total of two different housing cells, one booking area, and one holding booth. Another piece of information about anybody who is arrested, is that upon receiving them, I go through a series of different questionnaires. One of these questionnaires is a medical screening. In essence, I need to make sure that the inmate is healthy, otherwise the inmate needs to be provided medical care. During this questionnaire, Mr B assured me he was healthy and his only medical problem was gout.

To give an inmate phone calls, there is quite a bit involved. This consists of locking down the entire jail, unlocking the cell to remove the inmate, relocking the cell so the other inmates don't escape, moving the inmate to a holding booth, removing the inmates booking packet, writing the name and phone number down for the person he wants to call, then dialing the phone and handing it through a secure gate to the inmate.

I did all the above steps and the inmate made his phone call. During the entire phone call the inmate was scratching himself on his head and his back. When Mr B finished with his phone call he asked me if I would go get his backpack and get his cream out for him. (Cream is not a right for an inmate and would be considered contraband) I told Mr B no and asked him what cream? He then proceeds to tell me it's his SCABIES and LICE and CRABS cream. At which point I immediately stop doing other duties. I asked him why he didn't tell me he had these problems upon intake for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, segregation. You can't put an inmate who isn't healthy in with another inmate that he will most likely contaminate. Secondly, and most important, if I had known he had these problems, I would have kept a much greater distance from him because I don't want to take this crap home to my family. Lastly, now it was up to me and my partner to clean out the 2 cells, decontaminate the other inmate that shared the cell with Mr B, separate and bag all the linens and clothes, and prepare Mr B to be moved to a facility that could appropriately handle him with his issues.

My partner and I begin the process of basically decontaminating the entire jail area as Mr B was left in the holding booth in anticipation of being moved. The decontaminating process took about 40 minutes. The entire time Mr B was quite actively scratching himself, almost flinging his hands about, making myself and every other officer yell at him to stop shaking things around! At this point the psychological crap kicks in and we all start itching ourselves, causing us to yell at Mr B even more. The transporting officer was so upset with Mr B that he decided that it was appropriate to put a paper gown over Mr B's head and a blanket around Mr B's body so the lice couldn't travel anywhere other than Mr B.

I bring you Mr B. A very happy transient who is now getting his cooties cleared up.