Wednesday July 10, 2024 – Moving Day Atlanta

It all began a little after 4:00am with a knock on my door from the correctional officer, “Harris, pack up your leaving!” I had somewhat anticipated this because I had just entered my 24th day in Oklahoma City, so I figured I would be on the next flight to Atlanta, which previously had been leaving on Wednesdays. Around 15-20 minutes later, the officers returns and opens the cell door. I grab my mattress, dirty clothes, and dirty linens, and walk out my cell. I look around and there are 6 other inmates with me, all of us going to the next holdover at USP Atlanta. As far as ultimate destinations, two are going to the Satellite camp at FCI Talladega AL, three of us (myself included) are going to the prison camp at Maxwell AFB AL, one to the satellite camp at FCI Manchester KY, and one to apparently the satellite camp at USP Atlanta. The main prison at USP Atlanta, I had been told, is now functioning as a low security prison “FCI” as opposed to a United States Penitentiary.

Two correctional officers confirm our names and BOP prison numbers, and escort us to the elevators on our floor to go down to R&D “Receiving and Departures”. As we get to R&D, all the inmates are given a sack of food and they put all of the male inmates, from the various OKC housing units, going on the flight to Atlanta in one big holding cell. There appears to be around 100 to 120 of us. The officers then proceed to call for us, around 10 at a time, to be strip searched, change clothes, and move to the next big holding cell.

At this point, the inmates have no access to a clock, but it feels like probably 6:30. The officers begin calling us by name, in alphabetical order of last name, to line up in order to have our ankles and wrists cuffed. After all the males are securely shackled and patted down by the flight crew, we are led down a long walkway to sit on a bench and wait for boarding. They then shackle around 25 female inmates, and they sit on the benches after all the males. This last activity brought a lot of attention from the male inmates with several standing and gawking at the females.

Soon thereafter, we begin the boarding process. We walk into the gate area and walk down the long elevated connector to board the airplane just like in a commercial airport. Keep in mind, OKC Transit Center is located at the far end of the OKC airport, so the planes can pull up right next to the building. We board the plane and I am probably about 2/3rds of the way to the back. The plane has an aisle in the middle with rows of 3 on each side of the aisle. You can tell the plane is an old Southwest Airlines plane because the seats are the old Southwest colors with the brown center surrounded by navy blue. Also they have the two rows facing each other at the front and at the middle emergency exit like the old Southwest planes used to have. They load all the males and then the females load last and sit in the front. The Air Police, aka flight crew, are located throughout. This whole boarding process probably takes 45 minutes or so. I would guess we finally took off around 7:30AM to 8:00AM.

We proceed to take off and head straight to Atlanta. We are provided no food or water during the flight. We are offered by the Air Police to go to the bathroom right after we hit our cruising altitude, after takeoff, starting with the rear rows first and then are not offered to go again. The most humorous part of the flight to me (although no one else laughed) was when we began our descent the pilot comes on the intercom and announces we are beginning our descent along with informing us the current temperature and the clear skies in Atlanta as if any of us give a crap about the weather in Atlanta.

We then land in Atlanta and taxi to an area which appeared to be a private jet terminal. Unlike OKC, they lowered a ladder for us to exit onto the concrete where three buses were waiting. The women were deplaned first and along with maybe 3-4 randomly selected men, not sure why those men were selected, maybe they were going the same place the women were going. The people in the last 6-8 rows of the plane were moved up to the front so the people waiting to get on the plane to go back to OKC could board the plane and go to the very back. Then they unloaded us in 3 more groups, filling up 3 buses to go to Atlanta. As each group would get off they would load a group standing on the tarmac, by the stairs, going back to OKC. This whole process took about 60 to 90 minutes I am guessing.

I was in the first group going to USP Atlanta to deplane and load the bus because my name ends with an H. Luckily enough for me, the first bus to USP Atlanta did not have air conditioning. Everyone on the bus was yelling to the officer, sitting in the drivers seat, to turn on the A/C, and he ignored us. We found out later from the rear bus officer that the A/C was broken. To make matters worse the buses would not leave to go to the prison until all 3 bosses going to USP Atlanta had been loaded, the plane had fully boarded with the group going back to OKC, and then had taken off into the air. This made absolutely no sense to me, and because of this, instead of being on the bus for the short ten minute drive to the prison, we were on the bus for over an hour with no air conditioning or other source of ventilation. My shirt along with my face and arms was covered in sweat by the time we arrived at the prison. I looked and felt like I had been standing in a driving rain storm.

The check in process at USP Atlanta was a complete clown show. If Oklahoma City was the gold standard of prison receiving and departure operations, USP Atlanta had to be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. There was no system or organization to the checking in of approximately 120 prisoners. After taking probably 3 hours to do what Oklahoma City does in maybe 45 minutes, we are taken to the housing unit for the transit/holdover prisoners which is the detention center unit part of the prison. Pretrial inmates are also housed here. I was told the famous rapper Fetty Wap is actually still here on his pretrial detention, but that could be bad info and he may have already left. The minimum and low security prisoners along with a very small number of medium security prisoners are located in Detention Center 1 which is the first two floors. Apparently, the majority of the medium security prisoners, high security, and maximum security prisoners are located in a separate unit, Detention Center 2, which is floors 3 and 4 above us.

We proceed to be escorted to Detention Center Housing Unit #1 by an officer and, as we are being escorted, two other officers hand each of us a small Styrofoam cup with a 1 inch toothbrush, 3 toothpaste packets, 1 bar of white soap, 1 sheet, and 1 blanket. We are given no deodorant, no shampoo, no towel, no wash cloth, and no shower slides. I am told I am assigned to cell 147. I notice some shower slides sitting around the corner of the computer station and quickly rush over there to grab them before the officer starts opening the cells for the new arrivals (1 need acquired!, I think excitingly to myself). Several of us notice all the existing inmates in the unit are locked in their cells when we arrive, and proceed to ask the officer how often we get to come out. The officer informs us that Wednesdays are their lock down days because it is their cleaning day.

The officer opens my cell door and quickly locks the door after I enter. My cellmate was just sleeping on the lower bunk and groggily gets up as I walk in. I was in such a fog, and the officer locked the door so quickly, I didn’t even realize there was no mattress in the cell for the upper bunk. Mind you, I have a lower bunk pass (due to my CPAP), but I wasn’t in the mood to broach the subject with my cellmate just yet. I proceed to start knocking on the door trying to get the officers attention. The officer finally looks my way, after 5 minutes or so, and I shout through the cell door “MA’AM, I NEED A MATRESS!” The officer opens the door and says “you should have told me before I locked the door.” The officer then walks me to some empty cells and has me peak through the window on the cell door to see if there is an empty mattress located in one of the cells. After looking in a couple of empty cells I find two thin foam mattress pads, with no mattress cover, about 75% the length of a full mattress. The officer let me grab the foam and locks me back in my cell.

I then mention something to my cellmate about my CPAP and he says there are no outlets in the cells, and the outlet outside cell 147 is not close enough to the door to reach even with an extension cord. I then begin knocking on the door again to tell the officer about the CPAP issue. The officer responds a few minutes later, comes to the cell door, and says “You have a CPAP!?” I say “Yes, ma’am.” She says, “C’mon!” and opens the door. The officer moves me to the cell next door, #148, which has an outlet right outside the door, and informs me she will get me an extension cord if needed. I noticed immediately the new cell was a big upgrade. For one, it was a single cell and did not have a bunk bed. That meant I would not have a cellmate. For two, the bed frame already had two, fairly thick, foam mattress pads stacked on top of one another (still no mattress cover and cut short at about 75%), but it had the big pillow which a previous inmate must have cut out of the one piece mattresses that have the pillows built in the mattress, on the top. This was a huge upgrade, all thanks to my CPAP machine!

As the officer begins to close the door to the cell, I ask if I can please get a towel, shirt, and boxers as I proceed to show the officer my shirt and how it is still damp and gross from the extreme heat on bus ride. The officer says we get those later. I then look around and notice there is no light switch. Come to find out the light switches are located on the outside of the cells. Most inmates tear a piece of their sheet, to make a string, and tie it to the light switch, when the door opens, and run it inside the cell to create a way to turn the light off and on from inside the cell. Other inmates create signs they put in the window (“turn light on”, “turn light off”) in hopes the officer will see it and flip the switch when they randomly walk by. I do not recommend this method as the officers rarely if ever walk by and when they do they aren’t likely to do.

About 10 minutes then goes by and the same officer knocks on my cell door, and proceeds to open it. I rush up to the door and the officer kindly hands me 1 towel (albeit like 50% of a towel, it had been torn), 1 pair of boxers, and 1 shirt. The officer says “Don’t say I never did anything for you.” This was very kind of her and I proceeded to thank her.

Finally, at what had to be about 3:00PM I suppose, I proceeded to wash my sweaty t-shirt in the toilet (yes, the toilet!) with the bar of soap I was handed as I was escorted in. I hung up my shirt on the hook on the wall to dry and then made my bed. I used the sheet as a bed spread over the two foam mattress pads but it was not long enough to cover the pillow. I told myself I would get with an orderly later to try to get another sheet to cover the pillow. I took the clean t shirt she gave me and laid it on top of the pillow and laid my head down for a nap. I am exhausted and prepared to be locked down to the next morning.

I woke up from my nap suddenly at 5:30PM when my cell door popped and the officer yelled “line up for trays!” I rushed to get dressed and come out of my cell pleasantly surprised to see everyone lining up to get their dinner. I then ran into my buddy from Yazoo (who was with me at OKC, got here a week before me, and is going to Talladega Camp) who told me when we line up for trays (instead of them bringing them to our cells individually) that means they are letting us out for a few hours. I was able to catch up with him, eat dinner, and take a much needed shower. This was definitely a welcomed treat as I thought for sure we would be locked down in our cells through the night. I got the run down from my buddy who let me know they do let us out more then we had heard and thought from our time in OKC, but that it is sporadic, and you really don’t know if you are getting out or not. My buddy let me know I missed commissary (it was the day prior on Tuesday). I then proceeded to move around, make friends, and try to procure some shampoo, an extra sheet, and other necessities. We then locked down around 8:30PM and that was a wrap. Quite the day.