Death Row Breakout (14 page)

Boo yelled to release the prisoners. The Bailiff unlocked the door and Eddie and Scott ran into the courtroom. One armed courtroom officer had his gun grabbed by Eddie.

“No one dies,” said Eddie, taking over from his brother. “We are all going to walk out of this courtroom, quietly. Peacefully.”

He ordered the judge to come down off the bench and to lead the parade. Flanking both sides of the three convicts were the court stenographer, the Bailiff and the two now unarmed court officers. Around the neck of the judge, Boo taped a short barrel shotgun.

The door to the cells was locked from the countryside but, as the group left the courtroom, officers on the other side started banging on the doors and alerting all the cops in the city that a massive jailbreak was under way.

The group of hostages now included the young district attorney and two more police officers found in the hallways. As the group entered the elevator, the DA said to the almost silent group, “You know you’ll never get away with this. There’ll be a whole army waiting for you outside.”

“Shut the fuck up, or die now,” said Eddie. “We cons will die here with guns in our hands, like men. What do you want to die for?”

As the elevator slowly descended, Boo started to speak, but was silenced by a look from his brother.

When they reached the lobby, it was crawling with cops, all with their guns pointed at them.

“Clear the lobby,” Eddie shouted, “or we start killing hostages; the judge first. We want a van out front with the motor running. A van big enough for all of us. In five minutes, or someone dies.”

The police shrank away, out the door. “Don’t shoot anyone,” said a high ranking cop, the last out the door. “We’ll get your van.”

The heat in the lobby was oppressive. The hostages, as well as the cons, were straining to breathe. The wait was torture.

“Everyone stay cool as we go out the door and we will all live. If any one of you hostages tries to make a break for it, I will kill you and all the rest. Listen to me, and we will make it. We’ll drop all of the hostages as soon as we are in the clear.”

In a few minutes the same police officer returned. “We have a red van waiting that can carry all of you. I have ordered the men not to fire, unless fired upon.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Eddie politely. “Now lead the way, but stay close to the judge at the head of our parade.”

As they exited the building, moving slowly, carefully, they could see, off to the side, that the only vehicle in sight was a red van under a tree, shaded from the hot sun. Nothing moved except loud, buzzing insects. Eddie jostled the judge. “Move it… toward that van,” then to the other convicts, “Stay tight, don’t give ’em a target. If they shoot, kill these motherfuckers.’ He leaned closer to the judge’s ear, “Hear that, honorable
Judge Denied
. That’s your favorite word, ain’t it? Denied!
Denied!
DENIED!”

Behind a low wall of shrubbery across the parking lot, the San Quentin guards and dozens of local cops sat on their butts, knees drawn up, rifles ready, the leather slings wrapped around their hands and wrists for stability. They had practiced for years for a situation like this – where they could shoot a scumbag con with absolute impunity. Their eyes were ice as they waited for the cluster of bodies to approach the red van. One guard leaned close to another. “When they open the door…”

The second guard nodded and wiped the sweat from his palms onto his pants. He was peering through the scope. At forty yards it was a point-blank shot.

Eddie squeezed to the front and pulled the van’s door open. He turned his head. “Get in! Get in!”

Willy shoved the judge. “Go on.” He did not know that the cross hairs were on the base of his skull. Indeed, he never knew, for the heavy lead slug tore through his skull into his brain. He ceased to be, but reflexes jerked the shotgun trigger and the judge’s head became a grisly red spray with pieces of bone and brain splattering everywhere.

The other guard’s shot was lost in the fusillade from eight officers. In seconds the van was perforated in dozens of places. Nobody knew if the convicts got off so much as a shot. When it was over, three were dead, including Eddie and his brother. The deputy district attorney was paralyzed from the waist down. By some miracle, none of the court officers were hit. Two of them broke loose and came running while a Marin County deputy was still firing, the heavy slugs making Willy’s body jerk from the impact. The last hostage, the court stenographer, was under the judge’s headless body and the deputy district attorney’s limp legs. She screamed, “Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop shooting!”

Afraid that Eddie was booby trapped with explosives, they had a long rope attached to his feet so they could drag him from the van while remaining at a safe distance. His body plopped onto the pavement. The image was caught by a television news camera and flashed all over America on the evening news. The Marin courthouse slaughter would be the impetus for the metal detectors, entrance guards and other manifestations of high security that permeate courthouses and other public buildings across the United States. Before, it was possible to walk freely in and out of courthouses and courtrooms without any security check.

Sally was in her car crossing the Bay Bridge from Oakland into San Francisco when she turned on the radio and it blared forth the news from the Marin Courthouse. At that point, the convicts and hostages were coming from the building toward the van. “They have the hostages in a tight group so only flashes of the convicts are exposed for seconds, not long enough to aim. The police are around corners and in doorways. When the convicts vacate a space, the police occupy it. They’re close, but they can’t do anything because of the hostages.”

Knowing the layout of Marin Courthouse, Sally envisioned the drama from the announcer’s words. She saw the parking lot and the van in her mind’s eye. She knew that Eddie was at the courthouse for Willy’s hearing.

The unexpected shot made her jump, and the following fusillade exploded in her brain. She knew it was a slaughter. Had Eddie survived? It made her queasy.

She slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding an accident.

When she got home, she was less doting than usual toward her children. The Nanny brought them down. She told them to go and play by themselves, then headed for the maid’s room behind the kitchen. It had a small TV, which nobody would know she was watching.

Several channels had the scene live, with flashbacks to the action. The deputies were walking around the carnage. Flashbulbs popped, the voice said it was the bloodiest breakout attempt in decades. The image on the screen was that of a body with a rope around its leg. It was hauled unceremoniously out of the sliding side door of the van as if it was a side of beef. It landed without dignity on the pavement and seemed to bounce once. Sally’s stomach rolled over and tears welled up in her eyes. She would never get to defend him in court. He’d died as he’d wanted to; with a gun in his hand. But the pictures on the TV made him look like an inert piece of meat. Not the hero she would have portrayed him as.

Sally switched the channel. “Christ almighty!” the image on screen was the same, the dead body being dragged from the van and bounced an inch or two on the pavement. “Oh God!” she cried softly but intensely, and shut off the television. A voice said the judge was dead, his head blown off by the shotgun taped around his neck. Sally knew the judge. Like nearly all judges, he was biased toward the prosecution, but less than most. He was a good man who didn’t deserve to die this way either.

That evening, in prisons all over America, black men mourned the loss of Eddie Johnson. He was gone, but would never be forgotten.

Death of a Rat

A witness to the murder of the Soledad guard had been sent to San Quentin awaiting the trial. He was kept in the hospital’s third floor. To reach him, you had to get through the hospital entrance by showing an identification card, with mug photo, name and number. Those details got you into the hospital Infirmary Room, normally used for treating cuts and dispensing cold pills. At the other side of this first room was a gate of steel bars painted white. A guard stood behind it, checking passes and identification. He had a board affixed to the wall with a hundred and fifty-two name tags, inmates who worked somewhere in the hospital, from laundry room to surgical nurse, clerk to the prison psychiatrist and the chief medical officer’s clerk. Inmates who worked in the hospital wore green jumpers, which differentiated them from non-workers in blue chambray shirts.

A couple of weeks later the chief prison psychologist gave his clerk a list of men he wanted to see. The clerk dutifully typed up the list as a “request for interview”. He put it on the psychologist’s desk. It was signed and given back to the inmate clerk to be forwarded to the Custody Office, where the actual passes were made up and distributed throughout the cell-houses by the graveyard shift. This time, however, when the clerk got the signed list from his boss, he put it back in the Underwood and added two names and numbers, Clemens, B13566, and Buford, B14OO3. Both were young “fish”, aged nineteen and twenty-two, and neither had been a year in the
House of Dracula
, the nickname for San Quentin. Folsom was
The Pit
, and Soledad
The Gladiator School
. Neither would admit it, but both wanted to be the stuff of legend in the prison underworld. During the night a guard walked the cell-house tiers, putting passes (called ducats) on the cell bars of convicts who were wanted somewhere by someone. Clemens was wide awake and waiting when the guard passed his cell. Buford got his when he woke up. They met on the Big Yard after breakfast. Neither had any appetite. Instead of hunger, both felt the hollowness of fear deep in the stomach. Normally they would have joined some partners hanging out in the morning sunlight near the North cell-house until the mess halls cleared and the whistle blew for work. This morning they wanted to hang out quietly until it was time to take care of business.

“Is that fuckin’ whistle late this morning?” asked Buford.

Clemens shrugged. “I ain’ got no fuckin’ idea. I don’ even know what fuckin’ year it is.”

The work whistle blasted the morning, causing an explosion of pigeons and seagulls. The latter flew over the yard and dropped their shit on the cons, as if getting vengeance for the whistle’s blast. They were cursed in return. “Flying fuckin’ rats,” (in an attempt at retaliation, a few convicts would put Alka Seltzer tablets inside pieces of crushed up bread. The birds swooped, ate and soon went crazy as the Alka Seltzer fizzed inside of them).

The Big Yard gate was rolled open and convicts streamed out to their jobs in the lower yard industries. In minutes the yard was empty save for the cleanup crew and those who had night jobs. Lined up near the South Cell-house rotunda were those going to sick call. A guard was picking up ID cards. When he reached Clemens and Buford, they showed the ducat and their ID cards. He beckoned them, “Follow me.’ The guard led them along the line to the Infirmary door. Because they had passes, they had priority over those who were in the sick call line on their own. He took their ID cards and put them with the others, to be returned when they left the hospital.

At the grille gate across the infirmary, they handed their passes through the bars. The guard keyed the gate. “You know where you’re goin?”

They nodded and he waved them through. The corridor ahead was long. A few inmates and free personnel were coming and going. The Psychiatric Department was halfway down the hallway. Instead of turning through the door, they kept going to the rear. On the left was an elevator. Inmates used it if they were patients or assigned. Others went up the stairwell, which was the route taken by Buford and Clemens, two and three stairs at a time. On the second floor they turned in and went to the X-ray department. They swiftly removed their shirts and tossed them under a bench. Now they wore the green jumpers. Anyone who didn’t know better would assume that they were assigned to the hospital work crew. Clemens slapped Buford on the back. “Let’s do it, homes.” He opened the hallway door and out they went.

As they reached the third floor landing and started to turn in, an elderly correctional officer came out and nearly collided with them. “Slow down. Where’s the fire?”

“Sorry, boss,” said Buford. “We’re late.” If the guard had asked “For what,” there would have been no reply, although Clemens’ sweaty hand held the taped handle of the shiv in his pocket. It was a 15” long overall of which the tip of the blade had been stabbed through the bottom of his pocket and the steel pressed against his thigh.

“Okay, go on… just take it easy,” the guard told them before disappearing down the stairs. They went through the door; to the left were the rooms. It was cleanup time and the doors were ajar. A
chicano
janitor was squeezing a wet mop in a wheeled bucket and wringer. The first door was into the nurse’s station. It was open; the nurse was inside.

“Where’s the rat?” Clemens asked Buford.

“At the back… around the corner.”

“How we gonna get by the nurse?”

“That’s what these green shirts are for.”

“Let’s go do him up.”

They walked past the nurse’s office without a challenge, and nodded at the
chicano
mopping the floors. Men in the rooms, mostly wearing nightgowns and jeans, glanced up as they went by, but suspected nothing and said nothing. With every step Clemens’ tension increased. When they turned the corner and saw the correctional officer reading a newspaper, Clemens got momentarily dizzy. He expelled a lung-full of air.

The officer sensed, or heard them as soon as they turned the corner. The way they moved made him stand up and put the paper down. He saw the green blouses, but the hallway was a dead end ten feet away.

“Hold it. Where’re you going?”

Clemens literally lost his mind. The tension was too heavy and he snapped. “Gimme them motherfuckin’ keys, pig!” He didn’t wait for the response, but pulled his shiv and stuck it straight into the officer’s stomach, an inch below the rib cage.