Another person to whom I dedicated my novel, A Price to Pay, is Captain Jerome “Jerry” Elliott, now deceased.
I've met men who pat their fellow man on the back long enough in order to find the soft spot. Jerry Elliott was not such a man. Whip-fast with quick quips, he did not suffer fools gladly. Loyal to principles, not people, if Jerry believed you were on the side of right, he stood beside you—no matter the consequences. If you were on the side of wrong, his scalpel tongue sliced and diced you into figurative pieces. No matter how high on life's ladder you thought you stood, Jerry let you know from Jump Street where you actually abided as far as he was concerned.
We first met at the bottom of the south side steps of the overpass that led to the prison's innards. It was during inclement weather. A rookie officer dressed in civilian clothes, he stood inside, peering through the window of a steel door at inmates returning from eating breakfast in the dining hall, heading to either the South Cell Hall or Southwest Cell Hall. I considered myself an old salt because I'd been the prison's English teacher for a couple of years. We shared pleasantries and got along from the get-go.
Some years later and promoted to sergeant, Jerry became the North Cell Hall's (NCH) first shift sergeant. I had been promoted to Education Director. One of my jobs was to make rounds of the entire institution in order to check out the institution's climate along with other mid-managers, reporting weekly on how we thought the institution fared. Were inmates peaceful? Was staff normal or uptight?
When I visited the NCH and asked Elliott why the cell hall ran so smoothly, Jerry told me he'd drawn a line only he and NCH inmates could see. "They know better not to cross it," he said with a chuckle, "or they'll have to contend with me. And there ain't an inmate alive that wants to contend with me."
I'm not aware of any inmate who ever purposely volunteered to undergo Elliott's verbal onslaught. However, if an NCH inmate was on the side of right as far as Elliott was concerned, the three-striper stood by the inmate—no matter the cost to Jerry's dreams of further promotion.
However, Jerry was a staff member of consequence. The administration knew it and promoted him first to lieutenant and then to captain. He was a quick study, loyal worker, and skillful planner. When his superiors were wrong—and they sometimes were—Jerry let them know, the hell with the consequences.
Promoted to Training Captain, he ran a first class officer training program and introduced Boston police officer Arthur Lamb's techniques of slashing a wooden baton at the perpetrator's kneecap, not his head.
When momentarily confronting any tight spot, Elliott's quick thinking had already concluded not just Plan B, but he had already formulated C, D, and E, including all necessary tools he'd need, including location of the johns and when and where lunch would be served. Lunch was on Jerry’s priority list.
One day when a group of us was in Milwaukee, the majority elected to eat at a Chinese restaurant. "I only eat American food," Elliott announced after looking at the menu. He subsequently ordered a hamburger and fries along with a Coca Cola.
When I was held hostage in the prison school along with ten other staff hostages, and an additional three staff hostages were being held in the Old Recreation Hall, I believed I didn't have long to live because rioting inmates forced me to don inmate clothing and warned me if the administration didn’t meet their demands, I was going to be the first to be murdered. In prison, one learns to take men at their word.
At length, riot leaders blindfolded me and tied and handcuffed me to a set of oxygen and acetylene tanks. When they lit the acetylene side, they lifted my blindfold in order for me to see the flames shooting out while other rioters secured my legs to both tanks with wire. “You’re going up like Mighty Mouse, motherfucker,” one said with a smirk. I had no reason to doubt him.
Then, with all that screaming and all that breaking of glass and all that pillaging and all that craziness, I heard one rioter holler above all the others. “It’s Elliott." The others stopped what they were doing. "Him and his screws are coming up the back stairs,” the man warned. A heartbeat later, he yelled, “Elliott’s on the other side of those fire doors.”
That caution, alone, prompted some of those crazed men to confront reality. They began pointing out to other rioters the state would never give in to their demands and wouldn't allow them to rule the institution for any length of time that rioters had accomplished in New York’s Attica prison. Waupun, they explained, was no Attica because lethally armed officers were outside and below the school—looking like helmeted Ninjas in a Bruce Lee movie. Above all, only one wall separated Elliott from them. And Elliott was not a man to mess with. Prison is the last place inmates would ever choose to die. “How do you know?” others shouted.
“I hear him,” the man replied.
Now, I’m not saying that Jerry Elliott, alone, saved my life that day. No, I owe my life to God, an inmate, and all those blue shirts and white shirts who performed their jobs admirably and stood their ground. Coincidentally, many ninjas were graduates of Captain Elliott’s Emergency Response classes.
“It’s Elliott.” The moment I heard that I felt I had a chance to live. Each rioter in that school building was well aware he had crossed Elliott’s invisible line. A virtual encyclopedia of gun warfare and crowd control, Elliott did not suffer fools gladly. Now, it was the rioters’ turn to consider the possibility of their own deaths.
I've met men who pat their fellow man on the back long enough in order to find the soft spot. Jerry Elliott was not such a man. Whip-fast with quick quips, he did not suffer fools gladly. Loyal to principles, not people, if Jerry believed you were on the side of right, he stood beside you—no matter the consequences. If you were on the side of wrong, his scalpel tongue sliced and diced you into figurative pieces. No matter how high on life's ladder you thought you stood, Jerry let you know from Jump Street where you actually abided as far as he was concerned.
We first met at the bottom of the south side steps of the overpass that led to the prison's innards. It was during inclement weather. A rookie officer dressed in civilian clothes, he stood inside, peering through the window of a steel door at inmates returning from eating breakfast in the dining hall, heading to either the South Cell Hall or Southwest Cell Hall. I considered myself an old salt because I'd been the prison's English teacher for a couple of years. We shared pleasantries and got along from the get-go.
Some years later and promoted to sergeant, Jerry became the North Cell Hall's (NCH) first shift sergeant. I had been promoted to Education Director. One of my jobs was to make rounds of the entire institution in order to check out the institution's climate along with other mid-managers, reporting weekly on how we thought the institution fared. Were inmates peaceful? Was staff normal or uptight?
When I visited the NCH and asked Elliott why the cell hall ran so smoothly, Jerry told me he'd drawn a line only he and NCH inmates could see. "They know better not to cross it," he said with a chuckle, "or they'll have to contend with me. And there ain't an inmate alive that wants to contend with me."
I'm not aware of any inmate who ever purposely volunteered to undergo Elliott's verbal onslaught. However, if an NCH inmate was on the side of right as far as Elliott was concerned, the three-striper stood by the inmate—no matter the cost to Jerry's dreams of further promotion.
However, Jerry was a staff member of consequence. The administration knew it and promoted him first to lieutenant and then to captain. He was a quick study, loyal worker, and skillful planner. When his superiors were wrong—and they sometimes were—Jerry let them know, the hell with the consequences.
Promoted to Training Captain, he ran a first class officer training program and introduced Boston police officer Arthur Lamb's techniques of slashing a wooden baton at the perpetrator's kneecap, not his head.
When momentarily confronting any tight spot, Elliott's quick thinking had already concluded not just Plan B, but he had already formulated C, D, and E, including all necessary tools he'd need, including location of the johns and when and where lunch would be served. Lunch was on Jerry’s priority list.
One day when a group of us was in Milwaukee, the majority elected to eat at a Chinese restaurant. "I only eat American food," Elliott announced after looking at the menu. He subsequently ordered a hamburger and fries along with a Coca Cola.
When I was held hostage in the prison school along with ten other staff hostages, and an additional three staff hostages were being held in the Old Recreation Hall, I believed I didn't have long to live because rioting inmates forced me to don inmate clothing and warned me if the administration didn’t meet their demands, I was going to be the first to be murdered. In prison, one learns to take men at their word.
At length, riot leaders blindfolded me and tied and handcuffed me to a set of oxygen and acetylene tanks. When they lit the acetylene side, they lifted my blindfold in order for me to see the flames shooting out while other rioters secured my legs to both tanks with wire. “You’re going up like Mighty Mouse, motherfucker,” one said with a smirk. I had no reason to doubt him.
Then, with all that screaming and all that breaking of glass and all that pillaging and all that craziness, I heard one rioter holler above all the others. “It’s Elliott." The others stopped what they were doing. "Him and his screws are coming up the back stairs,” the man warned. A heartbeat later, he yelled, “Elliott’s on the other side of those fire doors.”
That caution, alone, prompted some of those crazed men to confront reality. They began pointing out to other rioters the state would never give in to their demands and wouldn't allow them to rule the institution for any length of time that rioters had accomplished in New York’s Attica prison. Waupun, they explained, was no Attica because lethally armed officers were outside and below the school—looking like helmeted Ninjas in a Bruce Lee movie. Above all, only one wall separated Elliott from them. And Elliott was not a man to mess with. Prison is the last place inmates would ever choose to die. “How do you know?” others shouted.
“I hear him,” the man replied.
Now, I’m not saying that Jerry Elliott, alone, saved my life that day. No, I owe my life to God, an inmate, and all those blue shirts and white shirts who performed their jobs admirably and stood their ground. Coincidentally, many ninjas were graduates of Captain Elliott’s Emergency Response classes.
“It’s Elliott.” The moment I heard that I felt I had a chance to live. Each rioter in that school building was well aware he had crossed Elliott’s invisible line. A virtual encyclopedia of gun warfare and crowd control, Elliott did not suffer fools gladly. Now, it was the rioters’ turn to consider the possibility of their own deaths.
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