December 21, 2003

New jail, old problem
Danger lurks behind every cell, tattoo

By Brendan Scott
Times Herald-Record

Goshen – At first, it seemed routine: two Hispanic inmates brawling in the yard of the Erie Street jail.

Like most jail fights, the other inmates were shouting and cheering by the time Dan Persell and other Orange County correction officers responded to break up the scuffle on that crisp fall day in 1994. And, as usual, the guard on duty was positioned near the crowd, taking notes and waiting for back-up to arrive.

Then Persell noticed something unusual.

One inmate, a teenager from Middletown, was standing behind the crowd, watching the guard instead of the fight. In the excitement, no one thought much of it, not even when they found a shank on the same inmate.

It didn't come together until four years later. That's when Persell struck up a conversation with a newly arrived inmate, who had just gotten into a fight. He was a Puerto Rican in his early 20s.

"Don't you remember me?" the inmate said, admitting to being one of the brawlers four years earlier. The guy with the shank was his cousin.

"He was Latin King," Persell recalls. "The fight was staged. They were waiting for a CO to come break it up so he could cut him. That was supposed to be [the inmate's] initiation.

"It blew my mind."

For the first time, Persell saw the danger that could lurk in every cell, behind every tattoo, bandanna or smudge of graffiti.

Now a sergeant, he leads the Orange County Sheriff's Security Risk Group, a part-time unit dedicated to gathering intelligence on gang members or any other inmates who might pose a threat inside the county's new jail on Wells Farm Road.

And this is what it has found:

At any given time, one in five inmates at the 778-bed facility belongs to some sort of street gang, motorcycle club or white supremacist group. Since its establishment, the unit has encountered members of 71 outlaw organizations among the jail's ever-changing population, everyone from Bloods to Chingalings to Latin Kings.

That worries Persell.

Only last year, a suspected gang member beat a county correction officer so badly it ended his career.

And it's not unheard of for a Blood gang member to punch an officer just so officers put him in a red, maximum-security, jumpsuit. A blue jumpsuit may mean a lower security level and more freedoms, but it's also a color of the Crips, the Blood's traditional rivals.

It's Persell's job to know whether a gang member has gotten jailed just to make a hit on another inmate. Or that a Benkard Barrio King from Newburgh might not make a good cellmate for a member of a rival gang, like La Eme.

When officers spot something suspicious – graffiti, a tattoo or hand gesture – they flag Persell or another officer in the unit. The signs are everywhere, he says, if you know what you're looking for. Inmates have tagged their cell walls, their shoes and their bodies.

"This is what most of us see," Persell says, cupping his hands around his eyes. "We're in a tunnel."

Some clues are chilling in their subtlety.

Among the piles of confiscated gang paraphernalia that fill Persell's office, there's a copy of USA Today, in which a Blood has crossed out every "C" – including the "C" on Ken Griffey's Cincinnati Reds helmet – to spite his Crip rivals. The "OCCF" on at least one pair of jail-issue gym shorts has received similar treatment. Correction Officer Tom Hefferon, a member of Persell's team, holds up one of the dozens of tagged meal trays he keeps in his office.

"This is telling you this is a Blood chow tray – don't f--- with it," he says. "They're marking up this place one piece at a time."

Knowing how to read such signs helps protect the 296 officers, nurses and civilian staff who work in the jail.

But the Security Risk Group's findings have equal import on the streets of Newburgh, Scotchtown or Monroe.

That's because it's not just the infamous groups, like the Bloods, Hells Angels and Aryan Nation, passing through the gates of the county jail. Officers are identifying more and more home-grown and neighborhood-based gangs. There's NLD from Middletown, Mad Drama from Poughkeepsie and Kings Estates Assassins from Warwick.

"If they're in a gang in Orange County and they're on the street, they'll wind up here," Hefferon says. "This is the central hub of information."

That's one reason Sheriff Carl DuBois wants to hire a part-time gang intelligence coordinator to run information between the officers in the jail, the police on the streets and the county district attorney's office, which manages its own gang unit.

But for now, Persell remains focused on keeping gangs in check in the jail. And while his work has taught him a new respect for the gangs he's surrounded by, that fight in 1994 is never far from his mind.

"To disrespect us, to hurt us, to slice us, puts them up on the point system," Persell says. "Cops, COs, lawyers, judges – any figure of authority. We're nothing but trophy pieces to these guys."