There goes the neighborhood

This morning, at about 3:30 AM, there was a rush of commotion out in the hall. Even with their faces pressed against the dorm windows, my cellmates couldn't tell what was going on. A few minutes later one of the sergeants came in and told one of the guys in my dorm to pack up his stuff. From their conversation, it sounded like a gang rival had given names of everybody from his hometown and said they were dangerous. The yelling in the hall was one of those who were ratted out; he obviously didn't want to move.

By 4 o'clock there were eight guys in the hall, all but one of them Hispanic. The token white guy was a guy I played soccer with at rec and was definitely not in the right place. He looked quite confused, as did the sergeant when he saw the pale face among the darker Hispanics. A few moments later the white guy carried his belongings back into his dorm.

The guys that were moved were put into cell block, a kind of segregation with two-man cells. Showing their perturbations at being moved, many were hanging on the walls and yelling this afternoon as I went to dinner. A short time later all the fans came on across the unit signaling the use of gas to calm the unruly.


Sometimes I feel like I'm in an Eastern European or developing country election riots with the threatening populace held in check (maybe) by the stoic lawmen through use of chemicals and force. I think their situation makes much more sense most of the time.