Ride Along as a Prisoner Part 5 – Service Area Again

By asiancuffs

15 Aug 2017

The wagon left the detention center and drove through the city roads heading to the highway entrance, again a few vehicles passed us and the passengers or drivers looked at the “prisoners.” After we were on the highway, there was nothing else interesting on the road except fast passing vehicles. I start looking at the jailmate, he is a guy in his mid-20s, dressed in shirt without tie, suit and black dress shoes. He looked a lot more decent than me in a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers. He sat quietly looking down, at most times looking at his cuffed hands as he moves his hands. He also checked his shackles and moved as the extent of the chains allowed. I look at him all the time and once we have eye contact, he turns his face around to avoid a direct look at me.

After half an hour on the highway, it was planned that I request a washroom stop so I speak out loud enough that the officers heard my request. The officers replied that there will be a service area and we can use the washroom later. Then I asked jailmate if he wants to pee or not and he says he does not have the need. I tried to open the dialogue with him by asking questions like why are you arrested, have you been arrested before and similar questions. The replies I got from him were just single-word answers, “Yes,” “No.” The rest of the ride he just lowered his head, playing with the connecting chains.

When we pulled into the service area, I try talking to him again. I say it looks like you did not get used to the shackles, when you walk, you should pull the connecting chain up a bit so that the shackle will not rub your ankles. I lift my chain up to show him how it works. He looked carefully and tried it on his own chain. He thanked me for teaching him this. The wagon parked at the other end again and the officer came to open the back door. One officer jumped onto the compartment and unlocked the connecting handcuffs so that we are free from our benches. Jailmate says to the officer that he does not need to go to washroom. The officer says you better go as city G is famous for its traffic jam and we don’t know how bad it is. Furthermore, they need to drop me to another station before taking jailmate to where he supposed to be delivered so the officers don’t want him to pee in their vehicle. Since this is sort of an “order” from the officers, no matter how unwilling he is, he needs to comply.

We both stepped down to the ground and start our march again, two uniformed offiers with two shackled prisoners. In real operation guidelines, if one prisoner is in transport, the two officers will escort the prisoner together to the washroom as what they did to me earlier. If two officers and two prisoners are in transport, one officer and one prisoner will stay in the wagon while the other pair go to the washroom. After they returned and the prisoner is secured to the wagon again, the other pair will go. The reason why we can go together is because I am a “SAFE” prisoner and if anything happens on the way, they can leave me alone and handle the situation together, same escort protocol of two officers and one prisoner escort on foot.

On our march to the washroom, we drew attention from people in the service area. Jailmate was walking in front of me and I was comfortable to walk in straight head while he felt very uncomfortable of being exposed in restraints. I saw he tried to use his cuffed hands to cover his face but due to the restriction of the connecting chain, his hands can only lift up to chest level. He knew it ws impossible to hide his face, then he lowered his head as much as possible during the walk. At the first 30 feet of walking, I saw his dragging on his shackles and I knew it hurts his ankles. I then told him to lift the chain and after he lifted it, I can see he can walk in more comfortable steps. The walk and when inside the washroom was more or less the same earlier. People looked, gave way to us and whispered in low voice about us. I did pee as I had the whole bottle of water, but jailmate says to the officer that he does not need to pee.

We were restrained back in the wagon and were given a bottle of water each. In about an hour’s time, we will be back to the station.

To be continued …

Metal would like to thank the author, asiancuffs, for this true story!