Guards with no badges
How incarcerated geese run rampant at CCWF
Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) resident Sandra Dillard was walking briskly to breakfast one morning to beat potential yard downs. As she was getting closer to the chow hall, Dillard spotted a goose beelining towards her.
When Dillard ignored the goose’s intimidation tactics and continued walking with a pep in her step, the goose – a guard with no badge – started pecking at her leg.
“The goose was biting my altered pants, leaving drool marks and all,” Dillard said.
Dillard stooped to the goose’s level and responded with the same ignorance by hissing and talking trash to her feathered nemesis and wondered why the goose wasn’t biting the rest of the people walking past her. Was it because of her altered pants? Or was it because she wanted Dillard to slow down with traffic? No one knows; however, if it’s the latter, the goose succeeded.
Two days later, Dillard found out that someone had stolen the eggs she had been protecting right from under her beak.
The sight of geese hissing with their beaks wide open, tiny little tongues exposed, their tiny little webbed feet slapping on the concrete, chasing any- and everyone, is quite the norm in CCWF. Geese come to CCWF in the spring and are supposed to leave in the fall. The geese that are short-termers obey that rule; however, some of them do not leave at all and make CCWF their permanent home, just like a long-term prisoner.
The geese that stay become territorial, like a long-term resident of a suburban area. They become more than the neighborhood watch. They become aggressive when someone steps on their turf, they punk the residents coming out of the chow hall for their food like they know bringing food out of the chow hall is not allowed. And then they eat it.
Since when do geese eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? These self-appointed guards take their job to protect too seriously.
Fun fact: Back in the day, the British used geese as their guard dogs. If you get too close, they will give you a verbal warning just like a guard dog will, and if you don’t comply, they will come and get you.
To make things even worse, they have repurposed CCWF’s walkways as their personal toilets, because they apparently do not want to fertilize their own food [the grass]. You see people walking on the sidewalks like they are drunk, but that is not the case for most; they are simply trying to avoid the poop mines/“poopstacle” course. And when the sidewalks are completely covered with the poop carpet, the prison calls the firehouse to hose it down and provide free toilet cleaning service for the guards with no badges.
They also regulate and punk the officers regularly. Apparently, the rule prohibiting battery on a peace officer doesn’t apply to them and the geese think they have a higher rank than all. And if the goose gets pepper-sprayed, who is gonna dare do the escort to the eye washing station? By the way, they also have their own yard crew gangster geese [Facilities B, C and D], who fight amongst each other for their turfs. When they do fight, staff don’t even put the yard down.
Let me get this right, geese can poop wherever they want, they can attack anyone without the consequence of going to the Accountability Change & Transformation (ACT) program, they don’t get down on the yard, they never have to lock it down, they have ample space to flock their feathers, and they chose to be here.
As we wait at the gate for 45 minutes, stomping our feet in inclement weather, late for our priority ducat appointments, we watch the geese flap their wings and fly over our heads and over the gate to their own priority appointment for snacks in the grass.
