Weld County Jail (Brandon Stephens)

One hour after being taken away from the courtroom in handcuffs, I was in Weld County Jail. They had taken me downstairs of the courtroom, placed me in belly chains and loaded me into the back of a truck with no windows - it reminded me of a dog catcher's truck. Obviously, it's terrible feeling to be put in handcuffs, but the handcuffs that they put on me were way too small. The ones on my wrists immediately started cutting into my skin-by the time we got to the jail (15 minutes) my wrists and ankles were bleeding. Four other inmates and I rode in the back of the dog catcher's truck over to the jail. The bench we sat on in the back of the truck was hard and cold and could normally fit 4 people. I, of course take up a bit more room than the average person and that made the ride a lot more uncomfortable for the other 3 guys that were with me. I was in the middle and so every corner (as we leaned into each other) the guy on the end got crushed. Under normal circumstances I would have at least tried to not lean so hard, but being in belly chains had me feeling like I just didn't care. I let all 290 lbs loose one every corner, it provided some mild therapy for me.

Ironically enough, even though I have never stepped foot in the Weld County Jail before, it had been my nemesis for many years. Having run a lot of oil field business in Weld County, on any given weekend any number of our employees would end up locked up. So Mondays were always a crap-shoot when, due to weekend exploits employees didn't show up for work-having been claimed by Weld County Jail. So there was a part of me that was actually intrigued to finally be touring the facility, albeit under the wrong circumstances.

They unloaded us from the dog catcher's truck into a garage type facility and then walked us into the jail itself. Once we were inside of the holding area they removed our handcuffs, by now both wrists and ankles were bleeding pretty badly, so I was so glad to have them removed.

As soon as our handcuffs were off, we were taken into the booking area of the jail. Booking is a large room with a guard station in the  middle of it with traditional holding cells and a lot of inmates who were sitting on benches in the main area of the room. As we walked into the booking area, I immediately heard the most horrifying screaming and yelling coming from one of the holding cells. Whoever or whatever was being held in the cell was also kicking and pounding on the cell door so hard I was sure the door was going to be kicked off it's hinges. Based on the intensity of the screaming and pounding I had narrowed the species of the being behind the door to 3 possibilities...

1. an extraterrestrial 
2. a rabid dog
3. a bull buffalo

As it turns out-it was just a lady on meth. As she continued her attack on the steel and concrete room, I made note of the emergency exists because if she happened to turn green and break out of that cell, I was not sticking around.

On one end of the room there were 3 or 4 old-school pay phones that those of us who were not in cells could use. I was able to call Sallie's cell via a collect call. Even though it had only been 2 hours since we last spoke, it felt good to hear her voice. She was still in the car headed home to tell our 4 kids about everything that happened. I felt so helpless not being able to be with her to break such terrible news to our kids. We were extremely blessed to have a lot of family and friends there to help. I told Sallie that I didn't know what the next couple of days were going to look like but I would call her the second I could.

Shortly after I finished talking with Sallie, one of the guards called my name and my official 'booking' process began. I met with a nurse to go through a mental and physical health evaluation. After that was over, they opened one of those cells and put 4-5 of us in there. These cell rooms were 15x15 and had a single concrete bench that ran on 3 sides. Once they put us in the cell, the guard walked out and pushed a button and the cell door shut. I can tell you that the sound of a cell door closing is awful-it's only after you see and hear one shut that it sinks in that you really are in jail.

Of the 5 of us that were in the holding cell, I was the only one that had never been in jail before. Naturally, I had alot of annoying questions. How long will we be here? Where do we go next? Do they feed us? Is that lady that's on meth really still screaming? Is there any chance that she will get out of that cell? Fortunately, the guys were helpful and answered all the questions they could. Of the 5 of us, I was the only one going to prison so I knew at some point they'd go through one door and I would go through another. What I was able to find out was that eventually we would be moved to another area of the jail called 'intake'. Once we were moved to intake, a case manager would come and classify our risk level (based on current crime and past crimes). Once we were classified, we would be moved to a matching area of the jail (minimum, medium, maximum).

Five hours later, we were finally moved to intake. Intake is a 2 story room with cells surrounding a break room with tables. There were between 30-40 cells in this particular pod. Since we had not been classified yet, the crimes in this pod were all over the board. When they walked into the pod they gave us a blanket and walked us to our cells. All of the other cells in the pod were full of people and locked down. They walked me to my cell and these particular cells are referred to as 'wet cells' meaning they have a toilet and sink in the cell itself. There was a set of bunk beds and a guy was already laying on the top bunk. I was told to take the bottom bunk. In the jail/prison world your cell mate is referred to as a 'celly'. My celly was a 19 year old kid who had been in a hit a run the night before. He was actually a good kid and if I was going to be locked in a cell with someone, he seemed like he'd be a good candidate. Like me, he'd never been in jail before so we had alot of questions that neither could answer. Ironically enough, he had grown up in the LDS church in Salt Lake and when he was 16 had moved out to Colorado to live with his Grandma. He wasn't active in the church anymore but just having something in common helped us both pass the time. About an hour after being put in the cell, they brought us some food and I was starving! They had given us a sack lunch with a sandwich inside. I opened up the sandwich and couldn't help but gag at the sight of the mystery meat. I was sure it was clydesdale meat or greyhound-or a combination of both. I was 

hungry, but not hungry enough to eat that sandwich, I gave it to my celly and he ate it right up.

After eating, they let everybody out of their cells to come down into the break area. There are 10-15 tables, a TV and a guard desk in the break area. This was really the first time that I was able to see the  different people that were in there with me. The demographic was broad with all ages , races and incomes. From DUI arrests to gang related crimes-there was a broad range of crimes. Everyone was decently nice but I didn't feel like talking to alot of people. There were 3 phones on the wall so I went over to call Sallie and the kids. It broke my heart to talk with the kids. Shortly after finishing up on the phone, they told us that we had to be in our cells for lockdown in the next 5 minutes. I made to walk upstairs to my cell, stopped in front of it to get one last breath of unconfined air, and stepped into the cell. My celly was already on his bed. Right as I stepped in, I could hear the door automatically slamming in succession towards my cell. My cell's turn came and slammed shut. It occurred to me that there may not be too many worse sounds that the slamming of a cell door-it gave me the chills, every time.

Intake does not issue pillows to inmates so as I layed down on the metal bed I was forced to choose between using the blanket as a pillow or using it as a blanket. I used it as a pillow and tried to fall asleep in my first night of incarceration. Sleep did not come easy-I had so many thoughts running through my mind and the cell was so cold. Sometime in the middle of the night, my cell door slammed open (scared me to death) and the guards took my celly out, someone had bonded him out. They replaced him with another inmate but I was too tired to introduce myself-I rolled over and tried going back to sleep. Twenty minutes later I was awoken by the unmistakable sound and smells of my new celly pooping-TWO FEET FROM MY HEAD!!! I closed my eyes, plugged my nose but my ears had to suffer...jail was not my cup of tea..all I could think was, "I'm for sure going to get pink eye".

I was awoken the next morning by the sound of the cell door slamming open. It was breakfast time and I was starving and decided that  I would eat whatever they gave me. Breakfast was some sort of pancake that had the texture of a rubber gasket-but I was hungry and so I ate it. After breakfast we had a couple of hours of free time in the day hall. As it turns out, the only newspaper that they allow the inmates to read in there is the Greeley Tribune. It didn't take the guards or inmates long to read the story on me and start to talk to me about it. Everyone had read the 'money laundering' charge and assumed I was running a ponzi scheme. They started calling me 'Bernie TooTall' as in Bernie Madoff. It didn't matter how much I had nothing to do with a ponzi scheme-but the nickname stuck for the rest of the morning. I was even approached by some inmates about helping them with their money-I assured them that they probably shouldn't ask someone who is currently in jail to help them out, they obviously weren't very good at it. I must have gotten through to them because they stopped asking for help.

Luckily by late morning I was meeting with my case manager. She was nice and told me that I would be moved to a minimum security pod later in the day. They put me back in my cell and around 4pm they came and moved me. The area I was moved to was not anything like the other parts of the jail. It more resembled a big dormitory. The cells had 4-6 guys to a room and the bathrooms were not located in the rooms, hallelujah! I was told that I would be kept in this area of the jail anywhere from 1-30 days until I was transferred into the prison system. It felt a lot better not to be locked in a cell and they did give me a pillow to sleep on. I asked around and the consensus was that I would probably be there for 1-2 weeks before being moved to the Colorado Department of Corrections (prison). I immediately went and showered and then laid down on  my bed-still tired from not sleeping much the night before. I instantly fell asleep and the next thing I knew it was the middle of the the night and a guard was waking me up. He informed me that I was being transferred to the DRDC, the first step in the prison system. I asked for the time-3:45am. I got up and was taken back into the booking area where I had started less than 48 hours before. They belly-chained me back up and loaded me back into the dog catcher's truck. As we pulled away from Weld County Jail, I thought I could still hear that lady screaming. But then again, I had only slept 5 hours in the last 2 days so maybe I was hearing things. Either way, I knew I would never be back to this awful place. It was time to begin the next stage of my nightmare journey through the Colorado Department of Corrections.

The night before my sentencing I played basketball with my brother Jason, best friend Bevin and my son Jack. We had no idea it'd be a long time before we all played together again...

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