02 November 05

Suicide By Cop

Weird Al is short and grey and doesn’t seem to belong here. Formerly a real-estate investor, he spends most of his time in prison working on lawsuits.

“What’s suicide by cop?” I asked Al.
“It’s a coward’s way of committing suicide. You get the police to shoot you because you don’t have the nerve to do it yourself.”
“Why did you try this?”
“My girlfriend had recently died from over-consumption of Marlboro Light One-Hundreds, and over four or five months I became increasingly depressed and crazy. I bought a book by Jack Kevorkian, and tried his method: a bottle of vodka, sleeping pills and a plastic bag over your head. Obviously it didn’t work. I woke up in hospital after my neighbours called the police because I was knocking things over. The police found me with a garbage bag over my head, and after a visit to the hospital, I was sent to the nuthouse. I lost all faith in Dr. Death. I thought a bullet would be a surer way to do it.”
“What was your next suicide idea?”
“To shoot myself. But then I thought, my family is gonna have to clean my brains off the wall. I didn’t have the nerve to do it.
After staying in bed for a few days, an idea came to me: rob the bank, and the police will come and shoot you. I slept great that night. I woke up happy and watched Regis and Kathy Lee because my bank didn’t open until ten. I wrote a note, I have a gun. I am here to rob you. And I put, This is not a joke, so they’d know I was serious. I went to my local bank where I’d done business for eight years.
When I walked inside, there was a line of people. You’d think I would of gone straight to the front. If I was gonna get shot, why stand on manners? But I’m a polite person. I stood in the line, and waited, wondering which teller I’d get. I got a familiar lady clerk.
She said, 'Hello, Mr.Donaldson, how are you today?'
I gave her the note, and her eyes went as big as saucers. I kept my left hand in my pocket pretending I had a gun. She opened the drawer real quick. I grabbed the cash, put it in my pocket and walked outside to sit on the curb next to my car. I figured that the police would screech into the parking lot at any second, and shoot me.”
“But it didn't work out?”
“No. They didn’t come right away. It took them ten minutes to get there. I was getting pissed off. I was expecting a big scene and an adrenaline rush. I wanted to go out like Bonnie and Clyde. They didn’t screech into the parking lot - they calmly got out of their cars without their guns drawn. I thought, wait a minute, somethings not working here.
One cop said, 'Mr. Donaldson, I’m telling you right now, we’re not going to shoot you.'
'But I have a gun,' I told him.
He said, 'You don’t have a gun.'
His partner said, 'What in the world’s going on here?'
I told them, 'I robbed the bank.'
One said, 'Yeah, we know that. But why? You have more money in the bank than you stole.'
I had fifteen thousand in the bank, and I stole seventeen hundred.
It got worse from there. They arrested me and took me to Tempe Police Department. The FBI came down, took one look at me and said, 'Forget it, he’s all yours.' I thought that I had an original idea, but the police said it happens all the time, that people often try to get the police to shoot them, usually in hostage situations.
I thought, son of a bitch, I shoulda took a hostage.”
“How did you feel?”
“Mad, because I was still alive. I felt stupid because they didn’t shoot me.”
“It wasn’t something you could practice for?”
“True, there’s no courses you can take to do suicide by cop.”
“You could say it’s a one-shot deal?”
“Maybe two or three shots if you pull it off right. You wouldn’t be trying again, or going to jail either.”
“Are you going to try again?”
“Oh, no. I have it all figured out now. I’ll take a backpack, hiking gear, and a gun into the desert, wait a few days until I have no food and water, then shoot myself without bothering anybody – there’ll be no mess for the family to clean up. Kevorkian’s method was bogus. I should sue that bastard for the trouble he caused me.”
"Perhaps suicide by cop didn’t work because you’re not meant to die just yet?”
“Maybe. Anyway, I haven’t got the urge to kill myself right now, but you never know what might pop up.”

For the bank robbery and attempted suicide by cop, Weird Al was sentenced to three and a half years for assault.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood


Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

31 October 05

A Suspected Dildo Looter

“If they cut your ass loose in Mall of fuckin’ America what wouldya loot?” Two Tonys asked Ogre and Ogre's large cellmate, Cannonball..
“I’d hit the diamond stores,” Cannonball said.
“Smart,” Two Tonys said. “Lotsa small pricey shit: diamond rings and gold chains. Whaddabout you, Ogre?”
“I’d go where the big money's at: the banks.” Ogre's eyes sought approval from Two Tonys.
“Giddouttahere!" Two Tonys said." How the fuck wouldya get in a locked bank vault, motherfucker?”
“I dunno. I’d figure it out.”
“You couldn’t even break out of your own fuckin’ cell. If they locked you in, you’d die in there. You know nothin' about locks, or robbin’ banks.”
“What should I be lootin’ then?”
“You’d do well lootin’ Los Angeles.”
“Why’s that?”
“'Cause of all of the fuckin' porno stores. If Korean snipers didn’t cap your ass, you’d be cleanin' out the sex stores. I can see you runnin' down Hollywood Boulevard with a backpack full of dildos – big black ones.”
“How come Cannonball gets to be a diamond looter, and I gotta be a fuckin' dildo looter? Whattaya tryin' to say?” Ogre pushed out his chest and put his hands on his hips.
“I'm sayin' you fit the dildo-looter profile. There’s somethin' about you that exudes fuckin' dildo lootin'. Cannonball would be grabbin' diamonds, and you’d be grabbin' big black double dildos.”
Ogre grabbed Two Tonys by the neck.
“Hey, motherfucker, don’t fuck with an old man doin' two fuckin' life sentences. You fuckin' fish number!”
Two Tonys’ face turned red.
Ogre choked Two Tonys for a little longer and then released him. “You fucker. I should have choked you out.”
“If – cough! cough! – you're gonna choke me -cough! – for clownin' you about dildos – cough! cough! – then we’re not fuckin' playin’ anymore - cough! cough! cough!”
Ogre apologised.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood

Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

29 October 05

Thiefe Keefe

The swindling of prisoners by Keefe reached sinister heights this week. None of us have received credit to our inmate balances for overpriced items we had previously refused, so Keefe, in lieu of our credit, asked us to take the following store items: aspirin tablets, Sunkist Orange Sodas, and – the ultimate deal clincher – Hemorrhoidal Ointment Cleaning Pads. Imagine returning goods to Wal-Mart and being asked to take Hemorrhoidal Cleaning Pads instead of a refund.

Upon hearing the Hemorrhoidal Pad offer, the Junior Bull summed up how the Orangemen were feeling when he told the storeworker,
“I feel like pullin’ your ass through the window right now.”


Email comments to writinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood

Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

27 October 05

Futures Trading Results

Less than six months ago, Long Island and I began trading futures with hypothetical investment stakes of $2000 each.
Long Island’s account value has risen to $6,804, and mine is at $10,099.
I recently profited by arbitraging the energy sector: selling short the leader (natural gas) and purchasing the laggard ( light sweet crude oil), and waiting for the valuation gap to close.
Investors who are in sideways-trading stocks, should consider taking advantage of the bull market in commodities.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood


Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

The charitable organisation, Prisoners Abroad, recently invited Jon's dad to contribute a piece to their Winter Newsletter describing how life is for a parent of an inmate:

Prison Without Bars

I put the phone down and returned to the living room to tell my wife and daughter that our son was facing 25 years in a U.S. prison. That was on May 16 2002, and since that day our life has been a roller coaster ride from one emotional episode to another.

Following his arrest, Shaun spent over two years on remand in facilities run by the notorious U.S. Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Sheriff’s treatment of inmates is well documented, and has led to protests from many human rights groups including Amnesty International.

The distance of 5000 miles from our son’s jail cell has put constraints on the viability of visits, but in the first few months after his arrest, we all managed to go over to see him, behind a plastic screen, manacled to the table and to speak with him via a telephone. It was quite horrendous. But our son being who he is, always arrived in the visitation area wreathed in smiles, with a joke never far from his lips.

My wife, Barbara, urged Shaun to write “to help keep you sane”. This he did with a vengeance.

Letters are a constant in a prisoner’s life, and the ones that Shaun wrote to us from his cell told a disturbing tale of mistreatment and abuse in Arpaio’s jails. We could hardly believe that what he was writing could be true of a civilised country in the 21st century. But he never complained – he just reported to us what happened and what he saw - it was the brutal truth. A truth that contained suicide, cockroach infestations, medical neglect, overflowing sewage and rotten food.

I had just read Salam Pax’s book ‘The Baghdad Blog’, and I thought that a weblog would be a useful way to share Shaun’s letters amongst family and friends, to let them know what it was like in a US jail. Initially we feared for his safety, and so we posted the blogs under the pseudonym of ‘jonsjailjournal which Barbara and I thought up along with an email address. The first batch of Shaun’s pencil-stub written ‘blogs’ were smuggled out with the help of my sister Ann, who lives in Phoenix and who was a frequent visitor to the jail. We typed up and posted the blogs regularly until Shaun was forced to accept a plea bargain from the prosecution – the case was never going to go to trial, they rarely do in the U.S. This was in June 2004. Shaun’s attorney explained to us that it was vital that we attend the sentencing hearing, as we could address the judge and perhaps have some influence on reducing the length of the prison term.

It was the worst day of our lives. We stood up in court, one by one, to plead with the judge for the lower end of the sentencing range. Barbara went first and heartbreakingly addressed the judge begging leniency for her son. Both of my sisters spoke up for Shaun, and then my daughter Karen, who was quite distressed by this time. As she spoke, her eyes brimming with tears, it seemed as though the whole courtroom was awash with emotion, sniffles heard and tissues used even by courtroom officials.

Finally it was my turn. I spoke of prosaic childhood experiences I’d shared with Shaun, but this turned to be too much for him and he broke down with only his attorney by his side to comfort him. This emotional parade appeared to have the desired effect , and after the sentence was handed out - still draconian by any civilised standard - we were allowed to talk to Shaun in the court before he was taken away, his chains jangling with each step. After he was senteced Shaun was moved to a State prison where conditions were better. Away from the jurisdiction of Maricopa County, Shaun went public and we posted his name onto the blog.

Not long after we returned to England, the blog attracted the attention of The Guardian, who ran excerpts in the G2 section entitled ‘Hell on Earth’. This in turn attracted further media interest including local radio, to whom Barbara gave her first live interview, and she stood up well to what was quite hard questioning. Then the BBC interviewed us for the online news service. Now the story was going not only nationwide, but worldwide, as the email address I had set up for Shaun started to receive emails from around the world. Most were overwhelmingly supportive, people had been genuinely inspired by Shaun’s words from his prison cell.

The difficulties of being the parents of a prisoner are many: the whole family serves the sentence, we are in a prison without bars. Our difficulties have been compounded by the distance, and only being able to visit annually. But as we receive Shaun’s letters, and we type them out, it connects us to him in a very real way. The blogs put us alongside him, inside the chow hall, on the rec field, playing chess with ‘Frankie’. We see the characters he describes, some are tragic, many are very funny, but there is an ultimate air of sadness and frustration as we realise that prisoners – everywhere – are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to being treated with both dignity and humanity.

As I write this in September we have just had a week in which Arpaio was visiting the UK as a guest of the BBC, ‘advising’ us on how to run the jails. This visit in turn led to a Phoenix TV station requesting a telephone interview with Shaun - they were running a story exposing the Sheriff’s jail abuses. We were able to see the broadcast on the internet and hear Shaun’s voice for the first time in months, it seemed, ironically, that the Sheriff had done us a favour…

Derick Attwood

25 October 05

Psychotherapy With Dr. Allen (Part 2)

“You mentioned that being unable to reach your full potential in prison is a cause of anxiety. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant because I’m not in front of a computer, trading stocks, doing the work I enjoy the most, but, I have tried to compensate for that by developing other skills.”
“Do you feel that your behaviour in prison is similar to your hardworking self before your arrest?”
“Yes.”
“Describe a typical week before your arrest.”
“On weekdays I watched stocks and did online research. I mostly stayed at home with my fiancée, other than when we went to the gym, skating, and the Indian restaurant. I also went to Scottsdale Community College.”
“And what about the weekends?”
“I was a party animal, but I’d almost phased that behaviour out.”
“In my life, I like to spend a whole weekend day doing absolutely nothing, recharging from the stresses of the week.”
“At one time, the weekend merged into one day, a Friday night rave, and after-partying all day Saturday, a Saturday night rave followed by all day partying on Sunday, and sometimes we’d go to the Crow Bar on Sunday night.”
“How was that possible? How did you reconcile that with work?”
“I’d take a Xanax, sleep like a baby, and wake up crisp and fresh.”
“You’re describing two modes again: the party mode, and the reclusive hard worker. So in prison you are in the second mode?”
“Yeah, I’m studying, reading, and writing harder than I ever have before.”
“You said that you were phasing the partying out?”
“Yeah, I’d stopped hardcore raving years before my arrest. When Sammy the Bull lit the Arizona rave scene up, and attracted a bunch of undercover cops into the parties, I moved to Tucson, and tried to live a normal life. My stocks were doing well. Everything was going great.”
“Why did you move back to Phoenix?”
“Because I met, and fell in love with Claudia. We got a place together in Scottsdale. I only went to two raves in 2002. She wasn’t into the rave scene.”
“So you were settling down, and the party lifestyle was on its last legs, you almost had a normal life, and then you got arrested. Most people in that situation would feel bitter about that, yet you seem to take responsibility for what you did?”
“How can I not take responsibility? The wild times I chose led to my arrest. At first I was upset, because of the lies and sensationalization of my case. It was an eye-opener, learning about the crooks working for the system. Some of them are bigger crooks than the people being prosecuted. But now I don’t waste mental energy thinking about that. It’s counterproductive. The talents I’ve discovered, and the results I’m achieving make me think that everything is working out for the best. Perversely, I’m happy that I’ve gone through this because it’s enabling me to develop in different spheres.”
“How did things for you and Claudia work out after your arrest?”
“She visited me religiously for a year. Then she was indicted for a prescription pill found in our medicine cabinet a year earlier, so that meant she could no longer visit me in jail. She stuck with me for over two years, and helped me however she could, and was able to visit me again at Buckeye. My feelings for her grew but then she stopped visiting me earlier this year. I wrote about it in my journal, and I went through more heartache, and wrote her off. Oddly enough, I received a letter from her for the first time in months, last week, and she mentioned ‘getting back on track’.
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Confused. I’m telling myself to go with the flow, see what happens, and enjoy any visits, but to try not to set myself up emotionally again, so I don’t get hurt. Mission impossible, eh? Who am I trying to fool?”
“Sounds like you didn’t quite write Claudia off?”
“Hmm.”
"Do you miss raving?”
“I miss the music. I couldn’t listen to music for two years after my arrest because it made me sad. I don’t miss my behaviour. I see it as a phase in my life that I can look back on. I feel that until I was arrested, I hadn’t grown up. I was devil-may-care. With incarceration came enforced maturity. I’ve evolved into a more focussed person with wider interests than raving and trading stocks. Previously I would have mocked someone for listening to Vivaldi, or for doing yoga, and other things I enjoy now. I’ve changed a lot and I’m continuing to change and to learn. It’s as if an invisible hand put me here to get me back on track.”


Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood


Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

23 October 05


Is Frankie Lonely?

I managed to steer Frankie’s latest come-on in the following direction:

“Englandman, let’s play strip chess” Frankie said.
“How does that work?” I said.
“Whoever loses each game strips something off.”
“Not likely. I’m hetero. No soy homosexual.”
“That’s not what Xena said.”
“What did she say?”
“That you guys were makin’ tortillas.”
“Makin’ tortillas ! What the bloody hell’s that mean? And do I really wanna know?”
“You know what a tortilla is?”
“Yeah, foodwise.”
“Its when you flip-flop. One guy goes, and then the other guy goes. That’s two guys makin’ tortillas.”
“Xena would never say that about me.”
“Ha-ha. Gimme a little taste then.”
“A little taste of what?”
“Chicloso.”
“Chicloso?”
“You know, pinta pussy.”
“What’s wrong with you? Aren’t there enough cheetos here for you?”
“There’s never enough.”
“Aren’t you getting’ any play right now?”
“Hell no! Kenny offered to come in and get freaky, but he ain’t all that. He told me he could suck a dick real good. He’s too fuckin’ old. He’s lost all of the rubber bands holdin’ his asshole together, and he calls himself good. I’d have to kidney punch him a few times to tighten his asshole up, and then his asshole would look like that.”
Frankie curled his right forefinger as tight as possible, forming a puckered hole above his thumb.
“So you won’t be takin’ Kenny up on his offer then?” I said.
“Hell no! The motherfucker walks like a snake, and thinks he’s tight. I can spot 'em a mile away. That’s why they call me Caesar the booty pleaser.”
“Are you missing Yum-Yum?”
“Oh, man, I shit you not.”
“So there’s no one here you fancy?”
”I don’t like none of them. I know when I see a good one 'cause my dick starts throbbin’.”
“What about the lad that cleans your house?”
”I’ve heard on the side that he does, homey. I’ve been treatin’ him real nice. Sometimes he acts like it, but then he plays the man part.”
“So you have a plan to seduce him?”
“By treatin’ him good. Treatin’ him nice. Buyin’ him little things every now and then. He’s startin’ to like me. He comes to my house every day.”
“I don’t see the attraction. If you and him were to go at it, would you think of him, or do you close your eyes and think of women?”
“Hell no! I’d think of him. It makes it better.”
“What about George?”
“I was thinkin’ about having him do my house cleanin’ naked.”
“How much would you pay him for that?”
“A twenty-five cent soup, and he’ll be lucky.”
“Ha-ha. It sounds like you’re lonely?”
“Yeah.”

Your comments for Frankie would be appreciated.

Cheers! Jon.

Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood