Samourai Letter #7: Transit, Shackles, and Holding Cells

Dear reader,

Many months have passed since my last letter. A significant reason is that I was in transit for most of June and part of July, moving from FPC Morgantown to FCI McKean—a trip that is normally a four-hour drive. During that period, I lacked access to pen, paper, stamps, and the basic email system I rely on to send these notes.

The other reason for the long silence is that after finally arriving, I was stunned by the entire experience and required time to recover and make sense of the month-long trauma that BOP transit entails.

Six days after reaching FCI McKean, I began writing down the journey, but what came out was more a release of trauma than a proper letter, aimed at processing the worst 30 days of my existence. I chose to pause and wait before sending anything. Gradually, I am adjusting to life at McKean, and eventually I will describe this facility in detail, but in this letter I want to return to early June.

I intend to cover the full transit process and describe how a straightforward four-hour drive became 30 days, including two cross-country flights, three lengthy bus trips, a cellmate serving time for murder, and another who could not control his bowel movements (I found the murderer preferable). This letter will probably appear in two parts because of its length. Thank you for your ongoing attention and support.

"I finally put pen to paper to document [...] the absolute worst 30 days of my life."

On June 5th, I learned that I would be moved from FPC Morgantown to participate in a drug and alcohol treatment program. Finishing the program, which lasts roughly 9 to 10 months, grants a one-year reduction in sentence, making the disruption of moving seem worthwhile.

For security purposes, inmates are not informed of the departure time or destination. During a BOP transfer, prisoners are typically flown on planes piloted and operated by US Marshals to the BOP transit center in Oklahoma City. After spending several days in Oklahoma, you are then flown to your final location. According to conversations with other inmates, the transit is expected to take one to two weeks.

I also learned that the cost per inmate for transit through Oklahoma is about $10,000. Given my minimum security classification, nearly two years on pre-trial release, voluntary surrender, and clean disciplinary record since incarceration, I believed I would qualify for a transfer furlough—a process in which I would pay to transport myself to the new facility.

I submitted my formal request for a transfer furlough on June 5th. On June 8th, my request was rejected with no reason given; I would have to go through transit with no alternative.

On June 10th, I was summoned to Receiving and Discharge (R&D) at 6:00 AM. Unbeknownst to me then, I was starting a month-long nightmare that would take me through two separate holding facilities, force me to share cells with murderers, confine me behind iron bars for 23 hours daily, and subject me to much worse.

The departure process through R&D mirrored my arrival. I was stripped, searched, and given poor-fitting clothing: khaki elastic waist trousers, a brown cotton shirt, worn-out boxers, mismatched socks, and slip-on blue canvas shoes.

I was placed in a holding cell as the other inmates destined for transfer underwent the same procedure. That day, six of us were leaving Morgantown. One by one, we were lined up and called forward for the officer to secure shackles around our ankles and handcuffs on our wrists.

After the cuffs and shackles were applied, the officer wrapped a chain around our waist and attached it to the handcuffs. This meant we could not raise our arms above waist level and could only shuffle in short, painful steps. We each received a brown paper bag containing 'breakfast'—bread, peanut butter, and bologna—and were led to the waiting bus.

"We were each lined up and called forward so that the officer could fasten shackles to our ankles and cuffs to our wrists."

The bus resembled a hybrid of a yellow school bus and a coach, similar to a Greyhound or National Express, and it was already occupied by inmates from other facilities. Men of all security classifications were on board. Some had 20-year sentences from the USP (US Penitentiary), while others, like me, had short terms and were heading to a camp.

The mood on the bus was mostly cordial; the USP inmates were curious about camp conditions and the prices of contraband such as vapes and phones. Behind a metal grille at the front sat the driver and three heavily armed officers, all wearing stab vests and carrying handguns and rifles.

As we left Morgantown, I eagerly watched the passing scenery. It was my first glimpse of the outside in six months. I absorbed everything: the trailer park, the dilapidated gas station, the adult store—all of it was fascinating. After roughly an hour, the bus unexpectedly left the highway and pulled over on a side road. We idled for 20 minutes, then I saw one officer returning with a bag of biscuits from Tudor's Biscuit World, a famous West Virginia eatery.

We stayed on the roadside while each officer took turns buying breakfast, a process that lasted more than an hour. I thought about eating, but my bread had fallen from the bag onto the floor, so breakfast was postponed. Soon after we resumed driving, we pulled off again, this time for each officer to buy cigarettes and energy drinks from a gas station.

The shackles were beginning to cut into my ankles, my wrists were cramping, and the noise was unbearable. As many have noted, the most memorable aspect of a prison bus is the incredible noise. Each road bump triggers a clang of metal. Prisoners at the front shout at full voice to friends in the back. The volume stays at maximum throughout the trip.

After approximately five hours, we reached Greenbriar Valley Regional Airport. Several other prison buses were parked near the runway. Over the next hour, officers from other buses boarded ours and called out names. It was a large game of musical chairs, and for a moment I hoped to be reassigned to a bus that would take me directly to my camp, avoiding the flight to Oklahoma.

Eventually the reshuffling ended, and we were told to exit the bus and line up in front of a line of US Marshals standing beside a plain white airplane with only a tiny American flag on its tail.

A Marshal patted me down, inspected my mouth and feet, and told me to stand under the cockpit. We were packed tightly on the tarmac in lines of at least ten men deep. We watched other inmates exit the plane and board the buses we had vacated.

The operation must be a logistical challenge for the BOP, yet I was surprised at its relative smoothness. It was not fast, but it could have been worse. At last, I was directed to climb the stairs to the plane, wobbling. I felt like a stumble-prone Joe Biden.

Falling in front of the other inmates would have been humiliating, but I managed to board without incident. On the plane, Air Operations Marshals served as flight attendants, and their attitude was indistinguishable from a Delta steward moving a crowd of overweight passengers in sweatsuits. We filled the rows from back to front as directed by the Marshals.

I took the window seat. My neighbor had a distinctive full-face tattoo and said he had served 15 years and was removed from the USP due to fighting. I told him I was going to a camp after six months. He had nothing further to say.

"This was the first taste of the outside world I had in 6 months."

The plane was clearly past its prime, appearing to date from the Cold War. The typical warning stickers about smoking or life vest locations—though how to use a life vest while shackled was unclear—were in German and Russian. I wondered where the aircraft had come from.

The plane was about two-thirds full of inmates. The front third was occupied by at least 30 US Marshals. Then the plane took off for Oklahoma City. After about an hour, an Air Marshal, acting like a grumpy Delta flight attendant, tossed a lunch bag at us. It was my second—but not final—sack lunch, containing four bread slices, a peanut butter pouch, two turkey slices, and a small pack of cookies called 'Cream 4 Fun,' a BOP staple that made me chuckle despite the circumstances.

I was thoroughly tired of the greasy BOP peanut butter, so I gladly gave it to the face-tattooed inmate beside me. I attempted to make a turkey sandwich, but the handcuffs made it tricky. The bread was cold, and the turkey was frozen. After scraping off a layer of ice from the meat and putting it between the soggy bread, I took a bite and realized I did not enjoy frozen turkey sandwich. The cookies had to serve as lunch.

I was grateful for the small water bottle provided, but was annoyed when I spilled most of it while struggling to unscrew the cap. Shortly after eating, a Marshal went row by row asking about bathroom needs. Many inmates needed to go, so the remainder of the flight involved frequent moving to the toilet and back. I declined, deciding to wait, but the man across the aisle announced his need to defecate, sparking discussion.

As we neared Oklahoma City, the pilot announced a beautiful sunny day with a pleasant 88 degrees. He did not mention that none of us would experience that sunlight during our time at FTC Oklahoma City.

We touched down at OKC airport, passed the main terminal, and headed toward a short brown concrete structure about six stories tall. After an interminable wait, we were taken off the plane row by row through the jet bridge directly into the airport detention facility.

We moved single file through a line of Marshals who mercifully took off the cuffs and shackles, inspected our mouths and feet once more, and guided us into a dim concrete holding cell where we were crammed like sardines. In one corner stood a stainless steel unit combining a toilet, sink, and water fountain.

Almost right away, some inmates managed to create a lighter and began smoking K2, also called Deuce. In prison, Deuce is often roach spray or rat poison soaked onto a paper scrap. After lighting the paper and breathing in the fumes, users typically freeze in place, lean over, and become unaware of their surroundings for minutes. I was amazed that they had hidden the materials through at least three thorough searches.

My only thought was to escape this stifling concrete room and reach a housing unit with other minimum-security campers. I had been warned that classifications would be mixed until assignment. I simply had to endure the intake.

"You quietly wonder if Dante got it all wrong and all the circles of hell happen to be within the BOP's Oklahoma City airport transfer facility."

Despite being the BOP's official transit hub, processing thousands of inmates weekly, the staff at FTC Oklahoma City displayed stunning incompetence. Each officer seemed utterly useless, appearing bewildered at having to handle a plane of convicts, as though they were normally accountants or clerks. It seemed like everyone was on their first day. After packing us tightly into the small concrete room for four hours—likely while they held a crisis meeting about what to do—a severely overweight officer, whose stab vest seemed to strain under the task, unlocked the door and yelled that he needed five of us at once.

Immediately, more than a hundred men, all eager to escape the miserable room, pushed and shoved toward the exit. The only ones not rushing were those high on Deuce, who were disoriented and immobile, and myself, who had no desire to jostle with murderers and rapists. I waited at the back, covertly studying the other inmates and trying to identify the 'chomos' (child molesters). You might lecture me about not judging by appearances, but these individuals had written all over them. They had a certain look.

After 45 minutes of processing five men at a time, the room emptied. The Deuce users stumbled back to reality—a harsh awakening from their apparent escape—and we shuffled into the convict processing line. We were ordered to undress, lift, squeeze, and cough under the watch of an officer who was surely regretting the job fair that led to this duty of staring at genitals.

After the second strip search of the day, we were handed a bundle of damp, stained clothing and hurried along a conveyor belt to a long line for a body scanner, similar to airport security scanners used for detecting weapons. The officer operating the scanner sat behind a lead curtain to avoid radiation from the whirring device. A warning sticker advised staying behind the blue line for safety, but that warning did not apply to inmates; we were told to press as close to the machine as possible, ensuring we absorbed the radiation intended for the six ahead.

After sufficient irradiation, we were moved to a medical officer who threateningly asked about any medical issues, practically daring us to answer anything other than 'no.'

Papers were stamped, sorted, copied, and filed in a frenzy, and suddenly the assembly line ended. I breathed a sigh of relief, expecting a kindly officer to review my papers and separate me as a minimum-security camper. Instead, another severely overweight officer pointed at a room and grunted. I did not understand his language but assumed he wanted me to wait there. I quickly saw that this room was identical to the first holding cell and silently wondered if Dante had mislocated hell; perhaps all the circles were within the BOP's Oklahoma City transfer center.

"All I could think of was getting out of this claustrophobic concrete box."

A few more hours—or perhaps years—passed in the second holding room, and only the Deuce users seemed to be enjoying themselves. The Deuce dealers had outsmarted another strip search and even the body scanner. Eventually, an officer whose gender I could not determine unlocked the door and called out five to ten names. We were then led to our 'range'—prison jargon for the floor.

The officer guided us to the elevator, and ten of us packed inside. I studied my companions: seven had full-face tattoos covering their shaved heads—ram horns, Celtic knots, Thor's hammers, and similar designs. I now fully understood that a range reserved for campers was a myth. I was heading into the general population alongside murderers, rapists, kidnappers, gang members, and career criminals—many had spent more time incarcerated than free. I took a deep breath, reminding myself not to show anxiety. If predators sense fear, they attack.

The guard led us to the heavy metal door separating our range from the hallway. He tried a key, but it did not work. He tried another key, same result. One of the face-tattooed men mocked him, asking if it was his first day. The officer, now flustered, fumbled the keys and dropped them. The situation was genuinely humorous, and more inmates joined the heckling. Eventually the door opened from the inside—the range officer likely took pity. The inmates watching via security cameras must have been laughing. He would never live it down in the break room.

My range was 4D. The room had an odd triangular shape, as if the architect had abandoned a triangle design midway. It was large, painted in institutional gray and a pink shade typical of high schools. Three walls were lined with cells with heavy metal doors. Two wide staircases on each side led to an internal balcony with more cells. From memory, each floor had thirty two-man cells, totaling 120 men per range. Stepping from the hallway, I was immediately struck by the number of addicts hunched over, seemingly frozen in place.

Before I could catch my breath, several face-tattooed inmates approached asking if I wanted to buy drugs. They seemed to run a complete pharmacy, offering Deuce, ice, meth, snizzlefizz, and junglerush—I invented the last two, but they did offer unfamiliar substances. I declined, and they quickly turned to a more promising customer.

The range officer emerged from his office, stepping over a frozen addict, and announced that he was new and needed a minute to organize us. I waited as the officer, increasingly flustered, assigned cells to those ahead of me, handing each a toilet paper roll and a thin mattress before sending them into the chaos. When my turn came, he said he had no more toilet paper but would find some if I waited. He gave me my cell number and hurried to his office. I followed, reminding him I needed a mattress; he replied that he had none left but would try to find one. From then on, I called him 'Officer Just-A-Minute.' I stepped over three addicts passed out on the stairs and made my way to my assigned cell.

"This isn't fucking Guantanamo!"

The cell was tiny: a bunk bed, toilet, sink, desk, and fluorescent light. Inside stood a large Native American man. If you requested the most offensive stereotype of a Native American, the result would have been him. He looked at me and said flatly, 'I am Shadow.' His unusual facial tattoos made him resemble a tribal medicine man. I replied, 'You sure are,' and hastily introduced myself, hoping he would not be offended and curse me. I took an instant liking to Shadow. He told me he was en route to a USP serving 20 years for murder.

Before I could explain that I was going to a camp for the made-up crime of lacking a license I never needed, Officer Just-A-Minute appeared in the doorway with half a foam mattress. At the end of my patience, I looked at him, at the mattress, and back, asking incredulously what I was supposed to do with it. 'It's all we have,' he replied, annoyed. 'It's half missing. How can I sleep on that? My backside and legs will be on metal!' I argued. 'Welcome to prison,' he shot back. I was thoroughly frustrated, and with Shadow—the murderous shaman—as backup, I pressed on: 'I know this is prison. I get that. But you still must provide basic necessities like bedding. This isn't Guantanamo!' I insisted. He shrugged, dropped the mat on the floor, and walked away. 'Fuck that guy,' Shadow said. I concurred.

Minutes later, Officer Just-A-Minute passed by and locked the cell door. We were secured for the night. It was the first time I had been truly locked inside a cell. I was surprised there was no central locking; the officer had to walk past all sixty cells and lock each manually. Later, another officer performed the 10:00 PM count. After the count, I climbed onto my half mattress and waited for the bright light to go off. At 11:00 PM, I asked Shadow when they usually turn off the lights. 'They don't,' he replied. I sighed, pulled the sheet—smelling faintly of motor oil and sawdust—over my head, and wept silently. Everyone had warned me about transit and Oklahoma. They had not exaggerated. I lay there, my rear on cold metal, harsh light penetrating the thin sheet, and wondered whether the year off was worth it. I regretted leaving Morgantown and longed to call my wife, Lauren.

The account of the transit will continue in Part 2. Thank you for reading.

This article was contributed by Keonne Rodriguez. The views expressed are his alone and do not necessarily represent BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.