WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:14.759
Calaruga Shark Media.
2
00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:18.679
I've been in a lot of places where people don't
3
00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:22.120
want to be county lock up in Baton Rouge that
4
00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:26.879
smelled like desperation, and Pine saw that federal facility up
5
00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:29.640
in Beaumont where the guards were meaner than the inmates
6
00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:33.600
and twice as stupid. Even did sometime in a parish
7
00:00:33.679 --> 00:00:36.280
jail where the cockroaches paid rent and the rats had
8
00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:40.359
voting rights. But I ain't never seen nothing quite like
9
00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:45.280
this place. They call Alligator Alcatraz course that ain't its
10
00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:51.600
real name. Real names something bureaucratic and forgettable. Dade call
11
00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:56.920
your Intensive Detention and Processing Facility or some such nonsense
12
00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:58.960
that sounds like it was named by a committee of
13
00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.320
lawyers who never seen the business end of a pair
14
00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:05.719
of handcuffs. But when you got gators swimming in the moat,
15
00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:09.120
they didn't mean to dig in water moccasins using the
16
00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:13.680
guard towers for sunbathing. Well, some names just stick, like
17
00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:17.760
Spanish moss on a cypress tree. The thing about this
18
00:01:17.879 --> 00:01:20.680
place is it was built by folks who never been
19
00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:25.200
anywhere more rural than a country club golf course. They
20
00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:27.239
figured they'd stick us out here in the middle of
21
00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:31.519
nowhere with some prehistoric reptiles for company, and that'd be
22
00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:35.760
the end of it. Problem solved, as they say in Washington.
23
00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:39.519
What they didn't figure on was that some of us
24
00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:44.239
been living with gaiters our whole lives. Hell. My granddaddy
25
00:01:44.359 --> 00:01:47.040
used to wrestle them for tourist money down in Huma,
26
00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:50.480
back when a dollar meant something and a man's word
27
00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:54.359
was worth more than a politician's promise. These boys from
28
00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:57.239
up north, they think an alligator is like a guard
29
00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:01.439
dog with bigger teeth in a worse attitude. Shows you
30
00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:05.799
how much they know about anything that matters. See, they
31
00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:08.840
got this idea that if you make a place miserable enough,
32
00:02:09.199 --> 00:02:13.400
uncomfortable enough, dangerous enough, folks will do anything to stay
33
00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.719
away from it. And maybe that works with some people.
34
00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:20.960
But what they don't understand is that some of us
35
00:02:21.039 --> 00:02:25.360
been miserable and uncomfortable our whole lives, and we learned
36
00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:28.599
something they never did, how to make the best of
37
00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:34.439
a bad situation. That's where this story really starts, not
38
00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.400
with the politicians making speeches or the bureaucrats cutting ribbons,
39
00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:46.120
but with a man named Thomas Esperanza, Tommy we called him.
40
00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:48.199
And if you think that name's too convenient for the
41
00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:52.960
story I'm telling. Well, sometimes life has a sense of
42
00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:59.680
humor darker than a Louisiana by you at midnight. This
43
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:14.919
is episode one, Welcome to Paradise, July fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
44
00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:19.479
That's the day they opened this place for business, though
45
00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:22.639
business might be too generous a word for what they
46
00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:25.879
were trying to do. I was in the first batch
47
00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:29.759
of what they called residence, though I ain't never lived
48
00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.159
anywhere where residents had to ask permission to use the
49
00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:36.520
bathroom and got their mail read by strangers. Picture this
50
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:41.000
a convoy of buses rolling through the Everglades at dawn,
51
00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:44.759
air conditioning, struggling against the Florida heat like a one
52
00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:49.199
legged cat in a sandbox. We're all pressed against the windows,
53
00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:53.439
trying to figure out where exactly they're taking us, when
54
00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:58.879
suddenly the road just ends, turns into a dirt track
55
00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:02.639
that winds through saw grass and cypress trees, passed warning
56
00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:05.840
signs about alligators that somebody clearly put up in a hurry,
57
00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:10.360
And then you see it rising out of the swamp
58
00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:14.159
like some fever dream of efficiency. This collection of prefab
59
00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:18.040
buildings and chain link fence guard towers that looked like
60
00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:20.959
they were assembled by people who'd never seen a guard
61
00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.920
tower except in movies, and enough razor wire to gift
62
00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.519
wrap the state capitol. But the thing that really caught
63
00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:32.920
your attention wasn't the buildings or the fences. It was
64
00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:38.319
the water. See, when they built this place, they figured
65
00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:41.759
swamp land was just like any other land, except wetter.
66
00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:46.319
So they brought in these drainage contractors from up north
67
00:04:46.439 --> 00:04:48.680
who looked at the Everglades like it was a big
68
00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:53.160
bathtub that just needed the plug pulled. What they created
69
00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:58.000
instead was something like Venice, if Venice was designed by
70
00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:01.279
people who flunked geography and had never seen water that
71
00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:05.160
didn't come out of a faucet. These drainage ditches they
72
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:08.920
dug turned into canals, and the canals filled up with
73
00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:12.560
every creature that had ever called the Everglades home. I'm
74
00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:17.600
talking alligators, snakes, turtles, birds, fish, and things I ain't
75
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.879
got names for. The first bus driver took one look
76
00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:24.040
at this setup and said, y'all sure this is the
77
00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:28.360
right place, Like maybe there was another secret government facility
78
00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:30.600
in the middle of the swamp that was supposed to
79
00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.319
look like something other than a scout camp designed by
80
00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:43.720
people who'd never been camping. Now, while we're sitting on
81
00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:46.399
these buses trying to figure out if this is real
82
00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:50.480
life or some kind of elaborate practical joke. In the
83
00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:55.839
administrative building, and I use that term loosely, since it
84
00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:58.920
looked like a double wide trailer with delusions of grandeur.
85
00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:04.000
Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third was having what you might
86
00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:10.680
call a moment of realization. Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third. That's
87
00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:13.519
three generations of men who never worked a day in
88
00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:16.920
their lives, never got their hands dirty except maybe in
89
00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:20.079
a garden party, and somehow got put in charge of
90
00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:25.600
other people's lives. Daddy Fitzpatrick was a judge. Grand Daddy
91
00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:29.879
Fitzpatrick was a senator, and Little Buckley got this job
92
00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:33.959
the way most political appointees get their jobs, by knowing
93
00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.839
the right people and writing the right checks. He was
94
00:06:37.879 --> 00:06:41.399
standing in his office, which had the best air conditioning
95
00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:45.519
in the facility, naturally, looking out his window at the
96
00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:50.079
circus unfolding in his front yard, and what he saw
97
00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:55.040
was not the smooth, military style operation he'd been promised
98
00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:59.199
by the contractors and consultants who'd built this place. What
99
00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:03.360
he saw was chaos with a government contract. Three guard
100
00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:06.439
boats were stuck in the mud because nobody thought to
101
00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:11.680
check how deep these drainage canals actually were. A maintenance
102
00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:14.560
crew was trying to figure out why the electronic gate
103
00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:18.879
system kept opening and closing by itself. Turns out a
104
00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:22.279
family of raccoons had made a nest in the control box,
105
00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:25.240
and in the middle of what was supposed to be
106
00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:29.519
the secure parking area, an eight foot alligator was sunbathing
107
00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:31.720
on the hood of a patrol car like he owned
108
00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:35.560
the place, which, when you think about it, he probably did.
109
00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:39.600
But Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third didn't get where he was
110
00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:43.680
by admitting mistakes or acknowledging reality when it interfered with
111
00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:47.319
his plans. He got where he was by having conference
112
00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:52.279
calls with important people and using words like operational parameters
113
00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:57.040
and facility optimization. So when his phone rang and some
114
00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:01.279
deputy assistant under secretary from Washington wanted to as status report,
115
00:08:02.399 --> 00:08:06.240
Buckley straightened his tie, looked out at the disaster unfolding
116
00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:09.439
in front of him, and said, in his most confident voice,
117
00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:16.600
everything is proceeding according to plan. We're implementing dynamic security
118
00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:22.279
protocols and adaptive management strategies, which is political speak for
119
00:08:23.079 --> 00:08:25.720
I have no idea what's happening, but I'm going to
120
00:08:25.720 --> 00:08:41.720
act like I meant for it to happen this way. Meanwhile,
121
00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:45.159
down in the buses, we're getting our first look at
122
00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:48.519
the man who is going to change everything, though none
123
00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:52.559
of us knew it at the time. Tommy Esperanza was
124
00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.559
sitting about three rows back in the second bus, looking
125
00:08:56.600 --> 00:08:58.960
out the window at this whole mess, with the kind
126
00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:02.399
of expression you see on a mechanic's face when someone
127
00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:05.399
brings him a car that's been fixed by their brother
128
00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:12.279
in law. Not angry, not surprised, just calculating, like he
129
00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:14.919
was already figuring out how to make things work better.
130
00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:19.799
Tommy was what they call a maintenance worker, though that
131
00:09:19.879 --> 00:09:24.360
title don't really capture what he could do. See, Tommy
132
00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:27.200
had one of those minds that understood how things were
133
00:09:27.240 --> 00:09:30.840
supposed to fit together. Give him a broken engine and
134
00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.440
he'd have it purring. Show him a leaky roof and
135
00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:36.879
he'd find a way to fix it with whatever was
136
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:43.399
lying around hand. Him a mess of bureaucratic incompetence, and well,
137
00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:45.879
we were about to find out what he could do
138
00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:49.200
with that he'd been picked up in one of those
139
00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:53.200
immigration sweeps they were doing working at a hotel in Miami,
140
00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:56.399
where he kept the air conditioning running, the elevators working,
141
00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:01.039
and the guests happy. Been there fifteen years, had a
142
00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:06.399
work permit, paid his taxes, minded his own business. But
143
00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:09.960
when they need bodies for their new detention center and
144
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:15.360
the headlines are screaming about border security, well, paperwork has
145
00:10:15.399 --> 00:10:19.159
a way of getting overlooked. Tommy didn't say much on
146
00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:24.279
that bus ride. Hell, Tommy didn't say much period, but
147
00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:27.919
he was watching everything, watching how the guards moved, how
148
00:10:27.919 --> 00:10:32.200
the facility was laid out, where the problems were, and brother,
149
00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:37.080
there were problems. The first sign things weren't going to
150
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:41.159
go smooth was when they tried to unload us. See,
151
00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:45.759
they had this elaborate receiving process all planned out. We
152
00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:48.200
were supposed to get off the buses in orderly, groups
153
00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.759
go through processing stations, get assigned to housing units, the
154
00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:58.720
whole nine yards. Very professional, very efficient, except they hadn't
155
00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.720
counted on the fact that their main processing building was
156
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:06.639
currently under water. Turns out, when you dig drainage ditches
157
00:11:06.679 --> 00:11:11.480
without understanding how water actually works, sometimes the water decides
158
00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:15.320
to go places you didn't invite it. In this case,
159
00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:18.840
it decided to take a tour of the administrative complex,
160
00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:22.320
starting with the basement where they'd installed all their fancy
161
00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:26.159
computer equipment, and ending up in the main hallway where
162
00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:30.519
it was having a real good time splashing around. So
163
00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:34.720
here we are thirty seven confused prisoners on three buses,
164
00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:38.679
watching guards and knee high boots, waiting around what was
165
00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.559
supposed to be the most secure and efficient detention facility
166
00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:51.240
in the southeastern United States. And in the distance, that
167
00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:54.360
eight foot alligator is still sunbathing on the patrol car,
168
00:11:55.720 --> 00:11:58.360
occasionally opening one eye to see what all the fuss
169
00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:02.799
is about. The bus driver, a local boy who knew
170
00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:06.559
the Everglades like most people know their own backyard, was
171
00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:11.480
trying not to laugh. Y'all want me to wait, he
172
00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:14.519
asked the garden charge, because I got a feeling this
173
00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:19.399
might take a while. That's when Deputy Warden chet mackenzie
174
00:12:19.480 --> 00:12:23.679
made his entrance. Now, chet mackenzie was one of those
175
00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:26.600
men who read a lot of books about leadership and strategy,
176
00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:30.039
but never quite figured out the difference between reading about
177
00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:33.440
something and actually doing it. He had a degree in
178
00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:36.360
criminal justice from some college you never heard of, and
179
00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:39.200
a head full of theories about how prisons should be run.
180
00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.080
He also had a habit of quoting Soon Sue at
181
00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:47.279
inappropriate moments, which should have been the first warning sign
182
00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:52.159
that he didn't quite understand his situation. Check came splashing
183
00:12:52.159 --> 00:12:55.000
through the flooded hallway, wearing rubber boots that came up
184
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:58.120
to his knees and carrying a clipboard in a plastic
185
00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:03.000
bag like he was conducting some kind of amphibious military operation.
186
00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:08.039
He'd been put in charge of intake procedures, and he
187
00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:12.720
was determined to follow protocol, even if protocol hadn't been
188
00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:19.240
designed with aquatic conditions in mind. Gentlemen, he announced to nobody,
189
00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:22.559
in particular, because the guards were all busy trying to
190
00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:26.159
figure out how to process prisoners in ankle deep water.
191
00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:32.399
We are implementing adaptive intake protocols. This is exactly the
192
00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:38.480
kind of dynamic environment that tests our operational flexibility, which
193
00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.080
was Chet's way of saying he had no idea what
194
00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:47.799
to do, but wasn't going to admit it. But here's
195
00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:50.720
where Tommy showed the first sign of what he was
196
00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:54.240
really made of. While the rest of us were sitting
197
00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:58.919
on those buses watching this comedy unfold. Tommy was looking
198
00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:03.759
at the problem different. He wasn't seeing chaos. He was
199
00:14:03.759 --> 00:14:09.399
seeing a puzzle that needed solving. He raised his hand, polite, patient,
200
00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:12.159
like he was in school, And when one of the
201
00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:16.440
guards noticed, Tommy said in English, so clear and unaccented.
202
00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:22.480
It surprised everybody. Excuse me, sir, but I think I
203
00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:26.919
see what's happening with your water problem. Now. Most of
204
00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.080
the guards figured we were all supposed to be non
205
00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:32.639
English speakers, or at least not smart enough to understand
206
00:14:32.639 --> 00:14:37.759
what was happening, and Tommy, being Tommy, had let them
207
00:14:37.799 --> 00:14:43.120
think that sometimes being underestimated is the best advantage you
208
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:46.919
can have. The guard looked at him like a dog
209
00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:53.480
that had suddenly started reciting poetry. You speak English, yes, sir,
210
00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:58.399
Tommy said, And I think your drainage system is backing
211
00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:00.679
up because you got a blockage in the main culvert.
212
00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:04.879
See that water over there, how it's flowing the wrong direction.
213
00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:11.679
That means something stopped up downstream. Chet mackenzie came splashing over,
214
00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:16.399
still clutching his clipboard in its plastic bag. Are you
215
00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.519
some kind of engineer, he asked, Like the idea that
216
00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:26.600
a maintenance worker might understand waterflow was impossible to comprehend. No, sir,
217
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:30.919
Tommy said, just worked with plumbing most of my life,
218
00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:36.360
and I seen this kind of backup before, which was
219
00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:41.679
Tommy being modest. What he'd actually seen was incompetent people
220
00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:44.440
trying to engineer their way out of problems they'd created
221
00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:49.320
by not understanding the basics of how water works. But
222
00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:54.039
Tommy was smart enough not to say that part out loud, Well,
223
00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:57.440
said Chet, trying to sound like he was still in charge.
224
00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:03.320
If you have suggestions for optimizing our drainage efficiency, I
225
00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:05.919
suppose we could consider them as part of our adaptive
226
00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:13.840
problem solving protocol. Tommy nodded politely. I'd need to take
227
00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:16.440
a look at where your outflow connects to the main canal.
228
00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:22.080
Probably just need to clear whatever's blocking it. And that's
229
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:25.919
how Tommy Esperanza became the first prisoner in the history
230
00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:29.960
of Alligator Alcatraz to be let off the bus before processing,
231
00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:33.240
given a pair of waiters, and asked to fix the
232
00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:45.639
facility before he was officially admitted to it. Now, while
233
00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.600
Tommy was out there figuring out why half the detention
234
00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:52.320
center was underwater, the rest of us got to witness
235
00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:58.759
what happens when bureaucratic confidence meets swamp reality. Warden Fitzpatrick
236
00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:01.639
had decided that the best way to handle this situation
237
00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:06.799
was to proceed as if everything was normal. In his mind,
238
00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:11.680
the flooding was just a minor technical difficulty, the kind
239
00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.400
of thing that happens during the startup phase of any