The Great Escape

Author: Standing Bear

THE GREAT ESCAPE “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” “Difficulties are the things that show what men are.” And; “If the conditions don’t suit you, leave!” ~ Epictetus During the 1990’s the Georgia State Prison (GSP) in Reidsville Georgia was still under the control and guidance of the federal government. Much unlike the overcrowded living conditions and the violence of epic proportions in the many Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) prisons in existence today. In the 1990’s GSP was ran more like a federal military operation. With civilized and humane living conditions, structured in its daily operations and competently ran under federal guidelines. All contrary and in stark comparison to what the GDC prison system is like today. Back then we had regularly scheduled programs that were ran consistently and on time, to keep it’s prisoners constructively occupied. The emphasis then was on rehabilitation, not just on warehousing for profits. But, even in the most opportune conditions and settings, the innate human nature and eternal desire for feedom will ultimately hatch some pretty inventive escape plans. Like Johnny Cash said in one of his ballads “Their ain’t no good chain-gang.” In 1998 I was transfered back to the one man cells at GSP, at my request, after having experienced the living conditions of two men cells for two years at nearby Smith State Prison. I was glad to be back. Upon arrival, just like any other new arrival at any other prison, I was immediately housed in the worst building and living conditions available; G-Building. When one of my old counselor Mrs. Janet Brewton saw me in the downstairs rotunda being escorted to medical, she immediately had me moved to her assigned dorm of F-2 in F-Building. In F-2 there lived a likable young fellow from Tennessee by the name of Robert Tidwell. I was immediately assigned to the library detail by counselor Brewton, and Tidwell was assigned and worked on the prison’s maintenance detail. Tidwell had a friend named Dewey Gates who also worked on the prisons maintenance detail along with him. Together the two of them hatch out an escape plan to leave GSP together. How Iong they had been planning their escape I do not know because they said not a word to me about their plans. Just as in the Clint Eastward movie “Escape From Alcatraz” they had collected hair from one of the two prison barbershops and made paper mache heads out of toilet paper. Using Elmer’s paper glue they attached hair to their dummies. Making their beds up with extra blankets and sheets, to appear like a body was lying underneath the covers, they placed the heads on top and pulled the covers up to the chin. Turning their cell lights off and closing their cell doors, they then left out of the cell block and went to gym call. And, when the two went to gym call that evening they both had taken their laundry bags containing painted camouflaged clothing and snacks inside. Both had even glued hair onto their camo paints and shirts. They had also took with them a pair of wire cutters that they had fabricated while working at their free slave labor prison maintenance details. In 1998 at GSP we had gym call twice a day. For those required to work details during the day, an evening gym call was given from 6:00 to 8:30 pm. Giving everyone the opportunity to stay healthy and work off stress and frustrations in the gym by playing basketball, racket ball, or by lifting weights. So after the evening meal’s feeding was over with, we were allowed to go to the gym if we wanted. In order to get to the gym we had to walk right in front of the prisons chapel. It was from the chapel that the two had planned to escape. Once at the chapel they detoured to the left instead of the right to go to the gym. On the left hand side of the chapel, in the darkened shadows, was a wheel chair ramp leading to the side door to the chapel. It was common knowledge and everyone knew, that all you had to do was yank hard on the door’s handle and it would come right open. And that’s what they did, hiding out inside the chapel until the opportune time to leave. At 9:00 pm count the two officers walked by their locked cell doors, shinning their flashlights through the cell door windows, they saw the dummies and kept on walking… After that incident the GDC would change their SOP to require mandatory stand up counts, standing outside your cell doors at the required 9:00 pm counts. While waiting nervously for hours inside the chapel, one or the other got a guilty conscious, so they wrote a letter addressed to the Chaplin apologizing for having used the Lords house of worship as part of their escape plan. Leaving the missive on the Chaplin’s desk they then left out the side door around 2:00 am while the rest of the prison slept. So far, so good. Once out and behind the chapel they cut through the chain link fence. Using a two foot tall concrete wall as cover, they then crawled along the wall for a good sixty yards before cutting through another chain linked fence and into the yard behind the gym. Directly behind the gym was a guard tower that was hardly, if ever occupied. Waiting patiently there, while timing the circling perimeter guards patrol car, they carefully cut through the razor wire and the two chain linked perimeter fences. Making it to freedom on the other side, unnoticed and undetected. After that incident the state of Georgia would spent millions to have motion detector sensor wires installed into every double wired perimeter fenced prison in the state of Georgia. So sensitive and accurate are the sensors that with just one strong pull of the fence, it will bring the circling perimeter patrol car speeding around to the sensors exact location. But once outside their confinement they had no plans as to what to do next. With no one waiting to assist them, and without having made further plans, they went over to the officers housing project to try and borrow a car. With dogs barking they quickly snatched up two kids bicycles laying in a front yard, one with a child’s wagon tied to it, and started peddling away as fast as they could. “It is fatal to enter into a war without the will to win it.” ~ Douglas MacArthur. That following morning when I went to my library detail at 7:30 I also had to walk by the front of the chapel in order to get to the library. Standing out front on the chapel steps was the Chaplin himself, talking with one of the prison’s CERT officers dressed all in black. Upon finding the would be escapees letter on his desk, the Chaplin had called the prison’s Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) office. By the time I’d made it inside the library and checked in with my detail officer, I heard his radio come to life with the CERT officer hollering “lock down, lock down,” “Everyone report back to your living quarters immediately!” “Its lock down time and emergency count!” Up and until that time, no one even knew that Tidwell and Gates had even escaped. Once back I was back in the F-2 cell block one of Tidwell’s “rap partners”, Mike from Tennessee, came up to me and said “He got away David, he beat them!” At that time I had no idea who he was talking about? Until he explained to me that it was “Tidwell…” right before we had to lockdown in our cells. Their daring escape to freedom was short lived though, as they were both captured not long afterwards. By 2:00 pm the prison was let off lockdown and we were all allowed out of our cells. We already knew what time it really was, even before someone had immediately turned on the dorms TV set. And sure enough, there they were, on the Savannah news station looking dejected while handcuffed and being taken into custody. The next scene shown was that of two farmers, one black and one white reporting “Yep. We looked out across the empty corn field and saw two guys pushing bicycles, one had a wagon attached to it. We reckoned it had into be them and we called the authorities. Tidwell and Gates were taken to court and given five (5) years each for escape. To be added consecutively to their Life sentences… whatever that means. Then the prisons disciplinary committee gave them both an additional five (5) year Hi Max segregation/isolation sentence to do in the prison’s Special Management Unit (SMU). That was the last time I saw anything of Robert Tidwell and Dewey Gates. Even now, assuming they are still alive decades later, I’ve not seen hide nor hair of either one of them… Epilogue By the early 1970’s, due to mismanagement, incompetence, and just plain indifference, the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) had lost complete control of GSP. Because of the severe overcrowding, over 6,000 people, and the resulting violence; assaults, stabbings, rapes, and murders of both inmates and guards, resulting in the federal government to finally intervene and take control over the prison. In the Guthrie v. Evans lawsuit the federal government had GSP completely rebuilt, according to federal standards, and turning it’s massive open dormitories into all one man cells. Those at GSP at that time in the ’70’s with the worst criminal histories and prison disciplinary records were transfered to the federal military prison at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas until GSP had been completely rebuilt. After construction had been completed, they were then brought back once again to GSP to serve out their state sentences. Those who were returned wished they could have remained at the Hi Max federal prison in Kansas. When Georgia’s death row was moved to Jackson State Prison in 1980, the original electric chair was left behind on the 5th floor at GSP while the state had inmates to built a new chair to electrocute folks in at Jackson. The old electric chair at GSP now sits as a museum piece, along with the copper skull cap and sponge, and the open log book showing the names of over 300 executed. It’s now used for juveniles and troubled teens to visit under escort as part of their “scared straight” program. When the federal government relinquished it’s oversight in1999 and turned the operational controls of GSP back over to the state of Georgia, the living conditions at GSP would all change once again. Slowly regressing backwards once more to it’s original Draconian conditions. I was at GSP in 1999 and worked in the law library when the final consent decree in the Guthrie v. Evans lawsuit was filed, relinquishing the controls and custody of GSP back over to the state of Georgia. Having read a copy of that consent decree myself, the state stipulated in writing and agreed, that it would never double cell it’s Maximum security prison. What does the state of Georgia then do? Within just a few years, without any changes made, other than by name alone, GSP is reclassified from being a Maximum security prison to a Close security one. The state of Georgia intentionally turned GSP back into an inhumane nightmare once more by double bunking all the population cells, and having again overcrowded the prison to unsafe extremes. Fast forward a few more years until the present, and once again due to the state of Georgia’s mismanagement, incompetence, and just plain indifference to the humane rights of it’s captive chattel, GSP has once again been closed down. Conditions had once more become so bad and out of control again, due to assault, stabbings, rapes, suicides, and murders… and under threats of lawsuits by a number of civil rights organizations, the state of Georgia “voluntarily” closed GSP for good in February 2022. All that remains at GSP now are the haunted souls of spirits and ghost walking the hallways, and the electric chair on the 5th floor that executed over 300 men and women since its Draconian inception at GSP in the 1930’s. “History is, indeed, little more than the register of the ‘crimes, follies, and misfortunes’ of mankind. But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it.” ~ Georg Hegel. Just like then, the prisoners in the state of Georgia desperately need the federal government to take over the current dysfunctional system of today. But not just with one prison, the federal government needs to revamp the entire GDC, to include the states dysfunctional Board of Pardons and Paroles as well. The whole system that is currently in place is a systematic failure that desperately needs restructuring and guidance. God willing, the state of Georgia will step up to the challenges, not only resulting in more humane living conditions for it’s 52,000+ prisoners, but also setting a standard like a beacon on a hill. Becoming a shining star example for what human rights, prison reform, and rehabilitation should be in the Georgia Department of Corrections prisons. Not the slaughterhouses they are at the present… “Educate the children and it won’t become necessary to punish the men.”~ Pythagoras