Jayme Biendl was a friend of mine. Not the go-out-and-have-fun-with kind of friend. Not even the tell-all-about-your-day sort of friend. She and I passed each other three or four times each week at work in the Reformatory and exchanged pleasantries (frequently about Granite Falls--our mutual home). Professionally, I was an annoyance to her, I think. I was involved with various events at the Reformatory Chapel and always felt like I was imposing on her, arranging to have big groups of inmates intrude on her territory. She was always kind, though, and worked through the stress of it all with her customary precision and thoroughness. We did our little dance last week during the MLK-day event in the Chapel. The event planners were more prepared than usual, this time, and all seemed to go well. Jayme even cracked a smile a couple of times. I missed the part where she checked-in all of the inmates (as far as I can tell, the worst part for her, as there are always a few who want in but are not on the list), but judging from her attitude, it must've been okay.
And then she was killed.
In a horrible instant on Sunday morning right after I learned of her death via Facebook, Jayme Biendl went from being the officer that I stressed out and would be seeing again on Tuesday to the officer that was murdered and would no longer be holding the list of inmates and unlocking the bathroom door.
And then the reporting and opining came and I paid attention. I read. A LOT. Hundreds of comments from anonymous posters, most expressing their grief and many offering up their version of the root problems that led to Jayme's murder. It was budget cuts. It was a poor staffing model. It was inattentive management. It was the lack of security cameras. It was callousness from Olympia. It was liberal "hug-a-thugs" and their misguided notions of reform. It was conservatives and their inability to tax themselves for the services they demand. It was Jayme's diminutive physique. It was the other CO's who didn't find Jayme until after 10pm.
But every once in awhile, someone got it right: It was Byron Scherf. Jayme was murdered by Byron Scherf. Jayme was not murdered by Eldon Vail or Christine Gregoire or Scott Frakes or Bryan Hardina or the liberals or the taxpayers of Washington state. It was Byron Scherf.
Byron Scherf is a really bad guy. That's why he's in prison and will never leave. He, alone, made the decision to take another human life. His decision wasn't influenced by DOC policy, but, instead, by opportunity. He found the opportunity to satisfy some base and unfathomable need and took advantage of it. The presence of cameras or a 6'4" guard in the chapel may not have curbed that need--we won't ever know. Guys like Scherf either believe they're going to get away with it or they don't really care about the consequences. That's why they're different from the rest of us and why every person living and working in a prison filled with this type of man is in a place of danger.
It was Byron Scherf.
The Department of Corrections is never going to be able to prevent its inmates from acting out violently. Even in maximum security facilities, inmates lash out at their custodians and, I suspect, even kill them sometimes. Much as we might like to, we can't store criminals in an underground cement box or execute all of them. The US Constitution and the laws of the land mandate a minimum level of humane treatment for all prisoners--and thank heavens for that, by the way.
There will always be vulnerabilities. Good prison management, then, does what it can to limit those vulnerabilities as much as possible, using the tools available. No amount of management, though, will ever eliminate the risk, especially when the toolbox is being so rapidly downsized. The DOC tries to plan for every circumstance--there are checklists for nearly everything--and trains its employees to respond accordingly. There was a plan for the Saturday service in the Chapel. There was a plan for the safe exit of all Watch 3 officers. There was even a plan for a surprise attack on an officer. The plans didn't work. Failure does not, though, equal incompetence.
On Saturday night Jayme Biendl was murdered by Byron Scherf. We did what we thought was best to prevent it, but we failed. I believe my coworkers at MCC and those in Tumwater have acted in good faith and in our common best interest. But, in this case, the good work of 8,000 of us wasn't good enough to save our friend and peer. I think that most of us will regret that for as long as we live.
We're going to spend a good amount of time in the next few months, I think, trying to figure out where we went wrong. I suspect we'll find a few examples, at least. But I believe that when the immediate horror has faded a little, we'll finally come back to the real answer in our search for the reason why:
It was Byron Scherf.
(Edit - After this post was linked by The Herald, someone much smarter than me pointed out that Mr. Scherf is only a suspect, at this point. In my rush to find someone/something to blame, I carelessly abandoned my belief that the accused are innocent until proven guilty. As far as I know, Mr. Scherf hasn't been formally charged with Jayme's murder. I must rely on the reader of this post to imagine the words "allegedly," "suspect," and "possibly" wherever they are appropriate. --joel)
