One afternoon in May 2023, I was sorting laundry at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, a medium security prison in San Diego, when the tower officer ran an alarm test. The old alarms had just been replaced and, because of where I was standing, I caught a direct blast of the newer, louder alarm. At once, I jumped and broke into a run, searching for cover. 

A friend of mine was nearby. He burst into laughter. “You broke!” he said. 

I hadn’t even thought about what I was doing. It was an instinctive reaction. 

Prison is a traumatizing and stressful place, where alarms go off for a number of reasons: attacks on residents and staff, medical emergencies, riots and more. I’ve heard them almost daily during my 10 years inside. My early days in the system at San Quentin State Prison were the worst. There was constant violence and therefore constant alarms — about three a day for a span of four and a half months. 

Typically, they signaled something violent was happening, and that guns were coming out. The message from guards was clear: Get down or get shot.  

Many incarcerated people have pain that dwells deep within. When left unacknowledged, it can bubble right back up to the surface at the slightest trigger. Alarms can exacerbate this trauma. For me, they signal the danger and violence I experienced at high security yards throughout California.

Here’s a typical scene. If guards yell “prone out,” we are expected to lay face down with our arms forward, no matter if we are outside, inside, in the snow or next to a urinal. In my experience, this can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the level of violence. 

Being stuck in freezing temperatures was common at High Desert State Prison, a facility not far from the California-Nevada border. I’ll never forget sitting in the snow with wet pants and frozen legs. It took hours to feel warm again. 

Alarms, while intended to keep people safe, are a double-edged sword that we all get cut on. This includes guards, who are retraumatizing people and often themselves in trying to stop violence.

On higher security yards, an alarm is triggered when a fight breaks out and an emergency code is called. Often, the tower officer, known as the gunner, attempts to hit the attacker and stop the attack. But accidents happen: Bullets ricochet and bystanders and victims can sometimes be mistaken for aggressors. Because of this, you learn to assume an automatic state of defense, hitting the ground and staying there until the code is called off.

In the situations I’ve experienced, the first weapon that guards rely on is called a “block gun.” It resembles something out of “Terminator 2.” Block guns are armed with rubber bullets that are non-lethal but can break bones. The rubber bullets crack and pop as the round snaps out of the barrel and thunks into a person or a wall. If they do hit a wall, they bounce, sometimes into bystanders. 

In situations like this, prisoners tend to dive under tables to avoid being struck by ricochets.

In 2018 at High Desert prison, I was playing Dungeons & Dragons with some friends in the dayroom when a guy attacked my friend Mike, who was exercising nearby. The gunner in the tower hit the alarm and began firing at the attacker immediately. I hit the deck, taking cover under the steel table where we’d been playing our game. The angle made it difficult for the gunner to hit the attacker, who was shorter than his victim and standing in front of him. One rubber bullet hit Mike in the wrist. Later, he told us it broke several bones. 

My current facility does not have guns in the towers. But some traumas never leave us. They stay dormant, waiting for a trigger. One unexpected and invasive sound can take me right back. 

I have a friend who, like me, is serving life without the possibility of parole. In the 1980s, he was a Force Reconnaissance Marine serving in Central America. He’s been in prison almost as long as I’ve been alive, and I’m 38. Once in a while, a chopper from a nearby military base will cut through the night sky. Each time this happens, my friend freezes and gets a faraway look in his eyes, watching the chopper until it disappears into the darkness.

I wonder if 30 years from now, a younger prisoner will notice my faraway stare when an alarm rings out and wonder where I’ve been and what I’ve seen.