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Published Saturday, January 03, 2009 in Local

'Legend' in prison security retires

By Brenda Pedraza-Vidamour

The Newnan Times-Herald

Sam T. King Jr. has a key to the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, once considered one of the nation's most dangerous prisons because of the number of "killings" and violent incidents inside its walls.

The plug to the key was removed for security reasons, and no one understands more about security than King, a Newnan resident who retired Saturday from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The senior lieutenant's stack of education and training certifications in self-defense, weapons and other security-related expertise is as thick as a book. He's a certified firearms instructor. His three adult sons, who accompanied him to a recent retirement dinner, learned from their father's colleagues that their father is often referred to as a "legend" in the federal bureau of prisons.

Mark King, a 21-year-old finance manager at Georgia State University, said when people in law enforcement learn his father is Sam T. King Jr., they say, "Oh, your dad is baaad."

"I learned he was like a legend in the prison system. He didn't play," Mark King added.

Mark and his brothers, Sam and Jason, learned their dad was all about business at work but left it behind when he got home and coached them through their academics and various sporting events. Prominently displayed in the Kings' family room are multiple bookcases packed with trophies and other honors attesting to the young men's accomplishments in football, baseball, basketball and wrestling.

A big Newnan High School football fan, when King learned one of his retirement parties was scheduled during the Newnan vs. Camden County playoff game at Newnan's Drake Stadium, King postponed his appearance until the game was over.

About 800 staff members had planned to surprise King with the party. It was planned under the guise that King would address some teens at a local boy's club's function. When the speaking engagement coincided with the playoff, King called to cancel.

"They had to come clean," King recalled, and his wife, Gloria, had to tell him that his staff had been planning the party for some time. They had hired a limousine, reserved the space and went through a lot of expense.

"I found out how much money and time they put into it," so he relented, but only after letting the limo wait outside in his driveway until the game ended. King was watching it on his widescreen TV.

"I just didn't know that I was loved as much as I was. It's been a surprise for so long," he said.

Chose family over bureau

King, who began his law enforcement career 30 years ago, returned to Atlanta in 1991 where his career began. Warden Loren Grayer of the Atlanta penitentiary noted at another one of King's retirement dinners that King was back in Atlanta because he "chose family over the bureau."

King, who was being groomed for higher ranking positions within the bureau, asked for a transfer back to Atlanta to be closer to family with failing health.

"He took a demotion to come back here," said Gloria King.

King had risen through the ranks while serving in penitentiaries in Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan and Arizona. He started as a correctional officer in Atlanta. By Phoenix, he was leading one of the bureau's special operations response teams (SORT). SORT units are groups of elite officers who are specially trained to respond to prison emergencies such as prison riots.

King's unit in Phoenix was called on to respond to the Atlanta prison riots of 1987 when Cuban detainees from the Mariel Boatlift seized control of the Atlanta penitentiary for 11 days. More than 100 hostages were involved. King said the Atlanta facility was scheduled for closing in 1980 because of its notorious past, until it was needed to house the Cuban refugees -- many of whom were exiles from Cuban prisons and mental health facilities.

He returned to Atlanta as a senior lieutenant.

Along with the key, King received numerous accolades -- including an acknowledgment from President Bush -- and plaques during a Dec. 30 retirement party at the penitentiary's staff training building. Many of the thousands of correctional officers and staff he trained, supervised and led in his 30 years of service with the bureau of prisons attended. Some flew in from around the country.

He was joined at the party by his wife and their three sons. Gloria King, who works at the Department of Family and Children Services, said she was surprised to hear the warden note that he had even trained under her husband 28 years ago.

The 56-year-old Philadelphia native had left behind a career in hospital administration to enter law enforcement. King, who received a bachelor's degree in human resources from Johnson C Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., explained his choices were to either continue his career in hospital management or pursue an Atlanta lead he got at a job fair.

Desensitized to violence

King said he considered several career options during his youth, including his father's line of work as a steel mill worker in Philadelphia. His mother was a nurse. He received offers for an apprenticeship and worked in shipyards during the summers, but it was his exposure to the South that convinced him he wanted a different environment than the urban neighborhood he knew all his life in Philly. "I lived in the 'hood," he said about his childhood neighborhood of row houses and yards with no grass.

He fondly remembered visits to his grandparents' home in south Georgia, where life seemed freer and less stressful.

"When I came to the South. I was able to see how other people lived ... and I said, 'I'd like to have some of this one day,'" he said.

King explained he had long grown desensitized to seeing violence up close in his Philadelphia neighborhood. His first day on the job in the Atlanta prison didn't even faze him because of the violence he had witnessed first-hand while growing up.

"I had a killing the first day I walked in there. This was before the Cubans came. It didn't bother me," he said. "At 8 years old, I saw a man get his head shot off."

King said he felt he was divinely blessed that this early exposure to violence led him on an opposite path.

"By being exposed to it early, it didn't make me want to do it," he said.

He added that early exposure to school sports also saved him.

Because of that continued influence, King said he looks forward in his retirement to staying involved in youth sports as a volunteer long after his youngest finishes his football games at Auburn University. Jason, 20, is majoring in criminal justice. The oldest, Sam T. King III, 25, graduated with a marketing degree from Georgia Southern.

The sons said their father was fair in his discipline, noting they didn't get into much trouble because their parents were constantly there to give them the guidance, attention and the support they needed.

King said he also tries to offer that guidance to other youngsters in their west Coweta neighborhood.

"I try and talk to some of these kids and try to mentor them to try and keep them from going in there where I worked," he said.