Why Didn’t Eddie Leave

         The Prosecution hammered away at this question. Cowboy simply walked out, they said. Eddie could just have easily left and Tyrone would be facing murder charges for what he did to Derrick.

Consider the following:

         1. The guards were no defense. We have already seen, and Eddie already knew that they would not be there to help him. He had already been on the ground calling for help when a guard was present in the unit, and NO help arrived.

2. Eddie would have had to walk past a whole lot of cells and the 4 showers to get to the sally port. He had no idea what awaited him. He did not know if Tyrone were the only one involved in this attack or not.

3. Eddie would have had to walk past a whole lot of black inmates, the same ones who were the reason why he was unwilling to surrender his weapons until he was in the actual custody of the guards. Eddie knew that even though there were guards (11 of them) on the opposite side of the window, he was still vulnerable to attack and death by the very people who were witnessing this incident. The closed door would have allowed just enough time for his own death before the guards could get in with their “non-lethal weapons.”

4. He had no idea what was going on in the yard. He had no idea if there were others waiting for him there or not. Even while being escorted by an officer out of the unit, Eddie found it necessary to look over his left shoulder to see if someone were coming at him. Note the testimony of Lt. Craig Lee, “…we exited the unit. And inmate Branch turned over his left shoulder upon exiting the unit, and I also looked out on the compound at that time, to see if somebody wasn’t coming towards us….” Lt. Lee was no fool to prison life. He looked too. [Transcript Page 139: 16-20]

         The above points are fairly logical, reasoned explanations of why he did not walk out of the unit. But we need to ask, how logical and reasonable would you be if you had just been stabbed 6 times while you were unarmed? Further, the last you heard from your attacker was “Go get your shit,” meaning that this was only a pause – he was still going to come after you. In that same kind of confined “alternate” reality of the prison, would you have been reviewing your options or would you have done what you had to stay alive?

         We note too that Mike Henderson did not leave. He went to get his own weapon, however limited it was in the face of knives. Numerous other inmates did not leave either. You can watch the video to see just how few inmates actually left the B-2 unit. Obviously, while the prosecution sees leaving as a very reasonable, proportioned response to being attacked, it did not appear to be a viable choice to Eddie nor to very many others who were also familiar with the unknown and unexpected daily dangers of prison life.

         During the trial Mr. Cowles, the lead prosecutor, kept insisting that Eddie could have walked out. In fact, he tried to hammer this home to the jury, time and again. What Mr. Cowles lacks is the ability or willingness to feel what another feels, to imagine what it’s like to have been stabbed numerous times and still know you must fight to save your own life.