Gerald Lee has a bullet lodged in his rib.
It didn’t come from his youth, when he spent some time wrapped up in the drug trade that snags so many young Black men in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Instead, it came from a place where he was supposed to be safe from harm.
In November, Lee was two months into a three-month stay at Dismas House, a halfway house in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ that holds a contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons to help men transition from prison back to society. Lee, who is 32, had been in prison on drug charges. He served his time and was ready to get back in the community.
But first he had to survive Dismas House. Regular readers of my column will recall that the oldest halfway house in the nation is run by a nonprofit that for the past decade or so has been transferring assets from the organization to a separate nonprofit run by the members of a family who had served on the board. Those family members — primarily John Flatley and Vivienne Bess — have paid themselves millions of dollars in salary while, according to many of the people who have gone through Dismas House, not providing much in the way of services.
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The Bureau of Prisons is accepting bids for the $40 million contract that’s now held by Dismas House. Bess’ husband, Gary Bess, was on the board until Jan. 13. He’s the politically connected former parks director for the city as well as for ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. He says Dismas is seeking a renewal of the bid. A shooting at the facility on Nov. 2 has drawn protests from community groups who are hoping the contract goes to some other bidder.
Lee was the victim of that shooting. He was standing in the front-facing room on the second floor of the facility, the one with 28 bunks for the men who stay at Dismas. He and another man “had a couple of words. Before I knew it, he had a gun. I took a step back … and then I lunged and reached for the gun. He shot three times.â€
One of those bullets entered below the back of Lee’s shoulder. He was saved from serious damage because the bullet hit a rib before it could hit any organs.
“I got control of the gun and took off running,†Lee said. Lee is a big man, about 6-foot-2, and 280 pounds. He hadn’t ever been in a battle for a gun before, he says, but he’s glad he had the strength to wrestle it away from the shooter. He gave the gun to a Dismas House worker, and sat down, waiting for police to arrive. ºüÀêÊÓƵ police investigated, but nobody has been charged with a crime. Lee says he hasn’t been contacted by police since the day of the shooting.
We met at his attorney’s office. Lee is in the process of seeking compensation from Dismas House for his injuries.
“What is the one thing you expect from a halfway house?†says attorney Ryan Krupp. “That they don’t have a gun in there. That there is some safety.â€
When I first asked the executive director of Dismas House, Randy Howard, about the shooting, he brushed it off. Howard said he didn’t know how a gun got in the facility. He said the victim was “grazed.†In fact, the bullet broke a rib. Doctors decided it was safer to keep it in the rib than go through an operation to take it out, Lee says.
He was transferred to a halfway house in Farmington to finish out his time. Now he’s out, living in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. He starts a new job on Monday.
“I felt safer in the penitentiary than I did at Dismas House,†Lee tells me. “There’s no security.†He’s not the first to make such an allegation. Former Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith, who spent time there after his own conviction in a campaign finance case, wrote about it in his book, “Mr. Smith Goes to Prison.â€
“Whereas prison rules were always enforced to a tee, halfway house rule violations were often ignored,†Smith wrote.
Someday soon, the Bureau of Prisons will decide if such a record is worthy of its next contract. Meanwhile, Lee’s attorneys will be seeking compensation for the damage done to his health. The question is, do the former board members who used federal cash to pay themselves large salaries and buy an Arkansas lake house have any money left?
That will be a question for the courts.
Editor’s note: Gary Bess is no longer on the Dismas board.