I’ll never forget the sound that the steel doors made as they slammed shut behind me.

Or what happened next.

Before I get to that, in 2003 Bulletin Editor Dennis Wyatt sent me out to Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy to do a story on the prison’s 50-year anniversary. One of his neighbors was a lieutenant at the facility, and he had agreed to take a wet-behind-the-ears reporter behind the gates for a week to write a series of stories about the prison and its five decades of providing employment for people of the South County and beyond.

I wasn’t even 21-years-old at the time that I agreed to go out there. And of course I knew everything that there was to know about the world at that age – from how to comport myself around hardened criminals to what questions to ask somebody who had spent decades at a facility that just happened to be the birthplace of the long-running prison feud between Nuestra Familia, or the “Northerners,” and La Eme – more famously known as The Mexican Mafia.

I had driven past that drab looking building on my way to Tracy my entire life and had no idea that it was a processing facility for virtually all Northern California prison bound inmates.

Folsom. Corcoran. San Quentin. They all start in Tracy at DVI where they were evaluated based on their charges as their risk as inmates before they’re shipped off to a more permanent home – helping to give the prison the nickname “Gladiator School” for the fights that used to occur inside of the walls.

When John Alves started showing me videos of fights on “the yard” that had taken place over the years – obviously delighting in showing this sheltered kid what the real world can be like – you could see the color draining out of my face.

“We’re going – out there?” I asked, suddenly unsure about why I had agreed to come out and do this.

Oh, you silly young man – just wait. Just wait.

This was before the United States Supreme Court had ruled that California’s prisons were overcrowded to the point of creating conditions that were considered “cruel and inhumane” so to say that the prison was “full” would be an understatement.

And in order to fit that many people into the building, they had to utilize an old 1950s-era arena that had previously been used for boxing – with stands around it – to house inmates in triple bunks.

Across the top of this arena was a “gun line” where guards in that familiar shade of green paced back and forth and watched the hundreds of inmates walking between the towering bunks.

Down the middle of this arena was a fence that extended all the way up – I think to the roof – to separate the room into two halves.

As if it wasn’t claustrophobic enough already.

On one side of the fence were the Northern California Hispanic gang members, and on the other, their rivals – the Southern California Hispanic gang members. These inmates had a blood oath to kill one another if possible, and Alves told that even the chain link fence separating them didn’t stop them from trying.

I felt uncomfortable from the moment that the gate slammed shut behind me, and while I didn’t ask to leave early – I had to save face, ya know? – I believe the word “yes” came out of my mouth before he even done asking the question.

“Are you ready to head ba…”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Now to leave this room you had to walk through a sally port – one door had to open and close completely before the next door could open to let out of the confined space.

And just as the door closed behind us, and I waited with anticipation for the door in front of me to open, a deep, booming voice echoed through the enclosure.

“Hey white boy!”

I turned to look – unsure of whether I was going to witness somebody calling somebody out, or if it was meant for me.

“If you weren’t with that Lieutenant I would…”

What was uttered is not fit for a family newspaper, but let’s just say that the lack of color in my face was nothing compared to the ghost-white appearance after that man uttered the words that he did before we briskly walked out of that enclosure and into the hallway.

I’ll never forget those words, or the wry smile on Alves’ face as he saw my reaction.

“He’s just trying to get to you,” I remember him saying. “Imagine having nothing better to do all day long.”

We made it 20-yards or so out of that enclosure when a fight broke out in the room that we were just in – forcing these steel doors to close down the hallway to cut off anybody currently in transit in the facility. The two inmates working as porters walked up to the wall and faced it, and we stood there – my knees still trembling from what I had experienced.

I drove away that day realizing that there is a completely different world out there than what I was used to. My naiveite was lessened somewhat, and I began to have a newfound respect for the men and women that have to walk that line every day so that the rest of California can sleep easy in their beds.

When I read last week that Governor Gavin Newsom was going to shutter DVI as a cost-saving measure, all of those memories came back to me – along with new ones of friends that have gone into corrections that work in the facility, and others that I have met that spend their days out on Kasson Road.

Even Chris Teicheira works out there – sneaking phone calls when he’s not supposed to from the comfort of his tractor on the dairy that provides milk to most of the incarcerated in Northern California.

It’s an old prison, and from the reports I read it would cost too much make it modern and safe so it’s just easier to close it.

There will be a huge economic impact that will come from losing that facility, and families will be displaced as a result of this – just the first in a series to dominoes to fall as the scope of the financial impact of COVID-19 comes into focus.

Farewell, DVI.

I can’t say that I ever wanted to go back there, but that experience gave be a newfound respect for the men and women that went out there every day so that the rest of don’t have to.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.