By Ken Jackson
Around Osceola
OSCEOLA — Osceola County Corrections Officer Reeshemah Taylor’s actions to foil a potentially-deadly escape attempt from the Osceola County Jail in 2009 has earned accolades around the state and country.
Her actions to disarm an inmate who got hold of another officer’s gun saw her travel to Texas to accept the American Correctional Association’s 2011 Medal of Valor, to Tallahassee to take the Florida Attorney General’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award, and most recently she received the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor in Washington from Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder in February.
Now there’s finally time for local government to give Taylor her due.
At Monday’s meeting of the Board of Osceola County Commissioners, the board delivered a proclamation declaring March 18, 2013 as Reeshemah Taylor Day in Osceola County.
Commissioners Brandon Arrington, John Quiñones and Chairman Frank Attkission presented her the proclamation in honor of her valor as well as a framed copy of the front page of the Feb. 23 Osceola News-Gazette that had the story of her trip to Washington.
Taylor said that the attention rattles her a bit, even going on four years after the incident.
“I’m at ease with it, but when you go through something like that, you really want to try to forget what happened,” she said Monday. “I’m appreciative of all of it though.”
On June 22, 2009, inmate Angel Santiago, a Puerto Rican gang member who already was serving consecutive life sentences and was in the Kissimmee jail pending trial on another armed robbery charge, attacked Taylor with another officer’s fully-loaded 9 millimeter handgun and held it to her head.
Using her corrections training and a little guile and backbone honed from nine years in the U.S. Army, Taylor managed to get the gun pointed away from her, kneed Santiago in the groin and put him in a headlock. Backup soon came to effectively end the escape attempt and return order to the jail.
She said the “flight or flight” instinct kicked in when it happened, helped along by a little bit of improvisation.
“More of it was my personality anyway, but the techniques I used to take him down was corrections training,” Taylor said. “I knew his background, that he was serving two life terms … and I knew that I wasn’t ready to die that day. I just did what I needed to do.”
After a video showing Taylor receiving her Medal of Valor from the vice president was shown, commissioners commended Taylor for her actions.
“We feel great pride having you in our community displaying your great heroism,” Quiñones said.
Attkisson lauded her commitment to upholding the law.
“Our job number 1 is to provide for the public safety,” he said. “I commend her and the training, expertise and leadership of our corrections department. My family is safer tonight because of that.”
In a 2011 interview, Osceola County Jail Chief Sherry Johnson said of Taylor, “If I could clone her, that would be amazing. I think it speaks volumes to her fiber.”
The incident still adds to her reputation at the jail among the inmates, she said.
“When they ask me I say, ‘That wasn’t me, that was my twin sister.’ I don’t want to talk to them about it,” Taylor said. “You don’t get personal with the inmates, but they know.”
Taylor, 40, who is coming up her 10-year anniversary at the jail, said that it’s events and honors like Monday’s proclamation keep the incident fresh in her memory, and sometimes that’s not a great thing.
“It comes up sometimes, but not as much as before. I used to think about it all the time. You never know when something like that is going to come up again, so it’s in the back of my mind as something to watch out for.”
Reprinted with the permission of Around Osceola