What did surprise Ellis was a photograph of an unidentified officer holding a sword that had been confiscated inside St. Clair. Ellis said he’s the officer in that picture and remembers the day vividly from 2017. He’d been by himself at the G gate for two hours when he spotted a prisoner without a shirt on headed toward the “breezeway,” where the shift offices are located. Ellis stopped the prisoner and told him he couldn’t go up there that way, and that he needed to go back to his block and get a shirt.