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WILKES-BARRE — Three women came out to pay their respects Friday night to an inmate who died in an incident Monday at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.
Self-described “cousins” of Timothy “Ali” Gilliam Jr., 27, who died after falling down an elevator shaft following a scuffle with correctional officer Kristopher Moules, 25, who also died in the fall, stood yards away from the Water Street prison as they paid their respects for their friend.
Wilkes-Barre residents Nakiyah Brown, Tamika McCormick and NeeNee McCormick stood watch by their car with candles in their hands as the sun went down over the Wyoming Valley. The three ladies heard about a vigil for Gilliam Jr. on Facebook and came out because they can’t attend the funeral for Gilliam on Saturday in the Newark, New Jersey, area.
Tamika McCormick said she was “shocked” when she first heard the news that her friend was the one who was dead.
The ladies knew Gilliam as an “intelligent, loving” man who was “trying to get back on his feet.”
Brown knew Gilliam since she was 16; she is 23 now.
Several correctional officers and Wilkes-Barre police officers stood watch outside of the prison as they heard a rumor about the vigil.
“They don’t scare me,” Brown said, questioning why the prison would have so many on guard even for rumors of a peaceful vigil.
“We’re not starting a riot,” Tamika McCormick said.
The trio came out at about 8 p.m. and were only going to stay until their candles went out. About halfway through, they noticed the prisoners flick lights on and off as well as bang on their windows.
“This is beautiful,” Tamika McCormick noted as they waved back.
“Share the love,” NeeNee McCormick added.
The women wanted people to know that Gilliam was a person, too, and that “he’s not a monster.”
In the end, their message was that they didn’t want what happened to their friend to happen to someone else — corrections officer or inmate. In Monday’s incident, inmates, including Gilliam, had just finished eating in the common area of the fifth-floor, before a verbal exchange and physical encounter between the inmate and corrections officer that resulted in both men crashing through an elevator door and falling down the elevator shaft to their deaths.
“This whole situation makes no sense,” Brown said.
