{"id":49,"date":"2021-10-07T18:24:57","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T23:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/?p=49"},"modified":"2021-10-07T18:24:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T23:24:57","slug":"former-correctional-officer-now-professor-at-morningside-university-was-pen-pals-with-unabomber-ted-kaczynski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/2021\/10\/07\/former-correctional-officer-now-professor-at-morningside-university-was-pen-pals-with-unabomber-ted-kaczynski\/","title":{"rendered":"Former correctional officer, now professor at Morningside University was pen pals with unabomber, Ted Kaczynski."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Prior to becoming a correctional officer, John Gonsler was a police officer. The politics of the job drove him away from the profession. A friend of Gonsler’s dad worked with a corrupt. The sheriff framed his friend’s dad, and was caught and not <\/em>fired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That sheriff is dirtier than a pig’s dick”, said Gonsler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his police officer days, he worked as a correctional officer for six months. He worked in a medium to maximum security prison surrounded by criminals outnumbering him 160 to one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only the protection of pepper spray, handcuffs, and a radar walkie, Gonsler’s job sounds terrifying. He is in charge of 160 prisoners with three things to protect himself. Speaking of terrifying, he saw a prison mate bench 405 pounds multiple times. A prisoner once put 3 dead birds in the hot pot (pot of water to make tea). Later on, Gonsler investigated and found the prisoner had a suitcase full of dead birds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, a prisoner was asking strange questions that did not make sense, and Gonsler found drugs in his suitcase. The prisoner threatened Gonsler, but a gang of prisoners did not like that. The gang beat the prisoner up violently; his face was messed up. That’s when Gonsler realized the correctional officers do not rule the prison, the prison gangs do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within these six months, Gonsler reached out to unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski sent bombs through the mail and killed 3 people and injured dozens of others. Kaczynski received Gonsler’s letter and wrote back to him. He was the only serial killer out of 25 to write back to Gonsler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you want to be pen pals with a prisoner, you have to find an in,” said Gonsler. “Find out whatever topics interest them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonsler and Kaczynski were pen pals for awhile, and it ended badly. One wrong question and Kaczynski had enough. Gonsler was put on a federal security list for seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I ended up pissing off the unabomber, and he told his, shall we call them groupies,” said Gonsler. “I received some hateful letters.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, Gonsler juggled the idea of being a professor. He taught at Flindt Community College. Gonsler earned his masters from Indiana where he also taught. Morningside stood out to him with its up and coming Criminal Justice curriculum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His colorful personality, dozens of tattoos, ability to hold a room, and experience with people makes him a different professor. A professor that many students enjoy learning from. This is only his third semester teaching at Morningside University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I want to expose my students to the good and bad of all these positions, so they know what path to take.” said Gonsler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a police officer and correctional officer is thrilling and an important responsibility. That being said, Gonsler finds himself responsible for the education of his students. Being a professor is just as thrilling to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I really like teaching the Criminal Justice Intro class,” said Gonsler. “Having that tangible experience of a student saying “I enjoyed your class” is special.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to becoming a correctional officer, John Gonsler was a police officer. The politics of the job drove him away from the profession. A friend of Gonsler’s dad worked with a corrupt. The sheriff framed his friend’s dad, and was caught and not fired. “That sheriff is dirtier than a pig’s dick”, said Gonsler. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thespier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}