Raev.net

So, the last rant was everything you can find in the news about my arrest. I’d like to talk about what you don’t know. The effects.

Prior to this mess, I could look at an arrest report in the paper and think “Well, if he’s innocent, he’ll… probably be alright.” Or maybe, “I hope that scumbag gets what’s coming to him.” Always language that shows my lack of real faith in the judicial system, now that I think about it.

Now, I know something about the process. A lot of the time, the police are guessing. They want a confession. I knew intellectually that I didn’t have to talk to them. But I knew I was with my grandmother when one of these bank robberies occurred, and I figured they would just check my alibi and we’d be done.

My first clue that this was naive was when they didn’t want to check. “This is you, Daniel, in the tapes. Do you really want us to bother your grandmother to make her provide you an alibi?” Saves them a lot of work if I’d confess. Doesn’t matter if I’m guilty or not, if I confess. Or if I give them the wrong date. I couldn’t remember which day I’d gone to visit gran. My uncle’d pointed it out. The lady cop was saying “Well, if you’re so sure of the date, Daniel, just tell me the date!” because odds are in her favor that I’ll mess up, and they can use that in court to suggest I didn’t have an alibi. Whole thing was recorded. I got to see the footage and re-live the experience.

So you learn that the police don’t want truth, justice, or the American way. They want just enough dirt to get a conviction. You also learn just how far down the rabbit hole they go with this.

See, I got visited by the detectives around 2 in the afternoon, Friday. I figure it’s only going to take an hour or two to clear me, so I ride down to the station with them. After taking my shoes, (they thought they might match a print to another robbery) getting my roommate to show them enough of the closet I keep coats in to get a search warrant, and finding out grandma’s senior living place doesn’t keep security footage more than a week… they decide they have enough to arrest me. But they keep me at the station until 9 pm. I’m starved by now. The prison has to make a special effort to give me a lousy leftover bag lunch.

The prison guards were quite pleasant and respectable, to my surprise. But then, they didn’t have to do anything to make the place miserable. There’s a lot of institutionalized horror. You are isolated. Your phone privileges are random. And after that first frantic bout of calls, you’re on the prison collect call system. Cell phones cannot accept them by default. So if your family hasn’t set up for it, and doesn’t have a house phone, you are screwed, and they’re following the letter of the law.

I was thrown into “suicide watch”. You do not actually find anyone in there who is suicidal. You find people who threatened a cop during their arrest. The worst I called anyone was a bastard, specifically over keeping my shoes. This wasn’t why I was in there. I have a large family. Some of my family are cops. One ran the local prison system for a decade. Nobody wanted me to end up in general population where I’d be at risk. So I got the suite outside the security room, with a little window in.

Of course, I was actually kind of happy to get thrown in there. I’d initially been given a solo cell. And no mattress. I’d be issued one after seeing a judge remotely the next morning. A Saturday. I had concrete and a thin blanket to lay upon. And I could hear people who wouldn’t shut up… and they were keeping a retarded man awake down the hall. So when I got moved, I got the camping mattress at last.

I got to meet my cellmates. One was a young guy who’d gone in for a mutual crowbar fight with someone mouthing off on facebook. He’s 18, just become a father, and he’s actually got to try and sort his shit out if he’s going to be there for the little one. He’d never heard of temp agencies, or the other dozen ways to look for work online. With luck, he’ll get into a work-release program and be able to rejoin his family in a couple years.

The other guy was an old pro. He was in for Jerry Springer BS with his family. His parents were trying to keep him away from his kids. And understandably, he’s a heroin addict who steals for a living. High-end shoplifting, abuse of exchanges for store credit, selling gift cards for half value at a pawn shop… his big score was robbing a drug dealer. The kind of score where a guy like him can, with a little smokescreen and paperwork, buy a house.

He had lived in the same apartment complex that I did, when I’d moved in. We both remembered the idiots in a nearby building that had been caught building a meth lab. I’d heard a few things he hadn’t. Like the initial tip-off was when they buried paraphernalia in the yard. We have dumpsters. Extremely anonymous dumpsters. The cops had gotten a warrant, got in, saw the setup… and left it that way for a week. Nobody was home. So they had a patrol car parked out front. A marked patrol car. And these chuckleheads came back from wherever, came home, turned on the lights and got arrested.

I also bonded a bit with the guy over a prior assault matter. He’d had to defend himself from a hothead I grew up with. One of my middle school bullies had stabbed him with a butter knife. He’d been packing a butterfly knife and while they both needed stitches, you could probably have removed an appendix from the hole he opened in that idiot.

I learned all this about these guys because I was in there until Monday. See, because I was on suicide watch, and that’s actually used for people who resist arrest, when I went before the judge, he looked at me, figured I was the worst sort imaginable, and raised the bond to the maximum. $100,000 cash. My folks found that the local banks didn’t carry that kind of currency. We had to wait until Monday to pay this, because banks are closed on Sundays.

And the arresting officers know this. They wanted me to be formally arrested way too late. They wanted me to spend as much time in that miserable hellhole as possible.

I haven’t really gone into great detail about the place, but I’m trying. It’s a room with a toilet/drinking fountain. You get a plastic-coated camping mat, a blanket, and your velcro tunic. Yeah, you don’t rate prison oranges on suicide watch. Your balls are hanging the whole damn time. No pillow.  The blanket is too thick to be comfortable. The cell is too cool to sleep without it. You don’t sleep well. The lights are on from 5 am to 10 pm. Then the softer lights are on for the 7 hours of “lights out”. You can’t tell how much time has passed since you last dozed off. You can be told the time when a guard comes around, if you ask. That’s it. That’s your connection to reality. When I got out, I had to set the alarm clock by the bed, and move pillows so I could see it all night.

Lousy food, lousy sleep, nothing at all to do, no clue what time it is… I was in for three nights of torture. Even if I win my court case, I don’t get that weekend back, and I don’t get an apology for being thrown in there.

Afterwards, I’ve spent some time feeling very vulnerable. I was looking forward to weekly gaming with my good friends. Except that the GM’s wife doesn’t want anything to do with a criminal. My roommate doesn’t either, but won’t explain anything. One of the gamers works at a bank, and, well, they would fire him if they heard we associated. Some of that may change after I get my name cleared, but… honestly, I have lost most of those friends already. If they don’t even want to hear my side… or think I’m a different person now… fuck them. I trusted these people. I’ve pet-sit for them. I’ve taken them to doctor’s appointments at the crack of dawn. And when I needed my friends and the assurance of their company… they turned their backs on me.

My grandmother’s retirement community has barred its doors to me, because the police bothered them to try and substantiate my alibi. They asked for a criminal trespass order. The cops screwed up issuing it, but the fact remains that I’d be arrested if I visit my grandma. She’s moving to a place that offers better amenities and costs $1,000 less a month. Like a baws, grandma.

Now, if my friends aren’t willing to have me around, and a business is going to bar me visits to my grandmother… what do you think this has done to my employability? Googling my name will turn up a mug shot.

After all this is over, my sister is offering me a room in Alaska, where I can help babysit my niece and nephew, and take classes at the college. I lost my job, my friends, my sense of security, my trust in the government… And I don’t get that back even if I win the fight for my freedom. I’m in limbo, and suffering loss.

A lot of financial loss too. I had to pay $0.50 a SHEET for the DA’s documentation. They are legally required to provide it to us, and they charge for it. $125 for the digital media, including footage of 1 of the robberies. They stiffed us on the other 3, because there’s no getting someone in trouble for this. We’re going to have to request it again, and wait, and pay. Because that’s the system. Oh, sure, if you win, you can sue to get the legal fees reimbursed. But until then, you have to pay. This is “innocent until proven guilty”. I am ostracized; forced to pay outrageous fees for access to the facts of the case against me; lied to by cops; and I get to carry some nasty emotional scars for the rest of my life.

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