I got arrested today [Jun. 15th, 2011|06:30 pm] West Philly, the Best Philly

west_philly

[ lxbean ] I'm not sure if this sort of thing is a general trend in our neighborhood, but I think people need to know what happened to me:



I got arrested today. My crime? Watching an officer pester a drug user who had nodded out on a neighbor's stoop. The guy didn't even notice the officer, who had his baton out and was aiming it at the guy. An uncapped syringe had fallen out onto the stoop and I offered to pick it up and put it in a glass bottle (the safest way to discard a syringe if you don't have a sharps container). The officer found this offensive and got mad at me. I said I would stand there and observe. He said I was putting him in danger because he had to have his back to the user to talk to me. I pointed out the user was still in a nod. He told me to back away, so I did. Then I asked him for his badge number and name and he refused to give it to me. I said I would wait for it. He called another officer, who peeled around the corner onto our block with her lights flashing.



First, she and the other officer conferred, leaving the drug user to sit on the stoop. Apparently now he wasn't so dangerous that no one could turn their back on him. The second officer came up to me and I explained that I was just observing. She said I couldn't. I said I believed I could. She said that the user had a syringe, which was against the law. I said he was actually allowed to possess a syringe. She said only if he was sick. I explained the executive order permitting users to carry syringes. I offered to show her the order in writing (I carry it in my wallet). She told me to put down my bag so she could cuff me. I asked her if she was serious and she said if I didn't put down my bag, things would get ugly.



After cuffing me, she put me in the police car and drove me to the station. She had me sit in a chair by a vending machine (?), still cuffed with my hands behind me. After about 1/2 a an hour, they brought me into a room farther back in the station. I kept asking if I could call work, since my students were going to wonder what I was. They kept saying I'd be out in 10 minutes. They would not let me call a colleague to notify my students. The original officer (as opposed to the one who actually arrested me) made a sarcastic remark about how I was a college professor. I said I really wanted to call a colleague and asked about every 5-10 minutes if I or someone else could call a colleague, but they kept refusing me or ignoring me.



The officer handcuffed me to a bench and left me there for a good long time, probably well over an hour. I asked a couple of times if they could handcuff my left hand instead of my right because my right shoulder is sore and my hand was getting sore too, but they ignored me.



After awhile, I struck up a conversation with another officer who was talking about his wrists hurting when he did push ups. I said that I knew a way to position his hands so that wouldn't happen. I showed them (clumsily, I was still handcuffed) and he and another guy tried it and were all excited because it worked. He asked me how I knew this and I told them about yoga and the officer asked me all sorts of questions and I recommended the Sunday class I go to. He said he might check it out in the next few weeks. Then, I told him about the history of drugs in this country. He kept saying, "that's amazing! I never knew that!" so I kept going, placing particular emphasis on the way that most drug scares are really about controlling people on the social margins (Black folk, Asian folk, Mexicans...). Finally, he agreed to give me my phone so I could call a colleague about my class. By then, it was too late. Class had started 15 minutes before and no one had let me make a simple phone call to avoid inconveniencing my students.



After about two hours in handcuffs, I said I had to pee. No one was sure what to do. Finally, the officer led me by the cuffs to a prison cell where a young girl was standing and crying. It was beyond disgusting, but I managed to balance myself over the bowl and pee. Then the officer led me by the cuffs back to the bench, where he reattached me. I joked about being a flight risk. I asked to be handcuffed by my left wrist this time and he still wouldn't change the cuffs.



At some point, I had to sign a form about the charges, which had changed from "disorderly conduct" to "failure to disperse." I asked to see the charges before I signed the little automatic signer thing and he said I couldn't, but that it said "failure to disperse." He still had me handcuffed, but released one hand so I could write. Then he led me like a dog on a leash back to the bench. I waited another period of time, probably about half an hour, handcuffed to the bench. By now, Officer Yoga had given me my cell phone, which was ringing almost constantly, and let me read my book.



Then, the original officer unattached me and recuffed my hands behind my back and led me back out to a police car. I asked where we were going and he instructed me to sit and wait. It turns out I had to go to community court to answer to a judge for my crime. Before they drove away, when no one else was nearby, he said that, now that we both had had time to cool down (by which I can only assume he meant himself because I had not gotten angry this whole time), he was sure I understood why he had to arrest me. Then he said he'd "play dumb" with the judge. I told him to do whatever he needed to do, but pointed out that I was one of those people who helped get syringes off the street so that officers like him didn't get stuck. He said he got attacked (?) by someone with a syringe and had to go on treatment for a year and had to wear a condom with his wife. I nodded and figured I really shouldn't be talking with him much more. He also told me that he had the right to tell me to leave wherever he wanted. I would even have to leave my house if he told me.



They drove me downtown and led me out of the police car, still in handcuffs. While we were driving to the court, the officers discussed the possibility that I was "interfering with police work." They weighed this option in terms of whether it applied if there were a crowd or just one person. I guess they decided against it, or maybe they couldn't have brought this charge anyway, since they already filled in the form. Or they were trying to freak me out.



I got led into the court in cuffs and no one else was allowed to ride in the elevator but us. When a man tried to get in, the officer blocked the door. The guy looked confused, so I showed him my hands in cuffs and shrugged.



At the court, the intake woman (if that's what she's called) instructed me to sit on some overturned crates and asked me some questions about my health and medications. She asked me if I wanted to hurt myself. I laughed. Then she sort of rolled her eyes and told the officer to take off my cuffs. Then she had me stand up so she could frisk me. She told me I should pray to Jesus Christ because he died for our sins. I thanked her but said I had different beliefs. She said no, it *had* to be Jesus. Then she led me into the court, where I was instructed to sit in a certain place on a bench.



In front of me were five men. They all looked at me, apparently surprised to see a woman. When one man got up, the judge told him to pull up his pants because they had a "lady" in the court. The officer of the court kept making the men change seats so that they were lined up in the order of appearance. As if they couldn't just get up and walk the 5 feet to the podium. As each man went up, the officer would make them all shift down by one. I got in trouble for giving two of the men mints. "If something happens to them, I get in trouble" an officer told me.



I want to tell you one really sad part: one man went before the judge and, instead of going along with the "we'll drop the charges if you get yourself in order before your next court date now just go on your way," he said he needed help, but all the treatment centers were closing down. The judge told him social services could help and the man said they couldn't because there was nowhere for him to get treatment. The judge asked the DA and the DA said something to the effect of, "not my job." I felt really bad for that guy. Once the men were all gone, the officer of the court instructed me to leave my empty bench to move to another empty bench and sit on a certain side of it. I sat there for about 2 minutes before being called up to face the judge.



The judge asked the DA (if that's what he was) what my crime was, the DA said, "failure to disperse" and the judge said, "do you want to do something with this?" and the DA said no. So the judge told me to come back on the 27th and that if I don't get arrested between now and then, they would drop the charges. I said OK. Then I asked if I could say one more thing. The judge gave me a look and said something to the effect that talking more would be potentially very stupid. I said I wanted to say it anyway. Then I told him about a great treatment center I knew about. He looked surprised and thanked me. He asked the DA if he heard about that center and the DA basically said some version of "not my job" again. But the judge asked someone to write it down.



Then they sprung me. The whole thing lasted from 10:15, when I got arrested, to about 2:00, when I was released.



As I was walking home, the officer who arrested me pulled up in his patrol car to say that he'd kept my license by accident and handed it to me in an envelope.