Start with a basic account of what happened on BART and on the platform.



...officers responded to a complaint of two young performers soliciting for money on the train. Two male passengers, and friends of Bowe, were approached by officers at the Lake Merritt station, with a witness who identified the two young men as the guilty suspects. The men were instructed by the officers to get off the train for questioning. Some of the train's passengers stood up for the youth, telling the officers that young people they were looking for had already gotten off the train at the West Oakland station and that these three riders had not been engaged in the solicitation of passengers. Bowe, a 19-year-old African American female and full-time student of a local security-training program, repeatedly iterated the group's innocence, telling the officers that they were in violation of the young men's rights.

The officer who initially assaulted Nubia on the BART platform told her, "You have no rights."

After work... I was coming home... I was with my boyfriend and a friend... We were stopped at Lake Merritt BART by three BART police saying we had to step off the train. They said we were dancing on BART, soliciting money and causing a disturbance. Several people approached the cops saying we didn't do anything and why did we need to get off the train. We told the cop that the person who identified us needed to get off to re-identify us. That never happened. ...I went to the train car of the person who falsely identified us and told him he needs to get off to identify us. I was pulled off the train by a different officer. He slammed me against the wall, busting my lip, and then he slammed me on the ground...

According to several witnesses, Bowe was then slammed to the ground and struck repeatedly. One passenger added that the young woman's "mouth was full of blood at this point." A cellphone video of the arrest shows passengers trying to explain to the police that they had the wrong group, but the officer didn't appear to acknowledge the bystanders.





That was Nubia's mistake. In America, if you are young and black and are being confronted by police, YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS. All you have is hope that they won't shoot you. The BART officer seemed to agree. And listen to what it sounded like on the platform after she had been slammed to the ground:

Many hours later, finding herself in a cell twenty miles away at Santa Rita jail, Nubia discovered that the guards in the jail were no better, and likely worse, than the BART police.



Bowe's first experience with the law quickly intensified at Santa Rita where she was taunted, battered, and denied serious medical care, as well as the usage of phone privileges by deputies at the County Jail; a jail whose condition is reported to be torturous in-and-of itself.

"Three male guards and one female guard came in my cell and beat me up," Bowe told the Oakland Post. "They hit me and then said that I assaulted one of them. So they chained my wrists to my ankles and tipped me over onto the urine-soaked ground so I couldn't get up. I could tell they were trying to break my spirit."

They brought a straight jacket mechanism, where my legs, body, upper body were tied together, keeping me in a sitting-up position. Then they tipped me on my side. They left me in the room with a spit mask on my head. I couldnt breathe. I got out of it by removing the restraints so I could breathe. One of the deputies noticed that I got out of it. He threw me on the ground. They put the spit mask back on, so I couldn't see what was going on and beat me up again. They put the restraints back on and tipped me on my side again, leaving me there for about four hours.

Okay, definitely worse.The Alameda County Santa Rita Jail is one of the largest in the country. It is, for all practical purposes, the personal fiefdom of Sheriff Greg Ahern and his lackeys. Despite numerous reports of abuses the jail remains impervious to investigation, and the Sheriff invulnerable (he ran unopposed four years ago and is running unopposed this year).

The guards probably treat everyone who enters as sub-human, but the only time we hear about it is when, as in the case of Nubia, or in the case of attorney Anne Weills and friends, people who are not already so beaten down by the system that they have the time, energy and will to speak out do so.

Nobody deserves that type of treatment for riding BART.

People treat their pets better than this...

What happened to Nubia after she was released from Santa Rita? Did everyone live happily ever after? Not by a longshot.

Fortunately Nubia has access to top-notch legal advice and the support of a large community.

The District Attorney reduced her charges (and her bail, which was initially set at $120,000) related to what happened at BART from made-up felonies to misdemeanors - good. But at a pretrial hearing on those reduced charges, the DA insisted that Nubia had to serve time in jail for her alleged "crime" despite this being a first "offense" and despite the fact that the identifying witness had recanted.

Her attorney, Dan Siegel, came out of the pretrial hearing negotiation room and back into the courtroom to find thirty or so Nubia supporters waiting. Once out of the courtroom, Dan and Nubia informed supporters of their rejection of jail time, the failed negotiations, and that Nubia now had a trial date set for August 5th.

(To recap: All the witnesses now say that Nubia and her friends WEREN'T DANCING ON THE TRAIN. Of course if she was dancing on a train that would totally justify the DA insisting on throwing such a dangerous person in jail at large cost to Alameda County taxpayers, but she wasn't, so I ask you, if we are not living in anti-Wonderland, where's the logic?)

Nubia also has separate charges related to the guards beating her in Santa Rita - or as they put it, attacking them...



The charges were assaulting a deputy and resisting arrest in Santa Rita jail.

...or, as others might describe it incredulously, attacking armed people much taller and twice your weight while in restraints. Makes perfect sense.

The pre-trial hearing on these charges is scheduled for this coming Monday, May 19th.

Nubia, her family and supporters testified during the public comment period at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting on May 6th. Listen to this powerful denouncement of how Santa Rita guards are treating prisoners, including Nubia.











A partial transcript.



...If a parent was doing what your Sheriff's deputies do, they would go to jail. Nubia was protesting to use the bathroom, after being held for hours, ten, twelve hours... "Could I go to the bathroom?" And they said "I hope you piss on yourself."

... So when Nubia is banging on the door, to get someone to come and allow her to use the restroom, and this was in the police report... When they came, they told her to take off her shoes. She put her hand on her head, and when she kicked her shoe off, the justification for the abuse was that the shoe hit the deputy. If a parent stood in any courtroom and said "I beat the hell out of my child because their shoe hit me." they would go to jail... Santa Rita is a holding cell for people who haven't been convicted of anything... these are people who are not, have not been proven guilty of anything, and it's outrageous conditions. So, if I said to my child, I'm going to have your room... with feces, urine, vomit, blood, right... because you didn't get home on time, I would go to prison. But you all, by your inaction, are condoning that same treatment for our babies... I'm attempting to contain myself; as passionate as I am right now it's only a fraction of what I really feel. When you all refuse to address it you cannot be upset when the people address it themselves... If it is not agendized, we will make it a priority. the Sheriff can come drag us out of here. We'll be back... She was put in a straightjacket. Shackled. Right. A spitguard... What's the difference between this and Abu Graib? This is not a notorious drug dealer... She, she didn't murder anybody. She was supposed to be 'dancing' on the BART. Dancing on the BART. So let's even say she had done what they say she was doing. Would anyone here say she deserved that treatment for dancing on the BART?

"Would anyone say she deserved that treatment?" It was a rhetorical question. Except to the BART police and Santa Rita guards. Not just the treatment, as horrible as it was, of course, but the prosecution and consequences thereof.

As her attorney notes:



"This case represents another example of racial profiling by BART police," Siegel said. "Although the end isn't as tragic, it's similar to the Oscar Grant case. Some person made a complaint about dancing on BART, Nubia and her friends were not the people dancing, and yet, she still faces two sets of charges for allegedly fighting with police and resisting arrest."

While racial profiling is often a catalyst, creating scenarios that end tragically which should never have existed in the first place, we know that police and prison guards all over this country are out of control. From tasing ten-year olds and "wetbacks" having a party to killing mentally disabled people in wheel chairs to murdering two people by firing 377 rounds into a car with an unarmed suspect and an unwilling passenger ; from torturing mentally ill prisoners to consigning human beings to solitary for years at the slightest, or no, offense , police and guards are becoming more brutal even as the crime rate continues to drop, their demands for compliance overriding any semblance of common sense.

Nothing will change until those who do these things are held accountable for their actions, and that will not happen unless people like Nubia continue to raise their voices, calling attention to a world that most of us simply do not see. And then we all must act on it.

Show your support by signing the petition to dismiss all her charges.

