storia di un arresto (+ di 30 ore), tattiche e trattamento della polizia
ciao maria teresa
-----Original Message-----
the other story...
--cc
by David Kupfer
After taking some pictures of Critical Mass riders getting arrested, I
turned to walk away and suddenly was in cuffs, one of the 264 cyclists and
random passers-by arrested Friday night. Rather than writing us summonses
for the offenses we were charged with, which were violations (on par with a
traffic ticket or an open container), not even misdemeanors, the cops
decided to teach us a lesson by hauling us over to a bus
depot-turned-holding cell where we got to sleep in cages on
diesel-sludge-covered concrete. (Many people reported chemical burns from
contact with the floor.) I got to spend 16 hours there, then ride a
corrections bus downtown to Central Booking for the full
handcuff/search/mugshot/prints treatment, in shackles all the way, and spent
another 14 hours there while the cops, who were either intentionally
stalling on Bloomberg's orders or staggeringly incompetent, took 14 more
hours to write us all the same desk-appearance tickets they could have given
out at the scene. There were still at least 50 people in there when I got
out at 2:30 a.m. Monday (and spent another hour waiting on line to get my
keys, phone, camera, and pen from the property clerk).
Thirty hours of my life are gone because Bloomberg felt like going on a
power trip (it's said he personally ordered the massive arrests), and I
still feel phantom handcuffs on my wrists, the way amputees report feeling
phantom limbs. Critical Mass has gone down every month for years, with
typically no interference (and often even assistance) by the police. On
Friday they suddenly decided to start making arrests without warning,
penning people in and arresting entire blocks' worth of people, including
hapless tourists and people getting off work who just happened to be in the
area watching. And they couldn't have been bothered to clean the diesel
sludge off the floor of the holding pens where they made us sleep? Someone
will pay.
Many thanks go to the National Lawyers Guild, who submitted a writ of habeus
corpus demanding that the city either charge us or free us; this probably
got us out five or six hours sooner. And thanks especially to the greeters
who met us outside the courthouse in the middle of the night, tended to our
injuries and diesel-sludge chemical burns, and fed us real food. The prison
bologna sandwich, the staple of the nutrient-free and severely constipating
jailhouse diet, is made from the lowest-grade meat and bread imaginable. We
discovered that the bologna will stick indefinitely to a vertical metal
surface, and that the sandwiches are better used as pillows than as food.
(They're also quite handy as the ball in impromptu jailhouse games of
empty-cup bowling, and as anchors for paper cups in penny tossing.) And
thanks to my fellow political prisoners, who stuck together and kept each
other sane. The whole process is designed to subjugate its victims in every
way, but we made it through.
Other things worth mentioning: The other prisoner who howled, "Officer!
Officer! Fucking officer! I know you can hear me! ... We need to live life
based on love, not hate! ... The next time I kill, it won't be based on
race!" The ever-present signs warning of the dangers of tuberculosis in
jail. The "ass chair," which apparently probes your ass to see if anything
is hidden there. The sticker in Central Booking promoting a marijuana rally
in 1999. "Slashings, stabbings and assult will result in your immediate
arrest." And always, always, mind-numbingly (and probably intentionally so)
slow paperwork.
Oh yeah, and someone reported seeing me getting arrested on CNN.
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