I want to chime in here and reiterate your words. Being arrested sucks, and the police in general sucks. Out of say the 10 most violent acts to happen to me personally, the police is responsible for like 7, and did not help in the other 3. When I see a police me go to reaction is to be afraid and try to minimize the risk of interaction. How is it that we allow an organization to walk freely that terrorizes many (most?) people they encounter?
I was arrested in San Francisco back in 2011, it was the most violent act to ever happen to me by far. It was my first time in the city and I was at a protest. Usually it is really easy to avoid arrest in a protest, however that night the police did not give us a choice, rounded us all up and arrested the lot of us. I had my life with me in two bags, apparently you are only allowed to be arrested with one bag, the police suggested that I needed to abandon one (in civil terms this is called theft).
They put us in a petty wagon and drove us around for probably an hour, we couldn’t see out, so for all I know we were being driven out of the city (after being released I found out that we were driven 15min walking distance away from the protest site). I was really scared I wouldn’t be able to get back to the city during this.
We were all detained under a freeway pass in two cages, segregated by the gender the police assigned to us. While detained nobody was allowed water or toilet brakes at first, and then only one person at a time. I never got to go to the toiled during the whole ordeal.
They charged me with a misdemeanor called Illegal lodging (whatever that is). They assigned a court date 3 months into the future. As someone that didn’t live in the state (and even the country) it felt like they were setting me up to do an impossible task. However they dropped the charges before the court date (without telling me though).
Now I in the process of immigrating to the USA, and whenever they ask me if I have ever been arrested/detained, I have to answer “yes”, even though—as far as the justice system is concerned—I have committed no crime, and then I have to explain to them that, yes, I was arrested for a misdemeanor, and then provide documents from the courts that the charges were dropped. A lawyer once told me that many people fall for this and provide the arrest records in an attempt to disclose but fail to show the court records, and are denied as a result.
And when I think about all this, what sucks even more, is that my experience was pretty mild. Hundreds of people have far worse violence inflicted on them by the police then I did a decade ago.
My question is is always: “Why are they doing this, what is the point?” and the only logical answer I can think of is that they really love treating people like shit. The only logical explanation for their behavior is that they are facists. They hate people other then them self. The police really has to be abolished.
I was arrested in San Francisco back in 2011, it was the most violent act to ever happen to me by far. It was my first time in the city and I was at a protest. Usually it is really easy to avoid arrest in a protest, however that night the police did not give us a choice, rounded us all up and arrested the lot of us. I had my life with me in two bags, apparently you are only allowed to be arrested with one bag, the police suggested that I needed to abandon one (in civil terms this is called theft).
They put us in a petty wagon and drove us around for probably an hour, we couldn’t see out, so for all I know we were being driven out of the city (after being released I found out that we were driven 15min walking distance away from the protest site). I was really scared I wouldn’t be able to get back to the city during this.
We were all detained under a freeway pass in two cages, segregated by the gender the police assigned to us. While detained nobody was allowed water or toilet brakes at first, and then only one person at a time. I never got to go to the toiled during the whole ordeal.
They charged me with a misdemeanor called Illegal lodging (whatever that is). They assigned a court date 3 months into the future. As someone that didn’t live in the state (and even the country) it felt like they were setting me up to do an impossible task. However they dropped the charges before the court date (without telling me though).
Now I in the process of immigrating to the USA, and whenever they ask me if I have ever been arrested/detained, I have to answer “yes”, even though—as far as the justice system is concerned—I have committed no crime, and then I have to explain to them that, yes, I was arrested for a misdemeanor, and then provide documents from the courts that the charges were dropped. A lawyer once told me that many people fall for this and provide the arrest records in an attempt to disclose but fail to show the court records, and are denied as a result.
And when I think about all this, what sucks even more, is that my experience was pretty mild. Hundreds of people have far worse violence inflicted on them by the police then I did a decade ago.
My question is is always: “Why are they doing this, what is the point?” and the only logical answer I can think of is that they really love treating people like shit. The only logical explanation for their behavior is that they are facists. They hate people other then them self. The police really has to be abolished.