Yes, I'm back from the dismal dungeons of the state! Thank you everyone, for your concern, and especially for those who tried to make phone calls, etc. David and Chris in particular for serving as information conduits and accepting my collect call.
This was, as some of you have heard, a police sting operation going off of Craigslist. A young-sounding woman called me and said she and her girlfriend wanted to see me that night. A call to see two girls is unusual, and maybe that should have made me suspicious. But she was a good actress/scam artist.
Anyway, I was charged with "soliciting prostitution" and have a court date in Fremont on January 6. I didn't specifically mention those details when calling from jail except during one call to a friend, as there were other inmates present at other times. Being unsure how long or in what conditions I might be held, I wasn't going to advertise the fact of my profession. Not that I ever felt in any physical danger from anyone; none of the inmates I was exposed to seemed like violent/aggressive gang-banger types.
There was one disturbing comment from a smug Fremont PD officer (possibly named Carpenter?) when I was being booked, however. He took offense at my refusal to believe his assertion that since I'd already been read my rights and declined the opportunity to talk, nothing I said now during booking would be used against me (yeah, sure!). Quite likely they *were* just trying to get their form filled out in this case, but I wasn't feeling very trusting. On the offhand chance it might have bearing on my case, I declined to go into details about any medical conditions I might or might not have beyond saying I didn't anticipate any medical problems during my stay and didn't have seizures or other serious conditions that were named. Naturally this held up the process, and officer Carpenter(?) became irate and threatened to take me to a state jail where I'd be housed in the general population with rapists and other violent criminals. He said they might find me "pretty," and asked, "Do you get the picture?" I said it sounded like he was threatening my life. (Over not filling out a form, I should have added.) Fortunately the booking officer intervened and let me answer the questions in a general enough way that I was able to give him the amount of info he wanted.
The night of my arrival at Fremont City Jail, I noticed that the back of the property receipt form I was given listed seven prisoner rights, including #4 "the right to postal correspondence, restricted only by the facility's need to ensure the safety and security of staff and prisoners, in accordance with State law." (Right #1, incidentally, included "protection from physical and verbal abuse," which might seem at odds with the previously mentioned transfer threat.) Nevertheless, when I asked for materials to write a letter I was told that I would not be allowed to use *any* writing implement while I was there, since that could be used as a weapon. But the following day brought different personnel and a different answer, and I was allowed to sit in a special room in their immediate sight and use a short, dull pencil. I was given one piece of paper, but generously told I could ask for more if I filled that one up. This was in order not to waste paper, they said. Meanwhile, bright florescent lights were blazing away in a score of unoccupied cells, something I pointed out to no avail (naturally).
Anyway, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Fremont paper The Argus (that being the only newspaper available and so the only media address I had access to) about my arrest. I asked for and was eventually given a photocopy of this letter, partly as I wished to be able to transcribe the info to additional letters if I had a chance to do more writing, but they wouldn't let me keep those two sheets of paper on me. Evidently the 8.5" by 11" carbon-copied property receipt form was safe for me to have, but the blank white photocopied paper they had supplied was too dangerous. So that went into a plastic bag along with my other property to be given to me on my release. I found out later that whether by negligence or design, they had only copied one side of each of my double-sided handwritten sheets, so about half of the following letter is rewritten from memory:
* * *
December 7, 2005
Editor:
I am writing to you from the Fremont City Jail, where I have been since last night when I was arrested -- I believe on a prostitution charge, although I was never actually told the cause of my arrest or what I was being charged with.
The arrest took place around 10:20 p.m. at the Best Western Garden Court Inn, at 5400 Mowry Avenue. I am an escort based in San Francisco. During the time I have practiced this profession, I have never come to Fremont to see a client in my memory, and I would not have been here last night if I had not been solicited to come by a police sting operation.
Yesterday morning I was contacted by a policewoman posing as a client, who told me that she and her girlfriend (she gave the names "Sara" and "Tiffany") wanted to see me that night. She said she was attracted to what I said in my ad about being "romantic." Shortly after I arrived and was welcomed into their room at the Garden Court Inn, six men burst into the room. One of them had a big police dog, and another had a video camera. The two female officers, who had been drinking beer when they invited me in, immediately got up and left. The intruders identified themselves as Fremont police. A couple of them started searching me and going through my things, while another asked me questions, including whether various things belonged to me, all before I was arrested or read my rights.
Meanwhile the guy with the video camera was pointing it in my face. When I asked him who he was filming for, he said KRON TV Channel 4. I told him I didn't want to be vilified, and asked him to take one of my business cards and contact me later to get my side of the story. But he refused, saying "I'm here working with these guys," or words to that effect.
Is this kind of refusal to even attempt to report the news in a fair and balanced manner appropriate conduct by a member of the mainstream media? I have often seen TV footage of people being arrested and portrayed as unsympathetic criminals, and wondered, "Why do we never see these men and women telling their side of what happened?" Now I know the answer may well be, "Because they are not given the opportunity to do so."
But there is something here that people, especially Fremont taxpayers, should be even more concerned about, and that is misplaced priorities and waste of law enforcement resources. How many hours of police time went into finding and selecting my online post, contacting me, exchanging telephone messages, having seven police officers waiting around at the hotel for me to show up, taking me to jail and booking me?
Is there so little actual crime being committed by people already in Fremont -- rapes, murders, robberies, and the like -- that the Fremont Police have to resort to luring and entrapping people from out of town for allegedly planning to participate in peaceful transactions among consenting adults, in order to justify their salaries and funding?
Sincerely,
Starchild
3531 16th Street,
San Francisco, CA 94114
P.S. to the Editor - Starchild is my full legal name. My identity may be confirmed and additional information obtained from my colleagues at the Libertarian Party of San Francisco (www.lpsf.org) and the Sex Workers Outreach Project (www.swop-usa.org).
* * *
It will be interesting to contact the Argus in a few days and find out whether they actually received this letter, or it somehow got "lost" in the mail. Meanwhile, I'm going to rewrite it slightly to send out to other media outlets. I think one of the things which kind of got lost in the game of telephone from me to my friend David to Chris who emailed some local Libertarians for me, is that I was hoping other folks would spread this story to their media contacts too. If you'd like to help, I still encourage you to do that. I don't think I have much to lose here by going as public with all of this as possible. It's also a good chance to shine a little light on what goes on and help humanize some of those who are persecuted by the authorities for prostitution and other victimless "crimes."
I'm also still interested in any referrals for an attorney. As Chris reminded me, Robyn Few knows somebody who takes cases like this, but more leads can't hurt. Of course as Richard Winger says, maybe I'll get a good public defender. It's been known to happen, although I think my chances would be better if it was here in SF under Jeff Adachi's office. Does anyone know what the rules are for the filing of additional charges? I am somewhat concerned I may be at risk for that, although the only thing they listed was soliciting prostitution.
To continue with the rest of the story, after staying overnight at the Fremont Jail, they drove me yesterday to Santa Rita, where I was again shuttled between several different rooms for no apparent good purpose. At least they let us wear our shoes, so my feet were not continually cold in socks on the bare floors there as they had been at Fremont before I was eventually taken to a cell with a cot and given a blanket. But they made us remove and hand over our shoelaces, so I had to keep checking a natural urge to tie my shoes which always felt ready to fall off. The biggest chunk of the day was spent in the most crowded room of my stay. Myself and five other guys were locked in a bare room about 8' by 10' with concrete benches, a toilet, and a sink. There was not much space on the bench, so about half of us were sitting or lying down on the cold, dirty floor at any one time. Fortunately no one had to suffer the indignity and subject the rest of us to the sight and sounds of having to heed a serious call of nature! There was also a collect-call phone in the room. Using their phones however was about as awkward as trying to open doors with your elbow. At Fremont there is one with a cord only about 10 inches long, which is mounted about four feet from the floor, so as a 6' tall person I could neither stand nor sit in order to use it comfortably, but had to kind of crouch or lean against the wall. But it was better than the ones in Santa Rita, which are not only mounted at an inconvenient height (at least for me), but have no receivers at all, only holes in the wall to speak and listen into. Thus you have to converse with your head pressed up against the wall.
By and by I was cited and released, with a paper advising me when to appear in court. I see no reason why they couldn't have done this just as easily when they first took me in, and let me go that same night, but I guess that wouldn't have been slow enough for the "justice" system. And of course they had left my backpack, along with much of the contents of my pockets including my phone, money clip and house keys, at the Fremont jail instead of sending the stuff with me to Santa Rita. I had exactly $.30 on me, not even enough for a phone call. They give released persons a local bus ticket and a $3.65 BART card. However the buses weren't running at that time (it was about 10pm) and there wasn't even enough money on the BART ticket to get me across the bay. Furthermore, nobody at Santa Rita seemed to have the phone number to the Fremont jail or know whether I could go there and get my stuff. So I just took the train to Civic Center BART and exited through the service door with insufficient fare. It's ironic how they contribute to more laws being broken by leaving people in situations where they have little choice!
Which reminds me of another darkly humorous thing that happened. After I'd gotten into the back of the cop car to be driven to Santa Rita, the cop strapped the seatbelts on me and another guy being taken there (it's hard to do yourself when you're wearing handcuffs). As he did mine, he said to me sarcastically (having heard me complaining the night before about arresting people for victimless crimes), "I guess this is just another one of those silly laws you have to follow." "I didn't have a seatbelt on when I was taken here last night," I responded as he closed the door. He said nothing, and when he got in the front to drive, I said, "I guess even cops can't be bothered to follow the law all the time, huh?" And he shot back, "I guess we can't." Score one for the truth!
Fortunately when I got home my roommate was there, so I was able to get in and finally eat a real meal. I'd only had a couple oranges, a few slices of bread and some carrots all day, thanks to dinner not being available at Santa Rita except in the housing area and not having been informed of breakfast in the morning at the Fremont jail ("You missed it. Complain to the supervisor," I was told when I inquired toward lunch time). This despite #3 in their list of rights which states that prisoners "will receive adequate nourishment three times a day, in accordance with standards established by the State of California."
Still, I'm not *really* complaining. All this was pretty mild compared to many peoples' jail experiences. With the semi-exception of the one officer's threat, I did not feel in any physical danger during my brief incarceration. What mildly inhumane treatment there was seemed to be more a consequence of the institution and its rules and procedures than from sadism or malice by particular individuals. Most of the law enforcement personnel acted fairly professional, though there did seem to be a common attitude that affording normal human dignity to people in custody wasn't really necessary, just as a benevolent master might be decent to the slaves on his plantation most of the time, but didn't really feel he owed them any respect.
Aside from the bogus nature of the alleged "crime," that was the thing that bothered me most about this whole ordeal: All these people who had been picked up on whatever charges just being processed and treated like criminals. The treatment I saw and experienced might not generally have been out of place if applied to persons charged and convicted of real crimes, at least if you accept the view that incarceration should be primarily about deterrent/punishment rather than rehabilitation or providing restitution to victims. But accused persons are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and I felt I'd been treated like a criminal almost the entire time. I mentioned this to the clerk giving out the transportation tickets on the way out, and she said I was the second person who'd said that to her that day. It's nice to know that at least one other person had a similar reaction and wasn't afraid to voice it. Incidentally, I was amused when she handed me a pair of scissors to cut the plastic wristband off my arm. Who was I to be so suddenly trusted with a dangerous weapon like scissors when before I couldn't even have my shoelaces, earrings, or a pen?
Well, that's about all I can think of to say right now. It's 6:30 in the morning, but at least I did get plenty of sleep at the jails, since there was often little to do but nap and wait. I certainly didn't enjoy the experience, but I figured it would happen to me sooner or later. And it was interesting to get a short inside look at the prison system. It definitely gives one more sympathy for the plight of the millions of people who are wrongly incarcerated in the United States alone. Too often they're out of sight, out of mind, even for libertarians like myself who should already know better.
Peace, love & liberty,
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