I never liked those shoes. They are like a bad knock off of toms. Somehow they even make shittier crocs for jails as well… I remember walking into a Walmart and a guy being like “yo when did you serve” as I was buying a pair of entnies (didn’t know they sold them there, but they were like $25) to finish my 19 mile walk home. Wasn’t sure how he knew at first, then realized he remembered those shitty shoes as well.
(Things not to do in life, get pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by police wearing no shoes and forced to walk across a stone driveway.)
Innocent until proven guilty time and time again proves to be not how our system works. Alleged charges were dismissed and expunged. The impact on my life, not able to be taken back.
Yeah, the criminal justice system in the U.S. causes immeasurable harm. From a probation system designed to keep you in the system, to kids-for-cash-like schemes that I’m convinced are more common than has been prosecuted, to coercive delay tactics. All of which I have personal experience with. I’ve currently been out on bail for 2 years, and someone else in my county has been in jail without trial for 5 years because he can’t afford bail. Not to mention the horrible conditions in many jails and prisons, slave labor, nearly complete lack of rehabilitation, and the system milking the incarcerated’s families for money. I can’t think of any other word to describe it than evil.
I worked government contracts in IT for the last 10 years mostly. After the allegation I failed 3 background checks coming back saying conviction when the case was retired and moved to be dismissed. My entire career was shot save for a 9 month contract I got where they overroad the background check with a lawyers response showing it was a false response on the conviction and due to costs I have literally nothing left. After lawyers and shit… 0 savings, 0 401k, contract over now, took a job for a distributor for a well known brand to pay bills… No background check. Even Kroger’s background check failed me when the case has already been dismissed. It destroyed my life, and I did nothing.
Yeah, the company I was working at got bought out and then they layed the entire tech team and pretty much everyone else. Co-founded a business with coworkers, but it’s not bringing in any revenue and not sure it ever will bring in very much, so have been applying to jobs. Only got a few interviews, then ghosted afterwards. I’m guessing a part of it is I have a criminal charge pending, and the first thing you see on Google when you search my name and town is one of those mugshot websites. Maybe I should go into construction, lol.
How much is the guy’s bail? If you throw money at it, I will too. It’s your duty to your fellow man for equity. It’s probably more than we can afford but I’m just thinking. Maybe we can seed a fund.
I went to sentencing for a misdemeanor and all I took in my pockets were like 10 quarters for the phone because I knew I was only in a couple days or week max but they let you out when they feel like it. My girlfriend was going to come get me when I got out. This wasn’t totally before cell phones but I didn’t have one at the time.
They took my quarters when I got to jail.
Break for Pro-Tip: if you know you’re going to jail, even just for the night or until you make bail and not gen pop, don’t take any money if you can avoid it. They call it the “jail fee” and steal all your paper money (or quarters in my case). I once hid my cash in my sock when I knew I was going to drunk tank and the guy was going through my wallet. He asked me where was my money. I told him I threw it out the window of the police car. Back to the story.
I couldn’t believe they took my fucking phone quarters. They let me out in the middle of the night in December. There were two COs getting off work and I tried to beg a couple quarters to use the phone. They just laughed at me. I didn’t bring a jacket or anything, it was warmish when I went to court. By now it’s about 40 degrees. Lucky I guess, back then it got a lot colder a lot more often.
So I start walking. It’s 10 miles. Try to hitchhike for a while then give up. It starts raining. This is the point where I considered laying down in the ditch to die. I realized it would take too long to die and kept on. Nobody walking on the road. This is a state road that runs beside the highway and doesn’t have much on it. I went into a gas station to try to use their phone and they told me to fuck off. I went into a McDonald’s and they let me get a free water. I ended up walking to my girlfriend’s apartment which was about 16 blocks closer than my place. I walked in, climbed into bed and she woke up saying what the fuck why didn’t you call me?
Man, what assholes.
I was at a “know your rights” training thing for protesters and activists, and one of the things that they covered is that a super important and low risk thing way to support a large protest is to have people sort of “on guard” nearby the police station, ready to receive and support someone who was arrested, because the police like to release people at stupid times of night (especially if they’re salty that they don’t have enough evidence to charge you for a crime). In most cases though, (such as yours), there’s no-one to provide this support, and then you’re fucked.
I hadn’t realised how prevalent this spitefulness was until this part of the training , where multiple people shared experiences of this sort. I was already on team ACAB as it was.
I’m glad you made it home safe.
I’m currently reading Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream which is a short story by Stephen King about an innocent person accused of a crime. He had a similar line about “whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
That’s the fun part about that picture above, that is a picture of how they treat an innocent man. He hasn’t been convicted of anything. They never would have had all new oranges like that for him if it wasn’t for the number of cameras they knew would show up.
Exactly, the cops will pull out all the stops to convince you that the accused are criminals and the media happily plays along. Luigi Mangionie has no conviction and as an American is therefore innocent for the time being. The cops don’t want you thinking of this as them parading an innocent man like that. They routinely violate and abuse the accused, and in cases like this they’re trying to ensure that the public, potential jurors, go in with the assumption that he’s the individual who killed Brian Thompson. They treat not guilty verdicts as “criminals going free” rather than “innocence being decided” and they treat jurisprudence as a hindrance to justice rather than a foundation of it.
The cops believe all they see to be guilty by virtue of falling under their gaze. And they get angry you don’t celebrate them for it.
Wait etnies are prison shoes? They are by far my favourite brand of shoes lol
I was buying $25 etnies from Walmart on a walk home from jail wearing the knock off Toms jail shoes.
Hard to tell in the picture but if you zoom in you can see them, the way his toe is lifted makes the bottom look larger(white area) than they really are. (Some would call them bath shoes for jails)
