Criminal Injustice

It isn't just happening to black people, although they are certainly taking the brunt of it. Much as occurred in Nazi Germany prior to World War II even white, middle class people are being targeted by the police. I should know. It happened to me.

Three years ago I was accused of a minor misdemeanor (a charge later dismissed) and arrested on the spot. I was handcuffed behind my back, paraded past a terrified wife and daughter, marched past curious neighbors and onlookers, and thrown into the rear of a police car which had hard plastic 'seats' in back with no upholstery. There I was forced to sit on my hands (and those handcuffs) for 90 minutes, until finally booked into the county jail (by contract in another county). That was only the beginning. For starters, if you are ever arrested for any reason, you can forget about the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which has been all but deleted. You will be treated as a criminal until such time as you can prove your innocence, if ever. Police can legally lie to you ("we have testimony from so and so that you did such and such, so you might as well confess" is the most common lie, but basically, in a police state anything goes).

After the lies begins the torture: physical, psychological--again anything goes. In my case, after being stripped and forced to wear a thin cotton jumpsuit, I was then made to sit in a room with hardened criminals for four hours, while the authorities got around to actually booking me in. That jumpsuit serves a dual purpose: it takes away your individuality (and thereby all rights related to individuality). And it is freezing cold. Especially with the AC running full blast (at taxpayer expense) to keep the temperature at 60 degrees. And this was in February.

My wife, a recent immigrant, had no knowledge of where I'd been taken, no ability to reach me or to help in any way, and being stripped of my phone and all other possessions and not allowed access to a phone or any other means of communication except to call a bail bondsman who required a credit card number I had no way of providing, I was forced to sit there for three days and nights, until a lawyer finally found me and got me out.

This, again, for a misdemeanor. And this happened to a middle class white professional. (It was outrage at so much injustice in our society that led me to become a mystery writer in the first place, because only in a novel can a writer assure that justice can and will take place at the end of the day). 

So as to what is happening to people of color in the streets and jails of America today (and has been happening all along for 350 years during most of which they were brutally enslaved) is almost unthinkable. 

Small wonder we don't want to think about it.