Stories from Central Booking

I’ve just finished (another) trip through the Baltimore “Justice” system with the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance. But this isn’t about me. This is about the other people there, about just a few of the ten thousand injustices, harassments, and petty humiliations I saw and heard about during a total of about 29 hours at Baltimore City Central Intake and Booking.
As most of this is hearsay, I’d like to offer a word about why I consider it reliable: People in the cells are honest to each other. Women who had been carrying drugs, or stolen a car, or broken into a house would tell me that. A male member of the Pledge got a pretty good introductory course in drug dealing from a young man in his cell. In the cell, away from the ears of police officers and guards, the prisoners have no need to lie, and typically don’t. Which is why I believe what I heard and believe that other people need to hear it, too.

• A kid was badly beaten by the police, and afterwards they struck a deal; if he didn’t complain about being beaten up, they would cover up the real amount of drugs he’d been carrying. Sitting in jail he was missing a baby shower for his soon-to-be-born twins. And his father’s funeral. (Told to another member of the Pledge of Resistance, who told it to me).

• A woman in my cell was addicted to heroin. After being stoic for some time, her withdrawal symptoms became severe and she asked us to get help. We banged on the cell door and window for a long, long time. A guard was sitting some yards away and could hear us, but nobody ever came. When another officer walked by later, we got her attention and yelled through a door that a woman was sick, in withdrawal, and that she needed medical help. “I’ll tell [inaudible]” the guard muttered, and walked away. Nothing happened. Eventually someone came for her, but to take her to another holding cell, not to the clinic. So much for the signs, plastered all over in English and Spanish, that read something like: “If you have a serious medical problem, tell a guard or correctional officer.”

• A 19-year-old told us that she’d been walking down the street with friends when someone else was arrested on the corner for dealing with drugs. For good measure, the police arrested them too, for being on the same block. She and her friends had been in prison for over a day (in violation of Maryland law) and were finally being released—without charges.

• Another woman in my cell was a paramedic, and was upset because she was missing work. She told us that the day before, she’d gone to visit her sister with her two small children. Her ex-boyfriend lived on the same street, saw her, and came over and assaulted her in front of her kids. She fought her way free and called the police. They came and arrested both of them. Her sister hustled her kids upstairs before the arrest, but her four-year-old ran to the window and saw her being taken to the police car in handcuffs. She was charged with second-degree assault. Also, her charging papers wrongly said she’d been visiting her ex-boyfriend, not her sister, and she was horrified at what her husband would think when he read that.

• The same woman told us that when she’d been 16, she and a friend were sitting on a neighbor’s stoop. A cop came by and told them to move, so they moved to the steps in front of her own home. He left and then came back, pointed to a “No Loitering” sign down the street and demanded that they go over and read it. The two of them refused, because they were at their own home. He arrested both of them. Her friend, whose mother refused to post bail, was in prison for two weeks.

• In the very last cell, where we waited to regain our property prior to release, there was a woman who had been there for hours before we arrived. She told us that when her nephew was arrested, his mother (her sister) had demanded to know why. So they arrested her sister. When she asked why they were arresting her sister, they arrested her as well. She had not been charged, and said she’d been in the final cell for hours before we came. I banged on the door, and asked a guard, when he finally came, to please process her now because she’d been here for so long (They were letting the males go in a steady trickle, after all). The answer was no. We were there for about three hours and she was left when the rest of our names were finally called. Another member of our group, who got out an hour-and-a-half later than us, said she had still been there when she came through, and when she left.

• Another member of the Pledge of Resistance told me about her friend. This woman had been at a bar with a friend of hers, a black man, whom the police were questioning outside. She asked why they were questioning him, and he barked at her to get away. She backed off a bit, but he told her she was still too close, so she went back into the bar to wait. An hour later, they came into the bar and arrested her for interfering.

• While we were waiting in line for our property, I talked to two young black men who had been clubbing with friends the night before. Outside a club, a cop had asked to see their ID’s. When they produced them, he took them away, and then arrested the whole group. They, too, were being released without charges.