Justice is Dead

[I wrote this letter/article to VICE Magazine after picking up an issue on a road trip to Las Vegas. I don't regularly read the publication, but I want them to know their impression this issue left on me.]

November’s issue of VICE was full of many good articles, especially an item on Tommy Chong and the resurgence of cannabis as medicine and healer. I related to the story Jail is Where You Don’t Want to Be in that I have been forced to wear the orange jumpsuit and sit in the freezing cold holding cells, uncertain of my fate, however, it promised an epic of battles in the system, but ultimately disappointed as being about a man’s struggle with his own spirit and alcoholism.

I have been arrested twice: once with violence before the arrest and the other after. What I can do that this article failed to, is point out the tyranny that has become the normative procedure for anyone in a uniform. I didn’t find “Jail” to have a strong thesis or call to action, nor even an illumination of the greater flaws of the ‘justice’ system in America. Cruelty is the standard, and mercy is a miracle. Forget about compassion. I’d like to share my story in response to the distracting non-tome in the last issue, and let you decide what is a more effective statement.

Earlier this year, I was arrested in Roanoke, Texas, at a skatepark in Denton County. My lover and I were California dreaming and I wanted to get out of the giant oil-field that I had resigned myself to calling home (see: disastrous failures on entire length of West Coast) not to mention, the place is a FEMA camp in training (oops, did I say that?). I’d found myself there, making the best of my loose-end life and then was convinced again to uproot, and go chase dreams again in the dreaming-place - cue: Dr. Dre music “California...knows how to charge ya….”

So, because my beau and I are both artists, and fairly newly non-weds, I submitted that I would fully know his commitment if we invested in a tattoo machine together and worked on building a career in ink with one another. So we did. We emphasized this sacrifice by purchasing one with about ¾ of our couple hundred dollars we had left to go to California- a real Grapes of Wrath moment in our lives. “Hey Silas, fire up the jalopy, we’re gonna get some hop ons who will pay our way to Cal-i-for-knee…”

Early in the morning, on the day we decided to get out of our roach-infested insipidness in Euless (“Useless”), we arrived at an empty skatepark in Roanoke in search of an outlet to charge the phones and try out our new device on skin for the first time. My love was nervous and smoked half a bowl to calm himself...then felt paranoid after that so drank a sip of wine, setting it down next to the cooler upon which we sat. [The park had a giant “silly spoon” for skaters to ride- an interesting idea considering the demonization of skaters as users, burnouts or other underlings of the world. Foreshadowing even.]

The morning passed and awkward strokes were made with the machine. I now have a mad patchwork of blues, greens and purples on my elbow that I am happy to be anointed with as my lover’s first tattoo strokes. Families started showing up mid-morning and around 11am I began to feel leery of my choice to stay and continue doing rebel art on myself...as exhilarating as it was. As my lover napped, I continued to stitch a rainbow into a scar on my hand where I’d had reconstructive surgery last year after a longboarding accident. In Cali., I barely finished the last color and my sensors were raging, telling me to GTFO and sure enough, approaching me was a tall man in that ominous blue suit with gold accent over the breast. He seemed to be practicing his most condescending eyebrow position as he did so. “Fuck.” Alarmed, I continued to patronize my own art on myself, going over the various defenses I’d need to employ in the coming conversation.

He stopped feet from me and stood with the cliche externally-rotated-feet-hands-on-hips-general-vigilante-posture that I’m sure many a delinquent can identify and resent. “What are you doing there?” Suddenly I’m in a spaghetti western and trying not to laugh. “Uhm.. I’m healing myself through the art of...art.” Shit. That was supposed to be more slick. Oh well. This man has it in his heart to punish me, and it’s written all over him. He repeated my explanation back to me slowly and surely enough, condescendingly. “Yeah. I had an accident last year and now I’m turning it into a rainbow.” A fleeting glimpse on his face betrayed a look of sympathy and then it was gone. Turning the little-girl-daddy dynamic on its head...hopefully… “I see, well you’re connected to city power there, and that isn’t allowed.” I’m searching his torso for a name and badge number but this guy has it hidden and I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. I will not kowtow to this, I will not.

This man’s psyche turns into the razor that gave him his uniform buzz cut; he won’t be manipulated. People began pausing their activities and I can feel the searing satisfaction of some suburbanite reveling in their anger transference they presume to be justice by calling me in. I remove my cords from the wall. “Ok, I’m not plugged in. Actually I was about to leave.” Packing my trunk with tools, I feel momentary victory which he kills by toeing the bottle next to me. “What’s this, is it alcohol?” “I don’t know, it’s not mine and I haven’t had any.” “Who’s is it? Is it the guy in the red pants over there? Is he with you?” “I don’t know, probably. There’s a cork and I can put it away though too. We’re sharing tools. You can add wine to skin and set ink differently, it’s a technique with this art form.” I’ve really got to try this now. “Ok, there’s a no-open-container policy here, as posted by the sign on the fence.” “Well, that isn’t the way we came in and I didn’t see it, so I’ll cork it and you can consider the peace restored!” I moved to amend my flub, and feel almost as if I’ve got myself out of this one. Coooome oonnnn.

“Hold on ma’am, stay seated. I’ll need to get your information.” I am standing, telling him as I’m trying to gather my things to leave quickly and hopefully avoid citation. I hadn’t considered that I might be arrested. He gets all the letters and numbers in the right order and I am told more forcefully to be seated. I look for something which to write.

“What is your name and badge number, please?”

“SIT DOWN.”

“I AM ENTITLED TO YOUR INFORMATION AS A CITIZEN AND I’M NOT SITTING DOWN UNTIL YOU GIVE ME YOUR NAME AND BADGE NUMBER. YOU HAVE NOT READ ME ANY RIGHTS AND YOU HAVE NOT DETAINED ME.”

“My name is Officer Moody, badge number 159.”

I finished writing down what I’d heard and...

At that moment, a stereotypical fatcat donut copper came around the side of the building and grabbed my wrist- as I said, no detainment nor Miranda rights had been read and this just came out of blessed nowhere. In fact, I’d been proactively compliant by the book. But I will not be told to sit down and stand up like a fucking prisoner of war. I pictured myself in a FEMA camp, being told these orders and wondered if I’d take it if that was the situation. They can kill me first.

My compliance was not accounted for by these pigs- not pigs because they’re cops, they’re just shitty people- and the second man who’d been hidden from sight until now, must have activated some vestigial self-defense training because I didn’t see these men as protectors, but capricious power-trippers, acting predatory toward a person sitting quietly doing art. Maybe a couple things were out of place, but that’s the extent of the transgression.

I remembered that the thumb can hold far less weight in a grip than the other four fingers, and twisted my arm around, pulling downward sharply then plyometrically upward. I broke the cop’s hold.

Remember this move. Practice it. Use it.

I’d never had the thrill of doing this in any real-life situation and the adrenaline of successfully pulling it off against a 200+ lb officer gave me a supernatural surge unlike anything ever. He was surprised too, and I was fucking ecstatic to see his quivering jowls in utter shock at my nerve and ability to defy him. Fuck him. And now, we have, without any kind of real issue, a scuffle and an escaping arrestee.

By the time we all recovered, I knew I wouldn’t win this battle but at least I could make some noise, may be tazed, and some police brutality awareness. The sad reality is that the noise being made over a white blonde lady getting beaten up by the cops would create a greater media stir than man many darker people. Look at Standing Rock. But I was terrified of these men. They could crush me, and they knew it. This also protected me- they wouldn’t want to deal with the paperwork of causing me serious bodily harm over something so stupid. Would they? They grabbed at my wrists a few more times and I used my escape trick which got tricky when they both grabbed me at the same time. I managed-surprising myself even- to flail free multiple times and the scene went from 0-scuffle...and my small demand for rights in a situation when I happily complied turned into apparent utter defiance.

One might say to me, “Well, you should have just sat down and obeyed,” “Well, you’re asking for it by being confrontational,” Well I say, “What about the children watching and learning how to respond to ‘authority figures’? There’s already enough brainwashing, and discouragement from questioning and that needs to be encouraged for the strength of our species to continue.” I observed a marked lack of compassion and humanity upon first glance of these men, so I made a scene. Because they wanted a scene. They wanted somebody to arrest, a scapegoat for their own frustration. Moments before they carried me away from the park to the rover by my extremities, I addressed the concerned crowd, some of whom were filming the whole scene, “ DID I HURT ANY OF YOU?! DID I CAUSE PHYSICAL HARM TO ANYBODY HERE?!” Many kids boldly yelled, “NO!” And finally, one Latina woman yelled and pointed her finger, “YOU HAVE NEEDLES AND MY KIDS COULD HAVE BEEN HURT OR TOUCHED BLOOD!” I immediately retorted somewhat desperately, “WELL THEN COME TALK TO ME! WHERE IS YOUR SENSE OF COMMUNITY!? YOU THINK THIS IS BETTER FOR YOUR CHILDREN???” She was quiet and hopefully disquieted.

They managed to contain me without committing serious brutality, although when being transferred from Roanoke to Denton, the officer maliciously cuffed me too tight and I still have scars and occasional numbness in my wrists.

I was thrown in the back of their rover at the park, but the struggle didn’t end. It occurred to me while I weighed what I was about to say, and I WAS going to say something and not go quietly, this was not unlike the struggles that most brown people have to fight every day. I knew by listening to myself earlier I would have avoided all this...and also not have learned what I had to make my life what it is now (awesome). I brooded for half a second, letting the reality sink in before addressing Off. Moody: “Why did you become a cop?”

He perked his ears at the change of attitude, probably expecting something more vicious, as the script would have it. Fuck that, I’m a matrix-breaker.

“I guess I wanted to help people.”

Pause.

“Who are you helping right now by doing this?”

A bigger pause.

“I guess I don’t really know.” There it is. The chink in the armor.

“You wanted to help people but all you’ve succeeded in doing is put on a uniform every day and take orders from the top down like a drone or a slave. I have humanity, art, passion, freedom; you have no humanity and wanted to arrest me the minute you saw me...No matter what I did. I build bridges, have conversations, make connections; you see me as a number and a dollar sign for your almighty empire. You’re not helping anyone. You’re not even helping yourself, you’re just hurt and you don’t want to do anything constructive about it. Just punish people. You just want to punish people because they chose freedom, because they cared to inquire about the mystery of life while you just want to stuff it down and make it suffer. I’m sad for you. My heart breaks for you. It’s a shame, because if you’d had a little more respect, we could have even been friends but you chose the boot.”

Well, we’re not friends and they double-dipped my charge, trying to put me away on ‘resisting arrest’- hello? Wasn’t that what the citation I signed is for?- and ‘search and seizure of a vehicle’ which even my arraignment judge thought was grade A BS; he dropped my bail by $3500. They never notified me of my hearing, and I got a call saying that there was a warrant for my arrest. I wasn’t able to get a public defender and now I have two warrants in Texas but I’ll take it any day over bending over and taking it from a boy in blue.

Oh, and they spilled my tattoo ink, too.