I become sad and angry when I read stories like the diary posted today,
However, my sympathy for someone who openly breaks the law, even an evil law, is not that great. Do the crime, you do the time. (Of course, the charges should be reduced to represent the reality of the crime in that case.)
The bulk of my anger at the Drug War is focused on the innocents caught in the middle who have commited no crimes. Here is a story of what happened to one such innocent.
This is a true story. Details have been changed to protect the guy, who -- though he looks tough -- is actually a nice, normal, mild-mannered guy just trying to get along with everyone else in the world. As a result of events in recent months, he has grave doubts about his freedoms in the U.S. and wonders if it wouldn't be better to move elsewhere -- to some country where people are treated with courtesy, respect and dignity by their government. Our guy also very much wants to make a complaint to someone who will listen to him and not brush him off, and any suggestions are welcome.
Our guy's first bad experience with the law was being sent to jail by mistake in divorce court -- both to his dismay and his soon-to-be-ex-wife's dismay (both of them just want a divorce, and neither one of them is into nuclear war).
The judge mistakenly thought our guy had failed to comply with a discovery order, when in fact no discovery order had been entered. His attorney stood her ground, hung out with him in the cell (because he was understandably really shook) and the judge rescinded the order after 45 minutes -- when the courtroom was empty so that none of the onlookers were aware of the judge's mistake.
Our guy did real hard-work business with his dad for many years in neighborhoods that might be called either questionable or bad. We don't want to tell you the business, because that would reveal identifying detail, but it was a sane, normal, service-oriented business that the people in the neighborhoods needed. Because of the particular neighborhoods where he was working, our guy made sure to address self-defense issues in a variety of ways.
Our guy owns a property rented to a shop owner. One day, the shop owner's wife called him, said there was a problem, and could he come see her? He said, "Sure." He drove over to the shop. The shop owner's wife came out, got in his treasured new car, and advised that her husband had been arrested by the feds on drug charges. Bail was half a million bucks. Our guy doesn't know from drug charges, but bail of half a million dollars sounded very heavy duty, very serious.
He commiserated with the wife and with himself. It sounded pretty certain that the rent due wasn't going to be paid. With that, 20 federal agents, four state cops and two drug dogs surrounded his new car.
"Get the FUCK out of the car!"
He started to get out of the car, but he wasn't given the opportunity to follow through voluntarily. Multiple hands dragged him out.
"Do you have a weapon?"
"Uh, I'm licensed..."
"Shut the FUCK up!"
Questions were hammered out from there, peppered with "FUCK," and "SHUT UP" and no time to answer.
"Where did you get the car?"
"Uh..."
"Shut the FUCK up!"
"Did you pay cash?"
"Uh.."
"You paid cash, didn't you?"
"Uh, no..."
"You paid cash, asshole!"
"No. Check. It was a check..."
"Checks are CASH, ASSHOLE!"
He was slammed up against the car, socked in the balls, speechless for an understandable period of time. He was denied the right to call anyone for the "safety" of the agents. He was held for hours, incommunicado. When he got antsy and complained, he was surrounded by the agents, closing up on him in a circle.
The federal agents eyed the car. They liked his new car; they wanted his new car. They eyed his real estate. They wanted his real estate.
Oddly enough, the owner's wife wasn't frisked, and she was allowed to talk on the phone. Oddly enough, her husband had been arrested five days ago, leaving any variety of people with plenty of time to clean out the shop.
Guess what? If the agents hadn't fucking interrupted, they would have heard our nice guy's admission that he was, actually, in fact, carrying a weapon -- as he was accustomed to doing as a result of doing business in questionable neighborhoods. They had a lot of fun slamming him in the balls. They had a lot of fun interrupting him with FUCK this and FUCK that. In all their juvenile, junior-high-school, fuck-you fun -- they -- uh -- actually failed and neglected to do a competent frisk.
For five hours, our nice guy listened to these wholesome, upstanding employees of the U.S. federal government using foul language. He put up with their physical attacks. He put up with their attempts at intimidation. Since he is neither a drug addict nor a drug salesperson, he helped them with the search of his car and his property.
Our nice guy had a weapon the whole time. He still has it. They didn't find it. They didn't give him the chance to admit it had it.
Good work, DEA. Next time, your victim might be a loser drug addict/salesperson who will shoot you when you fail to find his gun. But, hey, whatever. FUCK it, you know?.
That is the type of story that really scares me. Is it still America when you can be held for 5 hours for no reason at all while being verbaly abused and refused contact with a lawyer?
This isn't about drugs for the cops, it's about the money they could have seized from an innocent person.
While this goes on, murderers and rapists run free and terrorists are left unwatched. Guess they don't have any cool cars to seize.
