My take on the Sandra Bland post below

I have read and followed the Sandra Bland case wtih some interest, due to my own personal experience back in April.  I was arrested and taken to a local county jail on a VERY minor charge.  At the time of my arrest, I was living on a ranch, whch had a gate which was padlocked  at ALL times.  The cops proceeded to park their squad cars at the end of the gate and walk about a quarter to a half mile to my residence to arrest me.  I will be 60 in a few months, I am white, and I suffer from several physical ailments.  I was handcuffed with hands behind my back, and made to walk that distance back to the squad car in PITCH blackness!.  When I was put in the squad car, I was SLAMMED into that squad car and injured the area just below my left knee (a large goose type bump ensued and because of my handicap, my left side is my "good side.").  I told the officers that I was in a lot of pain and wanted to be taken to the hospital for meidcal treatment and I was IGNORED.

Upon my arrival at the jail, I was immediately frisked.  A female corrections officer (she is fairly young and I believe relatively new to being a corrections officer). proceeded to frisk me.  In the process of this she took her hand, and tried to "examine my private parts."   I told her no and with my left hand, palm side up, tried to brush her away.  By this time, I was HYSTERICAL  -- first time in jail, etc and was put in a restraining chair.  A male officer (white), who was at the desk, teased me and taunted me to no end and would not even release me to go to the bathroom, when I told him I needed to go.  As a result, I ended up urinating on myself.  I later, because of the fact that THEY (the police said) I STRUCK the officer, was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, was charged with a felony and as a result, I am on 2 years of probation.  Once the the conditions of probation are met, these charges will be dropped.

I ended up spending about 12 hours in a holding cell and was then taken to "general population."  In there, I saw young girls whose teeth were stubs or no teeth at all from the use of meth.  I was in a cell wtih a lady who looked like she was 70, but she was actually 55.  SHE had been jailed because she was raising her teenage grandchildren and they kept skipping school.  She ended up having to serve 90 days in the county jail through really no fault of her own. Another lady who was in the jail with me for drug paraphenalia charges,  had a daughter who underwent heart surgery.  She died at the age of 23 the day AFTER surgery.  Her mother, when she attended her daughter's funeral, was shackled and handcuffed.  She was not allowed to hug or kiss anyone, had to wear her jail jumpsuit and the family had to pay the county $400 for the officers to "escort" her to her own daughter's funeral.  We also had another lady, also in her mid to late 50's, who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time," when a shooting occurred and the person ended up dying a couple of days later.  She was technically a witness/bystander to everything, but was jailed for over a year while court proceedings were going on.

I ended up serving 72 days.  The one upside to my whole experience was in the fact that I was in a small town area, so luckily, I really didn't run into any women who were super bad.   Because of my age as well, I was treated  with a lot of respect as far as the younger inmates that were also serving time wtih me were concerned. When I was first incarcerated, I did contemplate committing suicide, but realized that it would be a very DUMB thing to do.  My experience was TRULY a learning experience, and frankly, I can see the Sandra Bland story from "both sides."  You have never, and I hope you NEVERwill "had to walk in the moccasins" like Ms. Bland and I did.  There are cops out there that have NO business being cops and after my experience, my whole view has changed on a lot of things.