Re: [BaadAssGremlins] thrown in jail.............

[Ed Veneck <edveneck@xxxx>]

Eddie
I think that you need to forward this on to your State
Legislator's and any of the other elect officials that
represent you. 
Best of luck my friend
Ed Veneck 
--- Eddie Stakes <eddiestakes@xxxx>
wrote:
> Tuesday March 16th 2004 started out like any other
> nice spring day in
> Houston, got up, fed
> kids, watched part of Telletubbies and then headed
> for the bank and to
> warehouse in my 82 Eagle wagon. I stopped at a newer
> Dollar Store on
> Westheimer to see what they had, as many times you
> hit the new ones and they
> have stuff others don't have.
> I was headed north on Wilcrest and had just passed
> my old workplace, Nick's,
> at the corner of Briar Forest when a Harris County
> Constable pulled in
> behind me and flashed his lights. So I pulled over
> into the center section,
> then into the Gallery Furniture Westside Tennis area
> where the Rockets
> practice, as it is a huge lot off the street. What
> happened next is simply
> unbelieveable, and if hadn't happened to me, I still
> would have a hard time
> believing this.
> 
> It was the worst 33 hours of my life.
> 
> The constable asked for registration and license,
> and I gave them both to
> him. He said "you have a illegal inspection sticker
> on your car" to which I
> told him "that has been on there for awhile sir" and
> he said "it is no good"
> as he walked off. It had never occured to me to look
> really close at this
> sticker and I would not know a difference between a
> year, or model, or color
> anyhows. He came back a few minutes later and said
> "the DA said I have to
> charge you" and I said, "with what?"
> He said "a illegal sticker". Suddenly this beautiful
> sunny morning, 71
> degrees, light wind, trees swaying, was not so
> beautiful anymore. My mind
> was racing as I thought about my options, running
> was not one, when was
> the last time you have seen a television station
> break in on a high speed
> chase
> with a AMC 4X4 Eagle. He said 'I'll have to tow your
> car, or do you
> have someone that can come pick it up?' I said, let
> me call my wife from
> your cell phone and I quickly explained to Paige
> that "I was going downtown"
> not really believing it myself as I said it. She was
> incredulous, asking
> what the hell for,
> as I've never been in trouble in the 16+ years we
> have been together. At
> that time, a friend of mine,
> Joe who works at Gallery Furniture drove up and he
> knew the cop and said hi,
> he also knew me and asked what I was doing, and I
> told him the cop was going
> to arrest me for a bad sticker. I noticed Joe had a
> expired sticker on his
> car too and his two small boys were in it. I asked
> him to sign for my car,
> Paige would come pick it up later, which he did.
> 
> As I was read my rights and handcuffed, I still
> could not believe what was
> transpiring. It almost seemed like a bad, slow
> motion dream. Sitting in the
> back seat of the constable car was only a minor
> inconvienence compared to
> what the hours ahead would hold. As we drove down
> I-10, every bump the cuffs
> seemed to get tighter. I for some reason, thought
> the cop would stop
> somewhere and drop me off and say it was all a
> mistake. No such doing.
> 
> As we pulled into Riesner Street I thought about my
> kids and Paige. Also
> thought about the laws and how some are enforced,
> and others are not. I
> thought about stupid things like how Enron had
> destroyed thousands of lives
> and dreams, for instance. Most of them can afford
> the laywers to get them
> off, like a big 'get out of jail card' I guess. As I
> crawled out of the car
> backwards, the officer
> headed me towards the booking back door in the
> basement. I was patted down,
> searched, and told to go to a cage. One cop was
> having a hell of a game on
> Solitaire, while others went thru the motions. A big
> box of Krispy Kreams
> sat on a desk. Figures. In the holding cell there
> was
> a small bag pushed up under a chair, looks like
> white substance. There was
> another bag but empty. These were drugs that the
> cops had not found in the
> original pat down of whoever it was that had them.
> Several passed out
> hispanic men quietly slept,
> possible illegals. Near the cop cage there was a
> small crack pipe on the
> floor. A cop picked it up and asked everyone whose
> it was, then told
> everyone that is what is destroying America. Maybe
> it is, but my view was
> different today, it was a infraction that in many
> places would have
> garnished a ticket. After a whopping 5 1/2 hours
> there, I had been booked,
> fingerprinted, and photographed. Charged with a
> misdemeanor.
> 
> So upstairs we all went, but not before first having
> to take off boots,
> belts, and empty pockets, frisked again, then up the
> elevator to the 6-7th
> floors. In another holding cell, there was usually
> about 20-30 people
> sitting, milling about. The air was extremely dry
> and it was cold in there
> too, seems people like to spit on walls and ceilings
> when in jail. And then
> it is painted over.
> 
> There was four phones on the wall for calls out, the
> huge problem is that
> they are only collect calls you can make. And just
> about everyone has
> 'blocks' on their phones, including cell phones. I
> tried to call Paige.
> blocked, I didn't ever know my phone lines were
> blocked until that moment.
> Tried to call brother Tommy in Corpus Christi.
> Blocked. So I started
> thinking about other numbers and who I could call to
> get word to Paige to go
> post my bond. But Paige had already got the ball
> rolling, calling friends to
> find out what she could do, and she loaded up the
> kids in the Ambassador and
> headed downtown to a Bail Bonding company, of which
> they are as common
> downtown as taco stands. My bond was $500, so bail
> would be $150. She just
> missed the cutoff period so it looks like a long
> night in city.
> 
> If I wasn't so used to the smell of urine with two
> small boys I would have
> puked a few times over. The cells, all of them,
> reeked of urine, and there
> of course was no toilet paper, I had long since
> forgotten how a roll of
> toilet paper makes a great pillow in jail. So if you
> had to shit, you would
> have to borrow someone's pillow. Hmmm...WWMD? (what
> would martha do?) Dinner
> consisted of a piece of
> bologna on two dry pieces of bread with a squirt of
> mustard in there, a
> peanut butter cookie and a small 1/2 pint of fruit
> juice. I slowly ate the
> sandwich, thinking of when the last time I HAD a
> bolonga sandwich. I believe
> it was 1968, in my Batman & Robin lunch box, and no
> one at school wanted to
> trade with me, so I left the poor sandwich in the
> box, and then forgot my
> box on the Saxet Heights (Saxet is texas backwards
> ya'll) bus home from
> school, but we lived a mile from the terminal and
> went to pick it up and the guys laughed 'you must
> have been real hungry
> today!' still remember that as my dad, asked me what
> they meant, but he
> could smell the now warm and mushy sandwich on the
> way home in the car and
> advised me to throw it out or mom would get mad;
> which she would. Yes, 1968
> was the last time I had a bolonga sandwich. This
> time however I would eat
> it, no Batman and Robin lunchbox to put it in and
> well, seemed like I was
> not going anywheres.
> The peanut butter cookie was good and a black fellow
> I had been talking to
> gave me his. I should have not drank the fruit
> punch, and probably shuold
> have not ate the cookies, as I could literally feel
> my kidneys swelling up
> laying on the metal bench, then later the hard
> cement floor.
> 
> During the night sometime they called five of us out
> for what is called a
> 'free trial' where they ask you questions, there is
> a tiny nasty room, a
> heavily fortified window and a phone where you talk
> to the other person ont
> he other side, who is asking questions to determine
> whether you are a risk I
> guess. I signed a personal recognizance bond, and
> the lady said 'you will
> probably be out soon' but then realized she had said
> that to the crackhead
> kid next to me who was in for the second time this
> month. The women behind
> the thick glass were obviously well paid city
> employees and took their time,
> talking about the NCAA tournament to someone's new
> hairdo down in homicide,
> it was over a 30 minute talk. One fellow in our
> group got impatient and
> knocked on the window and one lady bluntly told him
> 'who are you and what is
> your name?' and he slinked back in his chair like a
> kid scolded. Good to see
> they were paid well to waste taxpayers money. It was
> great to hear their
> conversation
> about jeri curl, Kentucky being the #1 seed, and
> their reverend moving to
> Louisiana.
> 
> We were headed back to the cell, then headed to the
> bunks, I was in #3, four
> to a cell, at least these had a small blanket and a
> thin rubber mat. Without
> thinking I ended up on lower right, and well, right
> near the toilet, at
> least I had gotten used to the smell, but splashing
> might be a problem in
> the night. The gnats were really bad, they seemed to
> breed by the hour.
> These are
> the little annoying gnats you find in bars,
> restaurants and places like
> that, they are
> really bad in this part of the country months of the
> year, mostly summer
> months,
> but these bad azz gnats had colors/jackets, so were
> probably in the Mexican
> Syndicate or Aryan Nations gangs. I decided to let
> them breed and if they
> were
> hungry, there were plenty of dried soemthing or
> another on the wall and
> toilet and in
> the sink they could buffet out on.
> There was no way to tell now if it was day or night
> outside and the lights
> would sat on all night anyhows in the cell. Every
> now and then you would
> hear keys jingling, then the slow rumble of a iron
> door, then the cell doors
> would open and names would be called, possibly by
> some who had made bail, or
> were headed to the judge at all hours of the morning
> I was told. It went on
> for a eternity. Sadly I thought about all those sad,
> long faces at the
> Special Pals Houston adoption center when I went
> there a few months ago, all
> those poor dogs and cats looking at you, just
> hoping, praying, YOU are the
> one to pick them up and give them a home. I watched
> their faces every time
> the door opened, some would jump and stand at the
> cage putting on their
> biggest smile. Others would sit and quietly, almost
> sheepishly, wag their
> tails, for some reason not having enough confidence
> in themselves to make
> eye contact with a potential new owner. Yes others
> had given up and slept,
> knowing I guess that they would be facing the needle
> in a few days anyhows
> and had resigned themselves to their fate that no
> one wanted them. That is
> how I felt in jail, every time the metal doors
> slammed open or shut, you
> only hoped they would call your last name. And you
> could go home?
> 
> Breakfast was served at 5:30am, and either you eat
> it or don't. I had never
> ate uncooked grits before, it is a aquired taste. A
> spoon full of cold
> scrambled eggs with some dots in them, at this point
> I was not going to be
> picky and could care less whether it was a piece of
> some sort of
> unidentifiable meat, or possibly larvae. A cold
> bisquit and another of those
> little juice drinks, and a orange. I traded my drink
> for another orange,
> which I hid under my armpits to take back to my cell
> for later. I would
> later give it to the nice Mexican fellow above me,
> as we talked about
> sports, life, charges, cars. He was in for assualt.
> Seems he had beat his
> wife senseless, not a good thing. He said if he got
> out he would go to
> Mexico.
> 
> I have never heard the "N" word used so much in my
> life. I never knew it
> could be used as a noun, verb, adjective, pronoun,
> all in one sentence. One
> black guy must have said it 20 times in one
> paragraph, and over the phone.
> He was still $400 short of the bond however so he
> was agitated that his
> homies would not come thru for him...again. He
> called his mother who cried,
> as he told her to quit crying and come get me out
> again. At least he didn't
> call her a ho. I was surprised to
> hear in some conversations what some of the people
> in the cell were looking
> at. One guy had 3 DWI's. Another was looking at
> involuntary manslaughter.
> Another was busted with '2 dimes and 3 nickle' bags,
> while another said 'he
> had a whole pocket of rock when popped'. And yet
> when you looked around, you
> could tell those who were in deep trouble and those
> who seemed to think it
> was just another day and no big deal. There were a
> number of people in the
> holding cell upstairs who actually were making fun
> or their plight. Either
> that or they had been there before and only knew it
> was a matter of time
> before they were back out on the streets again to do
> whatever it was that
> got them in there to begin with. How unusual for
> some it was all funa nd
> games like being at Astroworld.
> 
> They called about ten of us out, it was almost
> 4:00pm. For a moment I
> thought my luck was changing and had talked to a few
> hispanic fellows who
> were smart enough to have written number of
> attorneys and friends on their
> arms before getting arrested. I memorized a attorney
> number. Would do me no
> good, collect call block again. We were taken down
> the elevator to where all
> our belongings had originally been taken, and put in
> another cell. At this
> point I realized it was late afternoon and I had
> been in there now 28-29
> hours. And options were limited, as I had no one to
> call. I thought about
> AMC vendor friends whose numbers I know. Andre
> Jacobs in San Antonio.
> BLOCKED. Jeff Kennedy in Ohio. No Answer. Dave Simon
> in California. BLOCKED.
> And then on a last ditch effort, I called the club
> where I worked over a
> year ago, Nick's, as I remember I had taken a
> collect call from a regular
> who had gotten pulled over one night. Luckily Susan
> the bartender took the
> collect call and I told her: "Susan. Eddie. I'm in
> city. They are fixing to
> take us to County. Call Paige, tell her I love her
> and the kids and to call
> a bondsman, any bondsman, get some of my credit card
> slips out of my office
> if she has to use those numbers for bond." She said
> that Paige had already
> called and talked to a number of people about the
> situation and what to do
> and she had posted bail for me at 1:30pm. But that
> was AFTER the cutoff
> time. So I told her I will try to call again when at
> county jail.
> 
> When the lady cops brought out the chains, I knew
> this was suddenly going
> from bad...to worse. We were chained together at the
> wrists, and led down a
> corridor to a waiting van outside. Several of the
> fellows were flirting with
> the HPD cop, I guess she was used to it, and was
> attractive, but not the
> place to pick up chicks, especially with one arm
> handcuffed to 11 other men.
> You won't be thinking about picking up anything if
> you get to the 7th-8th
> floor of Harris County Jail, as someone will pick
> YOU up.
> A short drive to county jail and the big red, Harris
> County Jail loomed. I
> had heard all the stories. Seen the red down ramp at
> the back. Never had
> seen that inside and never want to again. You go
> thru a series of doors and
> several of the handcuffed who had been there before
> said sternly that at
> county, they take no shit. You would quickly learn
> that too. There was over
> a dozen women in a hall, getting stripped for search
> and one Sherriff told
> us to look away or get slapped, of which everyone
> looked dead ahead. Take
> off shoes, shirt, and turn around, unbutton upper
> button, fall towards wall,
> then refrisked. Turn around. Keep hands at sides.
> There was a small mini-me
> cop could not have been 5 feet tall, who would get
> in everyone's face. I
> accidentally scratched my nose and he told me
> quickly that if I had a itch,
> then I have to ask, which I said 'yes sir'. On young
> kid about 21 who was 3
> people down from me kept trying to pull up his
> pants. They warned him twice
> then the little cop said 'we got a problem with this
> ni**er here. to which
> the big black cop came over and said, 'turn around'
> they cuffed him and then
> pushed him to the floor face first. The rest of us
> in line didn't look
> except straigh ahead. Rights? Give me a break.
> 
> I'm sure there are many jails like this in the US,
> big city jails, and
> possibly even smaller ones where you have to follow
> by the rules. It was a
> bit of a culture shock however to see. Not that I
> will defend anyone who
> disobeyed a order a cop had given, we had been
> warned in the van and chain
> gang by 'veterans' to yes sir, no sir everything.
> Period. Or you would never
> see the light of another day in Houston. This is how
> they simply treat you
> in County Jail.
> 
> Into another cell about a dozen of us were herded. I
> was told by two this is
> a good thing as Martha Stewart might be soon saying
> in my place. But this
> area was a sort of pre-release area. It meant that
> someone had posted our
> bail. We were herded past a wall of prostitutes who
> looked all of us over.
> Maybe we would see them again out on the street and
> qualify for some sort of
> discount since we seemed to now know them by many of
> their glares. Ironic
> that the world's oldest profession still attracts
> teenagers to old women
> past their prime look. About five of the women in a
> row looked like a Willie
> Nelson concert, three front teeth between all of
> them. Two of us
> were called out from this other cell, which was the
> only cell in now going
> on 31 hours with no gnats; this cell had only one
> phone that worked, but no
> urine smell, and no chunks of dried vomit and spit
> trails on the wall. One
> black fellow said, you are one cell from leaving.
> The two of us were herded
> into a room that the sign now said 'pre release' and
> inside, we gave each
> other high fives, and high fives with the other
> three inmates in there.
> But we also knew it would be hours, as release times
> were 6, 8, 10 and
> midnight. One old black man was going home to
> Pasadena, but would have to
> serve weekends in jail there for a month, and to him
> it was a cinch. A young
> white fellow had all the answers and was adamant he
> was going back to the
> Kohl's department store to "get" the manager who had
> busted him for stealing
> a pair of $50 shoes. And a young Mexican fellow,
> only 17, was there for
> smoking weed in front of a pool hall. Only 5 of us
> at the moment, but we
> knew we would be awhile and the cell would fill up
> with almost 70 others
> soon. The old man gave a lesson to the young boy,
> telling him that he better
> straighten up his shit now, or he would be on the
> 7th floor one day. And
> there would be no one to help him, and no one to
> hear him scream when a hand
> is over his mouth and he is being held down and
> raped by those inmates who
> are in for 20, 30 years who think he is pretty with
> that haircut. The young
> boy seemed to think that he had heard it all before
> and rolled his eyes. The
> old man said, 'listen here punk, I don't care who
> you know on the outside
> and who your friends are but up there, you will be
> walking around holding
> someone's belt as you WILL be their lady full time'.
> That got his attention.
> Then he turned to the young white guy with tattoos.
> He asked why he wanted
> to go get the manager who was only doing his job in
> preventing the kid from
> stealing $50 worth of shoes. The kid said 'the guy
> was a 22 year old punk
> manager and I told him I would GIVE him $100 to let
> me go' of which he would
> not take it. He had a chance to make $50 for
> nothing'. To which the old man
> replied ' it is not his job to get paid to make
> money off theives, it is his
> job to manage the store and stop theives'. That talk
> was wasted on the young
> white guy it seemed. I simply listened and told the
> Mexican fellow that the
> guy is right, if you are going to smoke weed then
> don't stand in front of a
> pool hall or anywhere to try to make a statement.
> None of your friends are
> here, you were the only one to get caught. He nodded
> and said he will really
> try to turn his life around. I told him look in his
> mother's eyes when he
> gets home.
> 
> Wished my mother, Sara Maria DeAlcala was still
> alive, but she passed away
> in 1988. I thought of the times she bailed me out as
> a teenager for stealing
> CB radios in the 70s, cars, smoking weed, finally
> straightened up in the
> late 70s however, maybe that tortilla rolling pin to
> my head worked.
> 
> In the release area, we were handed back our
> possessions taken a day
> earlier. And the heavy sliding door with the sign
> behind it said 'bank/left'
> and 'exit/right'. The bank is a in house bank as
> they don't give you your
> cash back, they give you a check, and yes, you have
> to put your fingerprints
> on that also, then you can cash it on your way out
> or deposit it in your own
> bank later. I cashed one of them for cab fare,
> realizing I had now been in
> 'the system' for a minor infraction, for a
> staggering 32-33 hours.
> 
> I walked down the stairs of the Harris County
> Courthouse and a door opened
> to the famous red ramp, as seen on tv when the
> county released hundreds for
> overcrowding, it leads to, well, the street. There
> was a taco truck near the
> gate, and a light wind blowing, about 74 degrees.
> Downtown Houston, Texas,
> 4th largest city in the US. It was now St. Patrick's
> Day, at night. A few
> blocks over you could hear the celebrations from
> pubs, and restaurants, the
> new shiny Metrorail train whistle added a sombering
> effect to the night. Two
> guys quickly walked towards me with cell phones in
> hand 'hey buddy, you need
> to make a call anywhere in the US only $1.00?' I
> politely declined but
> thought how much money they must make nightly doing
> that. A
> Yellow Cab driver waved me over, asking if I needed
> a ride. Yes I did.
> Anywhere. He cranked up the meter and we headed down
> I-10 for a $30 cab
> fare. I still could not believe I had been picked up
> and jailed for such a
> extended period of time. There are daily
> carjackings, armed robberies at
> banks in Houston are a weekly occurance, and judging
> by the amount of crack
> cocaine on the streets and well, in the HPD holding
> cells where it was not
> found by a patdown, there just seems to be so many
> more important crime
> issues facing our city.
> 
> I was not in the right. What had happened with my
> car was I had several
> gypsies that cruise neighborhoods searching for the
> latest scam stop by and
> offer to change my cracked windshield for $125
> awhile back. I thought this
> was a great deal and said sure, and they came back
> that afternoon and
> changed it out, put the sealer and chrome back on,
> and I gave them the
> money. I didn't know that they had also changed my
> inspection sticker, but
> had left my license sticker alone, simply scraping
> it off and supergluing it
> on the new glass, but my old inspection sticker was
> changed out. The charge
> on the bond sheet is 'misdemeanor/inspt/stkr' I go
> to court 8:00am Tuesday
> to find out my fate and not sure what to plead as
> the judge would laugh at
> my story anyhows, but several people have told me to
> plead not guilty and
> ask for a jury trial and then postpone it. Over and
> over and over.
> Eventually they will drop it. Yet another said that
> my extensive time served
> would be the fine. I would like to get all this
> behind me and move on, but I
> have a spotless driving record going back to the
> year AMC last used a V8 in
> their production vehicles: 1979. That is right, no
> tickets, nothing. Well, I
> had one but it was dismissed for you guessed it, a
> inspection sticker that
> had expired.
> 
> In the meantime, I have thought about all those
> police officers who have
> died in the line of duty, and those that risk their
> necks daily on the
> street for others to have a safe place to live,
> work, play. I am extremely
> bitter and somewhat angry at the whole situation and
> think also about all
> the many benefits and chartities I have volunteered
> in thru the years,
> BBQing for a day and so forth to raise money for a
> cop's family after he was
> killed or donating blood when a officer is down. My
> father was a captain
> before he got involved with American Motors, so
> there is a link. However
> there is also a real fine line of those who abuse
> their power of the badge
> also. I feel this was my case. Everyone laughed when
> I told them I was in
> jail for a inspection sticker. The gang banger with
> cryptic writing on his
> chest and hands wrapped in plastic, the guys who
> proudly wear their 'North
> Side' shirts in jail like attending a concert, even
> the triple DWI guy
> laughed, so did the crack seller who was only 21 and
> said he would have to
> sell more crack to pay these people back who were
> bailing him out, my crime
> did not fit the punishment. So it will probably be a
> very long time before I
> ever volunteer any police benefit again, or donate
> to the 100 Club, or give
> blood. Angry? Still. A few days later. This could of
> and should of, been
> handled differently from the beginning. If I would
> have know I had a gypsy
> inspection sticker on my car I would have went and
> had it reinspected for
> $40 it is no big deal. I did find out that the bogus
> inspection stickers are
> a big problem since inspecting a car went to $40 a
> few years ago, there is a
> small little bar code tag on each, and the bogus
> ones, although you can't
> tell them from real ones, the number on the bottom
> is same. For different
> years. There to me at least, are a whole city of
> things more
> important than something like this. I realize you
> have to start somewhere
> too, but when you consider what all is on the
> streets of Houston at any
> given time from stolen vehicles, drunks, illegal
> immigrants, chronic
> speeding and stop light running and school zone
> speeding, I just believe
> this was trivial and could have been handled
> differently like a ticket, or
> warning, but not 33 hours in the city and county
> jails.
> Eddie Stakes
> 
> 
> 


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