What would we say if these things happened in another country?
Arrested for dancing in a subway station:
“We were doing the Charleston,” Stern said. That’s when two police officers approached and pulled a “Footloose.”
“They said, ‘What are you doing?’ and we said, ‘We’re dancing,’ ” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You can’t do that on the platform.’ ”
The cops asked for ID, but when Stern could only produce a credit card, the officers ordered the couple to go with them — even though the credit card had the dentist’s picture and signature.
This one made the rounds but didn’t get the attention it deserves, Innocent woman spends 53 days in jail:
From Aug. 21 until Oct. 12, Teresa Culpepper was locked in the Fulton County Jail.
And all that time she insisted she was not the woman police wanted for throwing hot water on Angelo Boyd — a man she had never met, a man who said he had never met her either.
Read the story for the unfortunate set of mistaken police assumptions that defied the evidence and kept her locked in jail. But what’s all the more upsetting is what happened when the mistakes were discovered:
The felony charge was dismissed and then the judge appologized to Culpepper. “We’ll get you out as soon as possible today,” Fulton Judge Henry Newkirk said Oct. 6.
Still Culpepper was held in jail another week because the misdemeanor assault charge was not dismissed at the same time as the felony aggravated battery charge and jail officials would not release her with any charges remaining.
Culpepper was released from jail on Oct. 12 to find she had been evicted, all her belongings stolen and her truck sold for parts to cover the towing company’s costs. Culpepper had to repay the federal government the $1,000 disability payment for her medical condition that was deposited in her account while she was in jail; the law does not allow for disability payments to be made to anyone in jail even if they have not yet been convicted of committing a crime.
That from a justice system?