My cell mates ranged in intellect from retarded and/or uneducated some had little formal education but lots of �street smarts� and they were very cunning- to the educated and smart. Many had a good grasp of the law especially as it related to their particular �career choice.� The legal advice was abundant, worthwhile and �free.�

There were a couple �street people� in there, one charged with urinating in public. I ask you, where does a street person urinate except in public? Maybe they would let him in to use the bathroom at �The Mansion� on Delaware or he might try the Hyatt or Adams Mark hotels. More were in on various drug related charges from possession of marijuana to dealing in cocaine and crack. One of the two �big black teddy bears� was there for �lottering� as he referred to the charge.

There were also a couple others there on DWI�s, but they were quickly sprung by their high priced lawyers and didn�t experience �a night in hell.� Now here is a novel idea; have the DWI�s and some of the other �white collar criminals their on possession charges� spend the night in that kind of �whole� with the �animals who supply their habits.� A night there might deter some from going out and drinking and driving or using again so quickly.

Here I am with what some would call �the scum of the earth.� The �they� so often referred to by whites as the destroyers of youth because they sell drugs to the young and not so young. Realistically �they� are supplying a market 90% white middle and upper class. As for the young people; I ask you who are their models? But who do we see regularly in jail, not the rich but � The Marys.�

There were three criminals who kept things under control and at the same time lifted the spirits of the others, including myself. The �two big black teddy bears� and the �preacher�s boy� kept a very lively and somewhat enjoyable dialogue going well into the night. They carried on like they were back in �the hood;� on the street corner laughing, joking, and even yelling if the spirit moved them. They were not being inconsiderate; they were just blacks, back in the neighborhood doin� what they do and acting like they act. Being inconsiderate, mean and nasty was the exclusive domain of the people on the other side of the glass (bars if you will).

After hours in the booking room, we were finally moved to the cell where we would be spending the night. The thirty two of us got our belongings and carried them to the cell block. In my bag were the slippers I came in with but was not allowed to wear.

My concern about being granted �special� treatment, perhaps at the behest of Hutchens/Kissling Associates management became clearer in my mind. The charge was a misdemeanor, �Harassment in the second degree� and read as follows: ��in that the defendant, �did intentionally harass, annoy and alarm the complainant by pushing the complainant open handed in the chest and then pushed him with his shoulder into the complainant�s shoulder after crossing taped off maintenance area and moved two caution cones and also pushed a shopping cart full of maintenance equipment out of the way. Defendant was told several times to leave the area, it is not a public area.� (I wonder who they stole the shopping cart from; Tops market is nearby.)

The area mentioned is an open hallway, accessible to all tenants at all times and is located between the laundry room and the compactor room. The activity they were engaged in was the removal of �suspected, highly ambient asbestos from a pump room on that same first floor. This �area� is my home, where my grandson and I live, and where approximately 180 others live. These untrained and unknowledgeable individuals are letting fly a very dangerous substance that contaminates the �air we breathe and permanently damages the lungs.� And this guy, James Mulvey, has the right to tell me that I am not allowed to photograph this illegal activity? Management (Julie Newmann) sent these three individuals to do �the job� with nothing but surgical gloves for protection. (I am a former licensed NYS Asbestos and Lead Inspector and Abatement Instructor. SUNY Buffalo.)

I am �a whistle blower;� arrested, booked and locked up for trying �once again� to record a crime in its commission. It is I who is branded the criminal. James Mulvey, the overseer of the asbestos removal operation should be the person locked up; he committed the crime but with instructions coming from Julie Newmann, the manager.

I ask you? Do I appear or sound like someone who needs to be locked up? The thirty year old man James Mulvey, does not even live on the premises or near by for that matter. This is just more harassment on the part of the management here, at the Marine Drive Apartments. They are now trying to evict me on other bogus charges. They know from my persistence that I will continue to be the �whistle blower� here.

Through harassment like this Marine Drive Management tries to squelch my resolve and/or curtail my activities. The management never mentions the word �asbestos.� Even the DHCR state overseer, Ms. Ruderman said, �Well you have to be exposed to asbestos for a long time for it to do real damage.� Real damage is not anything like the flu or common cold. The damage is done incrementally. CDC reports ��However, fibres (e.g. asbestos) which predispose to disease have a length to diameter ratio of a least 3:1 with a diameter of 3mm or less (microscopic); the stronger the fibre the more damaging it maybe.� In the case of my grandson he has been here for a year and a half (in this apartment with the asbestos flying) and his respiratory problems continue to deteriorate.

This all led to the stay over, at �Abu ffalo,� the Erie County Holding Center. Do attorneys and police respond to the request of one citizen to lock up another citizen (someone with no police record) and insure some �special treatment� is applied while incarcerated? This should never be a �judgment call� made by arresting officers when circumstances are so dubious. A decision such as this should instead should be made by a judge or assigned attorney (on call) for just such a purposes.

While in my apartment, not one of the three patrolmen present read me my rights yet office Rodriquez (the arresting officer) stated on the charge report that he had done so. I was told that �Miranda� was something for the TV Cop Shows Did they not see the bright orange sign on the door as they entered, �Video Surveillance.� My son and grandson were likewise in the room, and after watching numerous �cop shows� stated that they had not heard me be Mirandized. Is this the way of the expanded Patriot Act?

At the holding center I was handcuffed to one of two homeless people present. I�ll call him John, after John the Baptist, who while living in the dessert wore animal skin for clothing and ate locust and wild honey, but also was one of Jesus� favorite disciples. John the Baptist probably smelled a lot worse but making me a partner to this poor soul only meant I could show him a little kindness. He had a bad back and had trouble walking after being forced to stand unsupported for any length of time. He also stumbled and limped badly and was bent over most of the time. He was bare foot and was wearing only under ware and a tee shirt. When he used the toilet he was very conscious about wiping the urine from his bare feet. Oh! They did provide us with one roll of toilet tissue in each cell we occupied. If John had the animal skins of John the Baptist they sure would have come in handy later.

Finally we were taken to the cell that we would be occupying for the night. The thirteen (soon 15) of us grabbed filthy blue plastic sleep mats (that had not been cleaned much less sanitized after the last use). We dropped our bag of belongings outside the cell then proceeded into a space that should hold only six or eight people. There was a puddle of leakage from the toilet which was brought to the attention of one of a deputy. His response was that the toilet was sweating due to the air conditioning. The size of this puddle made it clear that it was not from �sweating� but in fact the toilet was indeed leaking. By morning this leakage would cover the entire floor of the cell. Those first into the cell got the benches to sleep on, the rest of us had to sleep on the floor.

The air conditioner was turned very low, so immediately there were complaints of the cold and a chorus of requests for blankets rang out. Of coarse all request went unheeded, and so we tried to settle in for what would be a long cold night. I, of coarse did not sleep, unaccustomed as I was to the conditions and noise of the lock up.

I learned much from my cell mates and the experience which I am now glad I had. To stay warm in situations like this you pull your knees to your chest, and gather your arms and head inside your shirt. This contains body heat. I learned to keep my mouth shut because the slightest grunt could send one of these sheriffs into a rage that might result in you staying another night. I also learned to be very careful of cellmates who were crack heads. One slammed my foot so hard with his foot (for inadvertently touching him with my foot) that I still am in pain two weeks later.

The rage of the deputies was far more frightening then any �criminal� in lock up. One of the �criminals� when he was told to take a cloth off his head while stacking the sleep mats in ��nice neat rows� met such wrath from chief �skin head,� deputy B. Bath. He screamed at Tyrone, �I told you to get that off your head and shut the f___k up. If you want to spend another f___k___g night here, just open your f___k__g mouth again.�

Another important observation I made had to do with these �skin heads.� Through out the night State Trooper �skin heads,� brought in more blacks It was reported by one of the black guys that the troopers get $180.00 per arrest. Does that practice need looking into or is that too just more of our Patriot Act protecting us? To me it sounds a awful lot like �bounty hunting.� Cops who choose to portray themselves as Gestapoesque do not belong working in the ghetto. I would go so far as to say they should not be �Peace Officers� at all. That attitude represent the �worst of society.�

Saturday morning John, the vagrant (in only his under ware and tee shirt) blue from cold and shaking uncontrollable, needed to take a �dump.� Some of my cellmates pleaded to allow him to use an outside toilet. John, the smelly vagrant, was not about to desecrate their bathroom with his filth and smell. �He was untouchable.� So they moved the rest of us to an empty cell that did not have a leaking toilet. So fifteen in a cell with the leaking toilet was ��just more f___k___g with us.�

We were then told to get our belongings, put on the remaining clothes and stand against the wall. We were again handcuffed, John and myself. He had to ask for permission to lean against the wall due to his bad back. Our next and final stop before arraignment was a small room with no air conditioning where the deputies proceeded to cram in about forty of us, just waiting and nowhere to sit for most. While there in the sweltering heat for about one and a half hours, tempers started to flare.

The two black �teddy bears� came to the rescue and reminded everyone that most would be free on OR, (our own recognizance) soon and just stay cool for a little while longer. �It ain�t worth spending another mf�en day locked up in this f___k�n place �cause you done loose it now,� said one and the other chimed in with, �We be out and you be f____k___g you old lady tonight,� said the other.

Oh! Did I mention the sliding scale of ill treatment. It went something like, most hassled to least hassled; white being the least hassled, me being the exception, but if you were black or Muslim or both, watch out. There were two prisoners who were brought back down from �up stairs.� One was black and the other was Muslim ( he was wearing the orange prison garb.) Neither knew why they were returned to the over night hold, they had been booked and certainly were not eligible for OR.

Today I was in court answering the false charges and I heard a court clerk say to one of the sheriff deputies that she was going on a tour of the holding center. The deputy�s response was; �Hold your nose while you are there, that place is so bad and smells so disgusting it will make you sick.�

I was called and appeared before the judge. He simply admonished me with; �Mr. Purcell, just try to stay clear of that guy.� Seemed to that the judge was totally unimpressed with the charge against me. I walked out after one of the worst days of my life. The sun was shinning, I was free; none the worse for the experience (except the bad foot) and even glad for it. I experienced another episode in life that I have learned from and that has made me stronger. And yes, it has given me more fire to protest that which is very wrong and certainly this experience was and is wrong but not just for me but for all who were there.

I learned that the criminals were not the monsters but the sheriff deputies and state troopers. The criminals are a product of our dysfunctional society. Yea! we do it through substandard education, segregation (even today) and poverty. We also do it by providing the market for their �wares.� Remember they are making their living because of our (whites) insatiable demand for illegal drugs. Years ago I read an article in Time magazine that stated for every dollar spent on Head Start we save $100 on the penal system. Now we incarcerate millions of mostly blacks on drug charges. Have we heeded that message or have we gone out and build more and more prisons and expanded our legal system to �incarcerate rather than treat and rehabilitate.� I believe an oversight board should be established charged with monitoring activities of the �Peace officers.�

They should be empowered with permission to enter places like the holding center (on a moments notice) and at will to check on this blatant abuse.

In conclusion, I was brought up in a strict Irish Catholic home where we were taught the difference between good and evil; taught that all men are created equal, and no matter what their appearance or how they act they deserve our love and often respect as well. We were taught never to pre-judge another. One of my father�s favorite lines in reference to �pan handlers� was; �You do not know if they are going to buy food, drugs or whiskey but always error on the side giving rather than not helping.�

Not wanting to pre-judge, I can only wonder who these deputies and sheriffs go home to; a spouse who is like themselves and are they raising children to be as cruel and callous, judgmental, vindictive and spiteful like themselves.

I am not a �born again� christen or anything close. I sing in the choir and serve on the board of FLARE, Fillmore Leroy Area Residents Assn.(a black community help organization,) I volunteer at the VA when I am able to do so. But when it comes to meaningful thought or prayer, I very often turn to the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi; it�s always right by my computer and it says: �Lord, make me an instrument of Your Peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. �Where there is despair, hope. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved, as to love; For it is in giving that we receive--- It is in pardoning that we are pardoned��

I choose to pardon those confused and misled Peace Officers who have wronged me. In the words of another great thinker: �Father forgive them for they know not what they do.� *Jesus Christ on the cross. Home Spun Prison Abuse�

By James P Purcell

Mary screamed out again and again; �I have to go to the bathroom; I need to take a piss.� For ten to fifteen minutes this went on in the booking room at the Erie Country Holding Center. Mary, obviously in great pain, distraught, strung out, physically ill and very black had to stand on that taped off box while a deputy �processed� her. Finally she began to pull down her pants as she headed for the corner just feet away, and finally, perhaps at the prospect of having to clean up her mess or maybe just the idea of this �low life� desecrating their booking area with �her human stench,� then and only then did the deputy point to a door just feet away and said, ��go in there.�

�See the way they treat that sick bitch, those mf�ers just want to mess with us all the time.� �Dude!� Look around you, this ain�t no 75% ghetto in here it�s ninety percent. These cops in Buffalo really like to f--k with us, it�s not like this in Alabama,� said Charles. �They don�t f--k with you like this in Georgia either. I�m here on a warrant from there and I just want to get back where they don�t f----k with you like these mf�er here in Buffalo; just to get their rocks off� said Will. �If you are going to take my mf�en shoes away at least clean the f---k--g floor so I don�t have to walk through filth and stand in someone else�s piss to use the toilet,� said Tyrone.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

powered by AkoComment Tweaked