Last 7 Days, written Saturday December 13th

Last Saturday morning I was arrested - due to a theft accusation by one of the forced-birthers who protests at planned parenthood.

It seems to have been an unlawful arrest. The police report from November 18th claims they found probable cause, but charges hadn't - and haven't - been filed. When I was arrested more than 2 weeks later, I was engaged in the (constitutionally-protected) act of recording police and speaking - reminding someone being detained they had the right to remain silent.

I got to spend the ride to the correctional facility with the person I'd tried to help… which was certainly an opportunity for reflection on if anything I could have said would have made her silent (she talked the entire ride, I'm certain both intense drug use and mental health issues were factors) or if the cops were going to write down anything she said (they likely didn't).

I spent about two hours in "GP" (general population) and am happy to report that I didn't have to spend my birthday in jail; I was bailed out during my third game of chess (with the help of family, my partner across the country a partner who was staying with me for the weekend). Every single person at the jail was friendlier than any cop. I'd probably hate having to eat a second meal or sleep there, but it wasn't that bad. I was more worried about not upholding my commitments in the next few days than anything else.

The video of my arrest already has twenty thousand views, but city employees here apparently haven't learned to watch my social media yet, because the following Tuesday night they threatened me with arrest for the same thing - recording, and reminding people of their right to remain silent. I emailed a complaint to the police email provided on their site, CCing the manager and council.

The city manager responded CCing the interim chief, deputy chief, and head of HR, as well as his two assistants. He entirely diregarded the second issue, saying that I wasn't arrested for constituionally-protected behaviors (I had said during - not for - in my email) but for two outstanding charges of theft (!!). I eagerly Reply ALL'd with my legal response from the courthouse confirming there were not in fact any charges associated with the numbers I had been booked at the jail with.

I also got a response from the police auditor, who explained that they don't actually do any of the investigation - they just review the police investigating themselves. Now having an understanding the value of a civilian review board, I expressed my concerns back to the manager, pointing out that - if nothing else - this practice should concern him from a liability standpoint. We'll see if he responds again to anything ever. Ideally, this chain of events results in the police force getting a talking to about the first amendment and lawful arrests but I don't see that as likely.

We'll see.

This week I’ve also:
• Supported food distribution at the encampment
• Supported a queer pride winter-wear/food drive during a far-right antitrans signature rally - managed to be wonderfully engaging and a lightning rod for good. There were a few bad actors there but pretty much everything went smoothly and we got a ton of to donations to redistribut
• Attended a gathering of a bunch of local organizations for the purposes of sharing food, labor, space and volunteer resources. Helped move forward the idea of an online calendar of everyone's events.
• Helped my old roommates get and move some furniture
• Got a huge win from the state supervisor of records, saying that the city cannot charge me if it failed to provide a response within ten days. This was over something I first started asking for back in July. My usual practice was asking for footage from the first or second officer so they couldn't charge for the release, but over the summer I had realized they were ignoring me. I took advantage of that by asking for more, and I've had to refile this particular one three times since then, now they have to fork over like a dozen videos for free
• Public commented to Worcester City Council
• Public Commented to Olympia City Council
• Public Commented to the Washington Healthcare Authority
• Attended a book reading by the author on the history of labor unions - this person had learned another language to triple the amount of historic data he was working with, despite book burnings of local records
• Talked with a bunch of lawyers
• Engaged with a ridiculous amount of fuckheads on Facebook, who keep asking what I'm doing (in addition to running my mouth and triggering them) because they would rather discuss me rather than the issues I'm discussing.