I Was Tortured by Government Employees Last Sunday
Last Saturday night, November 3rd, 2007, I was traveling in my automobile. I parked in a restaurant’s private parking lot. A Snohomish County Sheriff was checking license plates against computer records. I am aware that this has become a common practice. He arrested me for an outstanding warrant, issued October 22nd, 2007, for failure to appear on a traffic citation. I was in England on a medical emergency, and had notified the Court that I could not appear that day. As he was getting me out of his car in the basement of the jail he exclaimed living the dream!
, which startled me. I asked are you serious?
He answered in the affirmative.
The jailers, who style themselves Corrections Officers,
at the Snohomish County Jail (or Corrections Facility
) in Everett, Washington, USA, forced me through a variety of very well-practiced, choreographed, and degrading ordeals – bordering on the sadistic. They were quite clearly enjoying themselves. My clothes were taken and I was issued a thin cloth shirt and thin cloth pants. At around midnight, I was placed in a holding cell
in the booking
area. This room was about ten feet by ten feet, with an L-shaped, concrete bench formed along two walls, about 24 inches wide. A weird stainless-steel toilet-sink
was in one corner. A working, though dysfunctional, phone was on the wall. There was nothing else in the room but a bit of toilet paper.
The outside temperature was less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The holding cell has a ceiling fan or ventilator outlet blowing cold air downwards. It felt colder than the air outside. I began shivering and trying to warm myself up. After about two hours of this, a corrections officer
called me up to a counter. He presented me with a one-page form to sign. STANDISH was printed on a metal plate attached to his shirt.
The first part of the form was an accurate listing of my confiscated personal property. The second part contained language to the effect of: I hereby consent to medical testing and treatment
and other. I did not consent to that then or now. I began crossing out the parts of this section that I would not consent to. I had not yet finished and initialed these corrections before STANDISH went ballistic. He jerked the form out from under my hand and said something curt which I do not recall. He placed me back in the holding cell. [...]
Read the rest of the story at LewRockwell.com (2007-11-10).