Buried alive
Wednesday, September 8, 2004, 11:59 AM
In data entry, that is. We are trying to clean up the arrestee database both in preparation for the follow-up to the court's contempt finding. and so that we can hand it off to other folks and leave town. Right now I'm still entering data we got from people when they left the jail. Of course this happened around the clock, and our "greeters" were there for 12-14 hours at a time or longer, without sleep, so sometimes figuring out what the handwriting says is like scrying tea leaves. I wonder if I could open a fortune telling franchise based on these sheets...
Sometime, ask me why there is a bottle of amaretto in the NYC NLG refrigetator. I might tell you if you make it worth my while.
Well, back to the divination.
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Sleep: Real Fuckin' Nice!
Friday, September 3, 2004, 09:50 AM
Let me start out by clarifying thhat my phone does NOT in fact give massages, as some might have concluded by reading yesterday's post. Text messaging: still the organizing story of the protest (IMESHO).
I finally got to bed last night at 1 a.m. Greg and I foolishly decided--ok, I foolishly decided and convinced him--to go down to the courthouse in the middle of the day yesterday to see if we could get into the writ hearing. It was full up. We waited around until it was over, asked what happened... and then got sucked into the weirdest 10 hours I've had since being here.
The judge had just ordered folks held over 24 hours to be released. They were due to reconvene at 2 pm. His list of folks being held, though, was "only" 470 folks, and we had several hundred more names. How did we have them? Because people had been calling us from the jail. In some cases, people had been arrested Tuesday night and they were getting *their first phone call* Thursday morning, well after the 24 hour limit for holding people, let alone for the damn phone call.
Anyways, the next several hours were spent squinting at multiple lists and crossing out names, collecting names of folks being released and running up them up to the next court hearing, collecting jail calls and running *those* up to the next hearing, etc, etc.
Bekah and Dave R totally rocked it. I'm not sure exactly what "it" was, because by that time I was past the point of sleep deprivation into permanent wiredness, much like everybody else. But they were doing kick-ass work.
After the last hearing at 8:30, we went outside to watch people being released. Not one or two every 20 minutes, as it had been for the last day, but a steady flow of folks coming out to be bearhugged by their friends and relatives.
It was pretty wonderful.
The judge's last deadline was 10 pm for all folks arrested on Tuesday to be released. We went back to the office to wait for jail calls, ready to raise holy hell if there were still people in.
The phones were quiet.
I slept the sleep of the righteous last night: deep, restful, without a care in the world, at least for a few hours.
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Skeep Highly Overrated
Thursday, September 2, 2004, 03:59 AM
It's almost 7 a.m. and I guess I'll go to bed after the 9am hearing on the writ filed by legal aid lawyers on behalf of folks who have been held over 24 hours. That was filed at 7:30 pm, we had a favorable ruling and then the city decided to appeal, so here we are with people still stuck in jail waiting.
Text massaging stopped on my phone for the first part of the day, sendiong me into a virtual panic, but in the afternoon messaging suddenly started working again, so I'm back to monitoring 5 or 6 simultaneous sources of information.
Today's thanks go to Steph for bringing by a bunch of sandwiches at just the right time. I ate well tonight, at least 5 meals and the day is not over.
Also, guess who won the betting pool on number of arrestees for A31. With a winning bet of 1300 folks (true number supposedly at 1191), I beat out the other close contender with a bet of 1020. Unfortunately there was no stated prize for the winner. Maybe I can get a root beer float out of the losers.
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Early to bed, early to rise
Wednesday, September 1, 2004, 12:02 AM
does not mean go to bed at 3 a.m. and get up at 7 a.m.! In fact it's looking like I'll get to bed at 4 or later again. But, at least I'm not in jail trying to sleep. Over 900 folks were arrested today, in some pretty weird scenarios. I personally saw one group of police charge a line of folks on the sidewalk, force them against the building, and proceed to arrest them. Several legal folks, including some NLG people, were arrested today as well, just trying to do their job as legal observers.
One thing that totally rocked today was the text messaging. I finally gave up and signed up for a few of the SMS groups a couple of days ago, and there is often up to the minute info on what's going on. How did we ever get by without it??
We ordered food from a 24 hour INdian place that is only a block away. I got indigestion from that food yesterday -- probably it was left sitting out too long --- so I'm not risking it today. But as the week goes on we collect more and more menus fomr 24 hr/late night pizzarias and delis. One thing we do not skimp on in this office is food.
For anyone who knows Greg, this was a no pants day in the legal office. :-)
Good night.
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Making History
Tuesday, August 31, 2004, 02:11 AM
We're only a few hours from the "day outside the pens". It's 45:00 am, as usual, and I'm going to try to get a few hours of sleep before it all goes down. One way or another, history is going to be made. But what I remember is that, much of the time, for folks living when history is being made, it really sucks.
My stomach is a little off. It must be that last cup of ice cream and chocolate sauce I had -- at 4 a.m. Just not sitting right. That, and tomorrow's unknown.
(Oh yeah, and these times on the articles are all West Coast times, so they are all 3 hours off. Don't be fooled.)
Good night.
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