please please please, i want all my followers to read this. i was brutalized by the police on august 12th, 2015 here in San Francisco, CA
On Wednesday night of August 12th, I was out with my partner grabbing a drink at a bar at 24th and Mission here in San Francisco just before midnight. After having one drink, we left the bar and proceeded outside to catch the bus home. Two police officers accosted us, asking what we were doing and if we were drunk. I responded that we were minding our own business and I didn’t understand why they were harassing us. They proceeded to ask us for our IDs which I refused to comply with because we weren’t in trouble for doing anything since we were doing nothing but heading to the bus stop. All of this was occurring around midnight.
The cops proceeded to put handcuffs on my partner for not providing ID. I became hysterical and fearful, so I started screaming and crying and fighting back, asking why we were being arrested and trying to get attention of the people around. They held me on the ground and cuffed me while I screamed and cried and asked why we were being arrested and what we did wrong. They loaded us into a police van where I screamed and kicked at the sides of the van to make noise and gain whatever attention I could to our false arrest. I was never read my rights and I was never told what I was being placed under arrest for.
The van departed from where we were and upon reaching our destination, the officers put a bag over my head so I did not know where they brought me and I did not know what time it was. They led me into psych questioning which I refused to answer. Based on my hysteria they proceeded to treat me as a psych risk. The officers put the bag back over my head and carried me (one carrying me by the wrists, another by the ankles) into a “safety cell.” This is where the horror really starts.
Once they get me into the cell, two male and one female officer held me down. They then proceed to pull me up by my dreadlocks and yank out my earrings from my ears. They would not remove my tongue or nose rings for fear of placing their hands too close to my mouth. One male then forces me down and kneels with a knee in my back while another gets a pair of scissors and proceeds to cut my shirt and bra off. the female officer held my ankles and let him pull my pants and underwear off. i screamed repeatedly that i was menstrual, but they proceeded to remove my underwear and forcibly pulled out the tampon i was wearing during a cavity search. I screamed again and again that i couldn’t breathe with his knee in my back, and the officer just replied, “well, if you couldn’t breathe, you wouldn’t be talking.” i lost consciousness for a few seconds before i came to in my cell with all of the officers gone.
After beating the crap out of me and leaving me naked, bruised, and bloody, they left me in the cell with nothing to handle my period, and nothing but a blanket to cover myself with. they left me in this cell for at least 8 hours, because it wasn’t until 10am the following morning where they allowed me a shower to wash off my own blood, and gave me an orange jumpsuit and one pad to last me the day. i was then moved to another holding cell where i was kept while i could call my mother to bail me out. i tried to flag down passing officers through the window for another pad or a tampon but all they would give me was toilet paper.
I wasn’t released until 9:30pm August 13th. I have taken photos of the bruising that resulted from my treatment and I am having x-rays done on my wrist because I believe one wrist has been fractured. I have bruises on my face, arms, and legs. I will be going to the Human Rights Commission here in San Francisco to lodge a formal complaint against the SFPD. My court date is on August 19th. They are charging me with felony resistance of an executive officer, misdemeanor vandalism of $400 or over, misdemeanor resistance of an officer or EMT, and misdemeanor drunk in public (this charge disappeared after 12 hours).
I’m trying to publicize my story because I legitimately believed I was going to be killed in that cell. i believe that if the officers did not notice that i had fallen unconscious they would have kept crushing me until i suffocated. i need people to spread this. i’m starting a gofundme page to help pay for my legal fees because i could potentially lose my job for missing a shift that i was supposed to fulfill while i was being detained and will no longer have a steady source of income.
thank you for any support that you can offer.
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