Ok OK- I’ve let a lot of you down… for this I am sorry. I’ve been doing a lot of research… a lot of
it totally just by coincidence… so I guess I’ll start with my best friend, my
person- I’ve missed your birthday in March two years in a row after being back
in LA. This year I was indeed out of
jail, as last year I was ‘down.’ It I
have a card that’s stamped that I still can’t bring myself to mail… I don’t know
why… but I owe you Olive Garden (The OG) whenever you’re ready to have dinner
with me… I love you and I miss you.
(Crying at the West Hollywood library as per usual…)
When I got the charger for my rented laptop from the
librarian she has this look on her face… like, oh no… you! Ha-ha. I mean that was a while ago… but you never
know…
So yeah, on or about Feb 2nd I went to jail for four
months for felony battery on three officers… I know right? Who knew that it could be so much fun
sleeping in the park that at 5am LAPD comes and… so I was asleep in my normal
routine/attire and I get woken up feeling like I’m being drug out of my
sleeping bag… I come up swinging with no clue who or what I’m swinging at,
screaming for help, only to have one of the people cover my mouth. I then bite the person covering my mouth
cause I can’t breathe… I then hear “Do you want to be tasered… Do you want to
be tasered?” I don’t know if the person
was speaking to me or to the person on top of me covering my mouth but that
when I realized that these people attacking me are probably officers/cops. They were… I screamed for help so loud that
someone heard me and called 911 for me but officers from the same precinct
showed up… which was fantastic… back up who has their backs… not mine… anyways…
I had to spend four months in jail fighting my case but I ended up beating it….
The DA was like- “Mr. Ray, we are not taking this to jury trial and we will
work this out…” I still haven’t been able to expunge my record but it should be
soon I hope. Oh, and when I got arrested there are some nasty things on the body worn camera evidence... like me turning blue when he was on top of me covering my mouth... and just some language I guess. And they left all my stuff in the park... all of it. Like, everything, including the FDNY hoodie that I adored. It was given to me by a hero and was from Sept 11th... the one with the twin towers and the smoke billowing... ugh, it makes me sick to think that I don't have it anymore... like, it really meant something to me and the person that gave it to me... and they just left it... after I specifically asked them to get it for me...
I have so much more to write about… I had no idea that I
would end up where I’m at now. Thank God
I’m semi off the streets. I haven’t forgotten
everything… thankfully I’ve been journaling and it’s been a long road. I have so much ‘to do.’ When I was arrested and extradited or
transported to San Jose the Sheriff’s kept my backpack here in LA as ‘bulk
property.’ So nothing was send with me,
or that’s why nothing was sent with me… I don’t know why a backpack would be considered
such- but it was…. I remember them trying to open my laptop while I was in the
back of the car… so I don’t know… anyways, I followed up about the missing
property form I filled out forever ago and they aren’t going to reimburse me
for it… so that means I guess I have to hire an attorney. I mean, I was in jail in San Jose when the 6
months to pick up the property deadline passed so I don’t know… but I had just
gotten my computer… a MacBook Air, the week before… so it was like, brand
new. I don’t know how things are
destroyed through the sheriffs dept. but I hate to think it was actually
destroyed and didn’t end up as a new present to or for someone…
It’s little things like this that irk me… the gay’s or k-6G’s
as we are called in LA have a 99% re-incarceration rate. Isn’t that crazy… like- the same people over
and over just keep getting arrested while new people are added to that group
everyday… oh and guess what… while in jail I got Hepatitis A from the water…
joy. It turns out that most people do
when they first get there. But, I met
some really cool people and also heard some really cool stories- as
heartbreaking as some are. I’ll try to
come as often as I can to the library to post and tell these stories… and talk about
the last year or so of my life… it’s been crazy and eye opening and hopefully I’ll
be able to raise some awareness for what’s going on…
I am thinking/considering going to Law School for a JD. I’m not sure exactly what the details are but
I’m working with an entity that’s going to help me pay for it… thankfully. UCLA, Loyola, and USC are my top ones…. But I’m
also considering Stanford as there was a professor from that Law School in my
jury pool in San Jose- of coarse she got booted by the DA before we started the
trial but hey… that’s the process right?
I want to get people off the streets and out of jail/keep people out of
jail…
Like I’ve said before… the biggest thing I can say right now
is for me, taking it to the box was the best thing I’ve done… since getting
that advice from someone…
It’s crazy to think that if I was charged $300 in court fees
as an indigent or person with financial hardship… the court rooms that do arraignments
see like 300 cases per day… so if you think about it if 250 of those people are
under financial hardship and there are like 230 court days in a year that’s $17,250,000
that one court room makes in a year… that’s crazy... one court room in one court
house in one city/county… I mean I don’t
know what kind of math that is but it adds up to me and also that this broken
system of ours makes a whole lot of money…
To be continued…
I got a voicemail from the Social Security people again that
my ssn is frozen because of fraudulent activity… I guess that’s one more thing
for me to deal with. Hopefully this doesn’t
get all jumbled when I post it, and that people can actually read it. When I try to submit or work on things on my
phone or at the library it seems either they don’t actually get submitted or they
come out on the other end jumbled or incomplete or… so here’s to hoping for the
best…
