"So I'm sittin' there on the Group W bench..."

comments from someone who was arrested and shipped to Camp Gitmo on the Hudson . . . his descriptions of some of his "cellmates" is chilling . . .

http://captainnormal.typepad.com/captainnormal/2004/09/so_im_sittin_th.html

(snip)

When the cops shipped me off to "Gitmo on the Hudson" Tuesday night, I wasn't among the usual collection of mother rapers and father stabbers one normally finds in our city jails. Let me tell you about some of the people I was proud to call "cellmate":

***A family of tourists with some really, really bad luck. Right in the middle of the sweep their cab pulled up on 42nd Street and they started to get out---Mom, Dad, and a boy around sixteen. A cop grabbed them, pulled them out of the cab, cuffed them, and threw them into the paddy wagon.

I saw them about three hours later in my 20 by 40 chain-link holding pen. They were French tourists who spoke about five words of English and they were seriously, seriously freaking out. They had absolutely no idea where they were or why they had been picked up (No one did---the cops steadfastly refused to answer the direct question "what am I being charged with?") Fortunately there were a couple of bilingual French-speakers in the cage with us so they finally got some explaination, but I can barely imagine what kind of Kafkaesque nightmare they were experiencing those first three hours.

(snip)

***A couple from Brooklyn who were on a date, heading for the movie theatres at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. They had been coming up out of the subway at 42nd when the cops grabbed them---and everybody else exiting the subway at that moment. Talk about your bad date! They had been planning to go see Exorcist: The Beginning. (Technically I only saw the young man involved---we were immediately segregated by sex upon arrest---but he told me the whole story)

- more . . .

http://captainnormal.typepad.com/captainnormal/2004/09/so_im_sittin_th.html

I hope those people are all right after all.

Thanks, herr busholini.

...their mass round-up schtick. Keeps 'em sharp for the next really big round-up.