Crimminals in Blue

"5446 was my number:
what's my number now?
right now, somebody else has that number."
- Bradley Knowell of the band SUBLIME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZue9XUe_aEk

5 years ago
I stood before the police,
imagining myself a citizen of a free society
and told them the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth

I was docile as they put the cuffs on me
only to realize they were way
tighter than they needed to be,
the back was as roomy as a rabbit cage,
my short legs pushed against the hard-line,
my hands pinned behind my back:
I strained my mind to honestly answer their questions

later when I saw the police report,
I was shocked to find they only took down
what looked bad for me,
leaving out a dozen key statements.
I'd hit a woman
had gone against the media frenzy:
it didn't matter that I was very sick
and only defending myself
(so we drove through Ashland
and I looked sadly at my beloved university
through the three horizontal stripes
which is the prisoner's world-view)

The prisoners at the jail
were all nice and helpful to me,
proud to have a university student
with no prior record:
they talked me into spending the night
instead of making my dad drive so late
to bail me out

In the maximum security ward,
there were 20 prisoners or so
and the terrible truth
(amazing to me as a naive youth)
was that they were mostly black
in the Rogue Valley, Oregon,
!!!which has virtually no black population!!!
and actually tried to join the Confederacy
(a little known but relevant fact)

It was five years ago
and they let me go without bail the next morning,
but those cuffs are still cutting my wrists...
and I'm still in mourning for "the land of the free:"

As a long-haired dissident,
I've come to expect crude harassment
every time I see a blue cruiser,
and seeing as I believe good cops
are essential to a stable community...
it's my belief that the Rogue Valley
is a seething mecca of barbarity