Jailhouse Stories: Tales of Arrest & Breakfast in King Co. Jail

[DiracPool]

Has anyone ever been arrested before?

Here's a story, I got arrested outside of a club one night in south Seattle in 2003 for participating in a bar fight (which I didn't). So they took me to the King county jail for "processing." At the time, no joke, I had an eye infection and had these prescribed eye drops I had to use, which they took away from me. I told them I needed my eye drops because I had an eye infection and they sent in this so-called doctor who looked like Mr. Magoo, some short quack who was literally cross-eyed himself. In any case, I was denied my eye medication for whatever stupid reason that night.

So they put me in a holding cell with about 12 other guys who looked just about as nervous as I did. About 3-4 of the guys there were laid out on the bunks as if they'd been there for a month, the rest of us just stood up and waxed apocalypse. I remember telling one guy there my bail was $1000, and his response was, "at least you got a bail."

So then they pull you out of the holding cell and make you "bend over and cough" (to put it mildly). And give you some "Texas tighties" underwear and some socks, neither of which you haven't seen before, and some jumpsuit (blue for me) and some slippers.

After that they sent me up to my cell. The door was open. I walked in. Looked like a nice enough cell. But what was I supposed to do? The instinct in me was not to close some inescapable door behind me but, at the same time, I did not want to piss off the guards. So I reluctantly slammed the door shut. In the KCJ, there are no bars on the windows, you are hermetically sealed in your tomb. There is a vent up top I think that ostensibly serves to keep you alive in case of an emergency, but who knows?

So, to make a short story short, I got bailed out the next morning. I got a call through this voicebox coming out of the concrete in the side of the window. It said, DiracPool, you've been bailed out, they're serving breakfast right now but you'll be bailed out within the hour. So no need to do breakfast.

Well, I thought, I'm absolutely going to do breakfast because I want the full experience. I'm never coming back here again and I want to live to tell about the whole thing.

So it is what it seems as in the movies, just an assembly line of (pre) convicts lining up for chow. I didn't face any terriorial issues, I just got my breakfast plate and sat across from guy with a tattoo on his forehead that was some upside-down triangle of something. I didn't take the time to decipher what it was, only to think that this wasn't the place for me.

So does anyone else have some stories?

 

[Borg]

The only time I've been in jail is when my wife and I went through a Citizen's Police Academy course that our county's police department offers. Each week we visited a different department and got to see what they did. Some of the departments were financial crimes, homicide, air patrol, bomb squad, etc. The final week we got to visit the county jail. It was pretty uneventful except when we walked through one of the holding areas. As we walked by one cell, a woman with rather large breasts, took her top off and pressed them against the glass. I guess that she was bored.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I did 7 hours in a county lock-up once for hitch hiking on an interstate highway. This was way back in 1972. I was 17. The 60's weren't over yet, despite the date, and every kid hitch hiked all over the place. I got nabbed by a state trooper in northern New Hampshire because I was standing on the actual interstate highway with my thumb out, which is an unsafe practice. (You were allowed to hitch at the start of the entrance ramp, but no further up, and certainly not on the highway itself. Trouble is, the traffic is much, much better on the highway and you get a ride really fast.)

Anyway, I was put into a really large, long cell with about 30 bunk beds in it. Fortunately, there was only one other prisoner that day. He was in for defaulting on his alimony payments. Been picked up on a warrant finally. I talked to him a little bit, but he was kinda weird, and I had the impression if he weren't there he would have been sitting at the counter in some very dark, grubby bar talking to himself over a beer. He was awash in self pity, so I did not find the conversation interesting.

The "jailor" was also extremely weird. Fat, bald, dumb, and he had one eye that was not co-ordinated with the other eye, so you didn't know which eye he was seeing out of. DiracPool's report makes me wonder if this sort of person is attracted to prison work. I was leary of him because he seemed exited by my arrival. But that may only have been because business was really slow. He had a big belly and all kinds of junk hanging from his belt, and it made a lot of noise when he moved.

The mattresses on the bunks were thin and smelled bad. There were no sheets or blankets. Exploring the whole cell, I found the front half of a paperback novel. I picked a top bunk, and laid down to read. It was some WWII action novel, as I recall. Exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in a jail cell. It was really badly written and boring, but it was all there was.

At some point the jailor brought us a meal. It was on a tin tray with those little compartments like a TV dinner, but it had been made by an authentic cook, and wasn't half bad, though it was really plain. I recall there was a slab of whole grain bread that seemed really healthy. I think there was also a stew: beef and vegetables, that seemed made fresh; it wasn't some frozen junk.

Eventually, my father arrived and I was released into his custody. He was authentically amused by it all, and chuckled at me the whole drive back.

 

[DiracPool]

The 60's weren't over yet, despite the date, and every kid hitch hiked all over the place.

I remember as a kid growing up in the 70's in Santa Barbara they had these "hitchhiker depots." Basically, these were like bus-stops for hitchhikers. My parents were hippies and I remember us picking up hitchhikers all the time. It just seemed natural to me. Too bad it all ended once "The hitcher" showed up and started murdering everyone..

 

[zoobyshoe]

I remember as a kid growing up in the 70's in Santa Barbara they had these "hitchhiker depots." Basically, these were like bus-stops for hitchhikers. My parents were hippies and I remember us picking up hitchhikers all the time. It just seemed natural to me. Too bad it all ended once "The hitcher" showed up and started murdering everyone..

Apparently the danger is way overblown. This site has some statistics:

https://wandrlymagazine.com/article/hitchhiking/

Even when I was regularly hitchhiking the warnings were thick. Everyone knew a story and warned you to be careful. I guess the movie The Hitcher created such fear that just about no one dares to hitchhike anymore.

 

[Astronuc]

I occasionally see hitchhikers along highways or busy roads in the area.

As a teenager, my brother hitchhiked to get around town. That stopped when he and friend got picked up, and the guy tried to molest him. He had to jump from a moving car.

 

[rootone]

I used to hitch hike when I was a teenager.
90% of the time the driver was just a friendly person just helping out, there was the occasional weird one, but nothing really bad happened.
In a conversation I had with somebody the other day, he put this issue from the opposite perspective.
He said there was a time when he usually would pick up a hitch hiker, but lately not much unless he at least vaguely recognised the hiker.

 

[DiracPool]

He said there was a time when he usually would pick up a hitch hiker, but lately not much unless he at least vaguely recognised the hiker.

A serial hitch-hiker? Lol. I don't think we ever picked up the same person twice. If that were to happen, I'd expect at least a little gas money!

 

[wolram]

My marriage had just split up and i got drunk with a friend, the police were involved in my marriage due to kia, another story, any way there was a police car parked in the forecourt of the station, we decided to modify it slightly, there were police in the station at the time but they must have decided to let us be.
The next day i was arrested and spent the night in jail, the experience was not too bad i was fed fish and chips and the cops were very nice, now to my shame i have a record.

 

[DiracPool]

he next day i was arrested and spent the night in jail, the experience was not too bad i was fed fish and chips and the cops were very nice, now to my shame i have a record.

That's a good point, I forgot the aftermath of the story. The trauma wasn't over after that night in jail. For being involved in a bar fight (which I wasn't), you might think that a trip to the drunk tank for the night is punishment enough. No way. The fun is just beginning. Then you have to show up in court two weeks later to be "arraigned." So it just goes on and on.

Because I had been drinking..After all, I was at a bar in downtown Seattle, duh. They wanted me to submit to urinalysis tests for a YEAR on probation. If I had a bad test, then it was bad news. I told them they could go F@#$ themselves. No way was I going to do that. So I had to hire an attorney. Cost me 5 large but at the end of the day all I had to do was 3 months of anger management therapy, which was actually pretty helpful.insightful. Cool guy.

So part of my plea bargain was to get the charges dismissed "with prejudice." I guess this is what you want to do so it doesn't show up on your record. But I'm sure nothing ever really disappears from your record, wink wink, no matter how crafty you think you are