CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ON THE STREETS
OF ANY TOWN USA by Paul F Renda
How should I describe G? She has long, sleek raven hair and a C + cup. She could have been anybody’s trophy wife or girlfriend, but men caused her nothing but trouble. Her face showed the abuse from numerous boyfriends, but, as always, her underling beauty shown through. She could stay with any man on the straight-aways but it was on life’s curves she always lost them.
For reasons I won’t go into, I never call her G. Instead, my pet name for her is the black widow, and I won’t go into the reasons for that either. G could go from zero to bitch in .000001 seconds; I don’t know any woman who can switch gears quicker.
On that fateful night, we were driving along arguing about her entering a therapeutic community. All of a sudden, a black SUV came out of nowhere and cut us off. At first, I thought the driver must be drunk. Then, seven guys got out of the SUV with guns drawn. I thought they were wise guys, and that I was dead man. My life flashed before my eyes. I thought that maybe Nina was really 13, not 18. What else could it be? I recognize the sound of a hammer pulling back on a revolver and the slide cock of a round being chambered. No matter how drunk or disoriented I am, I know one of those sounds could be last I hear. Then, I heard the engine shut off and the doors open. They were just cops, thank God. I noticed they had their hands on their gun holsters. Wise guys don’t have holsters. Wise guys come at you with 3 guys, cops do not. G opened her door and was immediately hand cuffed.
I got out of the car and was instantly turned around and handcuffed, and not just with any handcuffs, black high-security handcuffs. I should have paid more attention during the DEFCON and HOPE ground hacker conferences. These conferences always have one or two sessions on lock picking and breaking out of handcuffs. The black handcuffs have a shoe on them so people wearing them cannot get to the key slot.
A cop yelled out, “Where is the stuff? Where is the stuff?” I told him I did not know what they were talking about, so they started picking on G. My temperature boiled when I heard that. I really hated them abusing their authority to pick on someone so defenseless, but there was nothing I could do. I was completely impotent. Some girls buy their way out of situations like this, while some girls end up in a dumpster.
They kept asking me questions. I tried to put my mind into a meditative state by reciting a Buddhist chant. Then, one cop yelled, “I think this guy is mentally retarded.” That popped me out of any possible meditative state.
Then, all of a sudden, a blue van pulled up. The front window of the van had the outline of the Roman numeral II in adhesive tape. The easy pass for a city vehicle is orange. Most residents know this. So the PD pried them off their undercover vehicles, leaving only the tell tale adhesive on the window. Pretty smart!!!!
The back door opened and revealed a stainless steel cylindrical shell. When they unbolted the door, I saw a lanky black kid sitting on one of the benches. He looked to be no more than 14 years old. He should have been shooting hoops out in the playground, and not in this van
I wonder what this kid could have possibly done to land him in this van. They helped us up because our hands were handcuffed behind us. I plopped on to one of the benches. On the benches, there were rows of seatbelts, but they did not belt us in. I had never seen such a contraption. It is like a shell in an inner shell. It was completely dark. I remember thinking that I could find refuge in Buddha. It dawned on me that even though G and I did nothing wrong, we were prisoners, and there was nothing we could do about it. I started chanting underneath my breath, and G said, “I am not going to let them take you.”
I did not know what fate was in store for me. Would I be beaten or raped in some holding cell? I had no idea where we were going, and nobody would know where I was. They took everything out my pockets, including my camera and ID. If they ran my driver’s license, they would find that I had no violations.
I started chanting to Buddha. Then, all of a sudden, the van stopped short. We all plummeted to the front, and my head hit the back as something warm oozed from my head. The van stopped and the back door opened. The sunlight hurt my eyes.
I knew this precinct. My cyber friend, Mobius, and I detected frequency hopping emanations from it. Frequency hopping is a very sophisticated methodology to send information over radio frequencies by changing the carrier frequency numerous times and is specified by a sophisticated algorithm. Mobius was able to borrow some software from the National Security Agency, thank you very much NSA. Actually, Mobius was one of the NSA’s double secret beta testers (only the NSA did not know about him).
But why would they be frequency hopping? It is a very sophisticated methodology. If you want to keep something secret, you use frequency hopping. Nobody can decrypt it or know what information is being sent. You need specialized software to understand what’s going on. A police force would not have the sophistication or ability to decrypt it. Heavy duty shit must be happing here. Only the CIA or NSA would have this capability.
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Continued: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ON THE STREETS
OF ANY TOWN USA by Paul F Renda
I got to the precinct door, but I couldn’t open it because I was handcuffed. A cop came out and held the door for me. I said thank you and the cop gave me a funny look. G and the black kid were escorted by a cop. As I walked into the precinct, some of the cops turned around and looked at me. Two other cops caught up with me as they escorted G and the black kid. They took us into the back of the precinct to a very narrow room. A small jail cell was in the back and a couple chairs were bolted together at a computer terminal. They unlocked my handcuffs, put me in the cell, and told me to remove my shoelaces and belt.
The cops possessed all the documentation and money I had on me and my camera. He started to inventory my possessions and put them in a bag. Another prisoner walked into the room and was placed in cell. They handcuffed G to the bolted chair.
She kept reciting, “I am not going to let them take you.” The cell was filthy, absolutely filthy, and smelled of urine. No wonder they needed guns to get people to go there.
A short cop asked me questions about where I was born, my Social Security number, and my date of birth.
They scanned my fingerprints and ran them against those in their database. There was a problem. Even though I had no record at all, some smart systems analyst, probably a woman in the Justice Department, had a great idea: Why don’t we keep people who are being scanned with other people who have criminal records. We can keep them in a database in some type of suspect file.
What they were doing was illegal, but they were holding onto the records. It was something not publicized. I guess they felt where there is smoke, there is fire. Probably no more than 20 people outside of the department knew about what they were doing, and I could not take a chance that they would keep my prints and name in a suspect file. There was nothing I could do at that point. I had to get out of there.
After more question, they finally let me go. I gather up my belt, shoelaces, and the bag holding my property. A detective escorted me to the door and told me where they left my car. I took a car service to my car and figured that G would call me the next day.
G called me from the County Jail. She said that the cops told the judge that she threw dope down underneath the sewer. I could not believe my ears. I told her that there were no sewers near us. We were stopped in the middle of the street; we didn’t have time to go anywhere, they just turned us around and handcuffed us. How could they lie like that? I told her not to worry and that I will try to do something to get her out. Maybe I should talk to Joe the lawyer. He would know what to do. Maybe I should go to internal affairs and complain to them or the county district attorney. Joe the lawyer Joe the lawyer is the youngest of seven kids. He attended PS 100 School. In those days, you had to be sharp with your mind and with your fists and know your catechism. His father was a poor peasant from Italy who opened up a small grocery store and succeeded where many others failed. Joe used to work there after school and he successfully completed all assigned tasks.
Nobody ever thought that he would otherwise rise to significance in any way. He graduated Kent Law School, which is not a prestigious school; it was a school for someone coming up from the streets. A school for someone from immigrant parents who barely spoke English
All the wise guys and wannabes wanted to know Joe. The most senior capo in the neighborhood and the ward captains also sought his judgment. It wasn’t just wise guys; cops with problems would seek his counsel. Joe even argued two cases in front of the United States Supreme Court. He had an understanding of how the law pertained to the streets and the courts. His office was unpretentious, save for pictures of politicians shaking his hand. He knew the judges and the ward captains.
I sat down in his office and proceeded to tell him about the night we were stopped and how G allegedly threw dope down a sewer. I also told him I was going to go to internal affairs.
After I told him the entire story, he said, “If you go to the cops, it is their word against yours. The cops will know who you are. They could set you up. If you get pulled over by a cop, he could throw a bag of dope in your car. That happened to two of my clients. Go home and do nothing.”
I walked out of Joe the lawyer’s office totally disgusted. G will be out in a couple months. It certainly did not help her to have another charge on her record. I kept wondering about the black kid. He was only about 14 years old. What would happen to him? Who would advocate for him? I simply don’t know.
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