Jail Brawl

Another hour went by and then we were filed into several other concrete rooms one at a time. I was told by my friends that it would not be much longer and that soon we would be going upstairs. We were finally lined up and we were getting prepared to go upstairs. We would all be issued a bag. Do an inventory of that bag because when you are released, if anything is missing, you will not be released; you will have to stay upstairs until everything is found. I looked inside. I saw a blanket, a sheet, a towel, plastic miniature tooth brush (no tooth paste) and a black comb. We were told that we would be assigned a mattress. We filed upstairs; it was like we had to go through the same crap all over again. Picture taken; finger printed…after a few hours we were assigned a number (I was given 614). Six hundred of the 614 was the cage I was assigned to go into. #14 was the bunk I would put my mattress pad on. We were told that we will no longer be known by our name but by the number we had been assigned. I was no longer a person…I had been stripped of my humanity. I was a number; like I was in a concentration camp.

The inmates that had been there for several months and even years were very interested in the newbies and wanted to get to know who we were. I sat on my bunk and took out all the bags of food I had stuffed in my pants. I looked up. “Does anyone want any of this food?” I was tired of carrying it in my pants.

One inmate looked at me. “I will give you my hard-boiled egg for your cookies.”

“I don’t want to take your egg; if you want the cookies I’ll be glad to give it to you.”

She looked absolutely astonished. The next thing I knew, about 6-10 inmates came over to me and said. “Honey, don’t worry – we will take good care of you. What are you in for?”

“My husband put me in here.”

They all laughed. “Half the women in here are here because of a man!”

I gave them what food I was going to eat.

“Don’t worry, we’ll protect you honey. You just let us know what you need and we’ll take care of you.”

One woman said. “She’s not here right now but you need to meet Brandy Newman.  She’s on the phone right now with her attorney. You need to hear her story. Her husband did the same thing to her.”

“Okay,” I said wearily.

A woman came into the cage. “Brandy,” they called. “There’s someone here you have to meet!”

She sat down next to me. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. When you get out of here, don’t go back to your house. Move out immediately and get your kids out later. Because if you go back he’ll set you up again. When I moved back, my husband made sure he had something set up to get me arrested again and now I’ve been here for three months waiting for trial.”

Oh my god, I thought. How is this possible? I was in shock.

She looked at me. “I once lived in a million dollar home in Anaheim Hills. Now that I’m here, he has his girlfriend moved into my house and is raising my children.”

“How can he get away with this?”

“He has lots of money and lots of friends.”

At one point, I finally decided I had to use the bathroom. Upstairs the bathrooms were a little bit better. There was an open bathroom but it least it had a little short door which afforded a bit more privacy and they were clean. I was approached by someone who wanted to know who I was, what my name was; trying to befriend me.

An older woman with tattoos all over her body who had promised earlier to protect me, approached this woman as I was leaving the bathroom area and addressed her. “Stay away from her; leave her alone; she’s my friend.”

The other woman got mad and issued a string of curses at my protector. She left then got into an argument with another inmate. Then a fight started.

My friends came over to me. “Rhonda! Go back to your bunk right now! Go!”

The fight turned violent. The women I shared my food with, got up and circled around my bunk and made themselves into a human wall as the fight raged on. I looked out at the guards beyond the cell and motioned to them. What are you guys going to do? Are you just going to stand and watch? They motioned for me to turn around and mind my own business.

One woman grabbed the other by the hair and bashed her head against the metal bed bunk. She screamed in pain and outrage. They kicked, pushed and body slammed each other all over the cage. They were having a total, knock down drag out fight with their fists! Getting arrested was like nothing what I had seen in the movies!

The guards watched the fight until one of them was knocked unconscious. They finally came in, carried her out and handcuffed the inmate that beat her up and told us to clean up the mess. There was blood everywhere.

After that it was another long wait. Every couple of hours my number would be called. I would walk out, get finger printed again, asked questions then told to go back to my cell. When you’re number is called. You have to stand in the middle of the cell with your hands behind your back at attention. There is an electric buzzer that goes off. The guard inspects you outside the cell. The buzzer goes off, you walk out and you’re told where to go. I was so tired and had been trying to fall asleep but every time I began to doze off I would be summoned. I was so frustrated I voiced my complaint out loud. “What the heck is going on?”

One of the inmates came up to me. “Honey, it’s okay. You’re being processed; somebody posted your bail. You’re going to leave tonight. It takes 24 hours to be processed out once you make bail.” You’re finger printed, DNA-swabbed from the inside of your mouth several times then you’re examined by a nurse who draws blood. They check you for any injuries. What was so frustrating was that my friend had gotten a bail bondsmen but something with the transaction didn’t seem right to her and she had canceled it. Once that happened I had to go through processing all over again for the second time. I finally went to my bunk, broke down into tears and cried. To this day, I don’t know who it was that sat beside me, hugged me and asked “Do you know God? Do you know Jesus Christ?”

“Yes,”

“Let me pray for you.”

She prayed for me. That’s when I realized that God had been with me the entire time. I had felt so alone and abandoned for the past few days. She prayed for God’s protection and the Comforter and I felt the Holy Spirit comfort me.

TO BE CONTINUED...