The Tyranny of the Cubicle

I’m not really sure why I never noticed CopBlock before.

I mean, honestly, I really should have gotten online and googled “police misconduct”
or at least “injustice.” But I guess I was just too busy thinking I was the only one and
attempting to put out flames with my own wet blankets.

It would have been helpful to know there were others out there… folks who under-
stood where I was coming from. It would have given me fuel to fire the determination
I would desperately need to fight and keep fighting. Even when I lost again and again
and again.

In August 2009, my world was knocked upside down by a police officer at my door
who told me he “didn’t need a warrant.” I apparently “didn’t know who” I was “dealing
with.” He was with Rampart LAPD after all. I mean, really. Who was I, a recently
divorced mother of two young children?

He gave me to the count of 10 to open my door or he threatened to kick it in. He
began his countdown as I cried, still asking him why he didn’t need a warrant.
Meanwhile, one of his brothers in blue slipped around to the back of my home and
slid through the gate. My understanding of my country was forever altered. As
Benjamin Franklin so aptly stated, “Where liberty is, there is my country.” At that
moment, I realized for the first time that my allegiance was not to this man, or to
the power he professed to represent.

But it was too late. He chained me like an animal (I had never before been in
handcuffs) and then asked my roommate if I had a history of mental illness because
I had the audacity to cry about it. Peaceful human beings should never be chained
or put in cages like I was.

I am so happy to find this forum for exposing and holding accountable mere men
who exert violence in the name of a badge. The LAPD cop at my door was not the last
time that I encountered these kinds of threats. He was the introduction to a parade
of individuals with overblown ideas of personal power. DCFS, family court, the
Medical Board of my state, the criminal justice system, the LA County Sheriff’s
Department, the county jail, the probation racket…

If you’re interested in the rest of my story, you can visit here or order the book. I
hope that others never have to endure what I have. I want to put my pencil where
my mouth is and BE INVOLVED. Apathy gets us nowhere. Together we can shine a
light on the injustice.