Please read this.
An acquaintance of mine was recently arrested, detained without a phone call, and brought before a judge in Philadelphia. Her crime? Watching an officer harass a drug user who was passed out on a front stoop near her own.
The officer was painfully ignorant of the law (um, it’s not illegal to own a syringe), and while the charges were brought down to “failure to disperse,” she was originally detained on a count of “disorderly conduct.” The logic: she’d asked if the officer wanted her to dispose of the syringe in a glass jar so he wouldn’t get hurt, and he claimed that by talking to him, she was putting him in danger because if he turned to talk to her, the very scary FAST ASLEEP drug user might attack him from behind.
She’s a college professor and she missed a class she was supposed to teach that afternoon because they were holding her. Despite asking for the opportunity repeatedly, she was never allowed to call the college to cancel the class.
The worst part of this story is that — given what I know about the Philadelphia police force — none of this is surprising.
