by aspenmayer | 2025-08-26 04:08:46+00:00
> I was so confused. I knew they didn't want me there, but I wasn't seeking to stay. I wanted to get my things and go, and I wanted the cat to not have to be in a carrier in the heat, because that is cruel and not safe for the animal. I insisted that I call the authorities at this point, and they did too.

If you read between the lines here, you will realize that the person she was cheating on me with was also there, and was in their bedroom. That other person was plying her with narcotics, just like they had with the last person they were with before they were with my ex. Their ex had died of an overdose, and they didn’t call 911 because they had supplied the fatal dose. I knew that they were also a felon, but my ex had assured me that they weren’t together anymore when it originally came up. All I knew for sure was the other person was capricious with human life and suffering, and they were already a felon for dealing.

When I got hit with the dog bowl, the other person came out of the back room, so I couldn’t even bring up that I needed to get my legal firearm, because I didn’t want them to know it was in the house, and I didn’t want to get the business end of my own implement. I was further assaulted by the other person. The entire time I was just asking for them to stop and for everyone to calm down and to stop hitting me. I now realize that my ex didn’t want me to call the authorities because the other person had active warrants, and they were strung out and didn’t want to lose their supplier.

I had no idea they were seeing the other person behind my back the whole time until later, but I knew enough to know that the situation was rapidly deteriorating. I called 911 as I tried to keep the other person from literally slapping my dangling tooth out of my mouth, as they grabbed my hair. I did attempt to restrain them from hurting me with one hand while holding my phone with the other while on a speakerphone call with a 911 dispatcher.

The police didn’t let me press charges. I was determined to be the aggressor due to being concussed when I was interrogated and being careless with my speech. They interpreted my words as a confession of wrongdoing, and I was never Mirandized/read my rights, then or at any time. I was taken to jail and photographed and fingerprinted.

If I didn’t have cash in my wallet, I wouldn’t have been able to pay to use the phone or the internet tablet to call or email my family, so that they could bond me out. My folks had to put a $5K bond down just to get me out, and that was after a day and a half sleeping on the floor in an overcrowded pod with pre-trial detention folks and those already convicted pooled together in one big room.

Everyone in jail was chill, ironically. I found some books in the hallway and moved them along with me to the pod. I traded some books with another inmate who had a small stack of them. Another guy gave me some instant coffee, which you had to pay for from your commissary fund. I was lucky to bond out. If I hadn’t, I would have had to stay in jail for the entire ~1.5 years pre-trial, even though I was never found guilty; I never went to court at all after entering my plea, as the case was dropped before trial. My public defender didn’t even call to tell me; I had to email them to confirm. The entire process left me feeling like mere grist for the mills of justice.

Always get a lawyer. Ask to be read your rights, then ask for a lawyer. Don’t say anything else, because it will be misconstrued if there is any possibility of fault. The authorities are there to bring charges and convict folks. Justice is a heading, but not a goal. Closing cases and getting convictions is their job. This is true even of public defenders, as they get paid by the same government that pays the prosecutor to convict you.

Never go to trial without a lawyer, as anyone who represents themselves has a fool for a client. On that point, get a private attorney if you can at all. Public defenders who don’t try to make you take a deal are few and far between, and my charges would likely have not been dropped if not for my ex’s mom calling the prosecutor and my lawyer and telling them to drop it or she would embarrass everyone in open court for making a mountain out of a molehill. My ex and their mom never even knew that the case was coming up. My public defender didn’t even reach out to them.

The entire system looks functional on the surface, but it’s so broken it’s nearly unbelievable if I didn’t experience it for myself.