I was recently arrested for the first time.

My girlfriend had ended up in the behavioral health wing of the hospital emergency room when she decided to quit methadone cold-turkey, without any medical support for the withdrawal. When they wouldn't let her go after she'd come to her senses, I went to the courts and obtained an order that the hospital release her. The hospital staff, acting on incorrect legal advice from their staff attorney (who decided to not attend my court hearing), didn't want to hear about the court's order.

I went to the area of my girlfriend's room. The windows are one-way mirrors, but she saw me and started tapping gleefully. I showed her the court order, and did a little dance while waiting for the police to arrive.

Then the entire security staff showed up to deal with me. The "old man" security guard freaked out when I took out my camera-phone to take selfies to document the situation, and tried to remove my phone from my hands. I backed away while trying to switch my phone to video mode...

The wanna-be-cop escalated the fight. Three or four of them wrestled me to the ground while trying to remove my phone from my hands. Eventually I was over-powered and handcuffed. The security guards finally managed to pry my phone from my handcuffed hands. It dropped to the concrete a few feet away, and I got a good view of a boot stomping down to break the screen.

The police officer I'd called for showed up shortly thereafter, but it was six hospital security guards vs. me. The police officer and his superior called the superior court to verify that the case number on my court order was genuine, but it didn't matter. My arresting officer was almost apologetic for taking their side. At the booking area, the officer took pictures of my scuffs and bruises, and of my phone's broken screen (apparently this is much more than is done for most who are arrested).

As I was taking my concrete nap, I thought to contact a facebook-friend who went to Harvard Law School & ask him if he had anyone to recommend. I was released on my own recognizance after spending the night in the city jail's holding cell. The next day I dropped $1000 on a retainer, which isn't much lawyer-time at all, but it's all I had. He's been very helpful in helping me navigate the legal system.

When I got the police report a month later, I learned that the security guard told the police that I'd dropped my phone and hit him 3 times when he went to retrieve it. My video is quite brief, but strongly suggests that the security guard was not at all truthful with his statements that got me arrested for assault.

The next court date was a pretrial conference, about 3 weeks later. The city prosecutor offered a "disorderly conduct" plea. I signed up for a public defender, who I met after another month. He used to work for that hospital, a long time ago. He said something that was informative, but which greatly irritated me, so I borrowed a few thousand dollars from family for a private attorney.

This is going to take a while.

It is very hard to protect people from the system. If you ever find yourself getting caught up in something where the police might get involved, remember that video is much more valuable than photos... (There was a recent story about someone who was vindicated by photos/videos which were automatically-uploaded from his phone which went missing after an police altercation).