#41 Sprung from Jail!

            In the midst of these conversations in jail all day and into the night, Maureen and I had been trying to figure out how to deal with our own fate, now that protestors against the bypass were being sent to jail for two days, and then to court, rather than released from the holding tank. What would be in store at court, the next day, Thursday?
           I had a series of collect phone calls to various jail support people who counseled us on what might happen when we got to court. “They’ll take you in shackles, wearing your jail clothes,” Sara warned us, “so be prepared for the shock of shackles. But we’ll be there for you in court.” She also counseled us to ask for a continuance if charges were filed against us, since we had had no opportunity to speak with a lawyer. I was happy for her advice, since I have not been trained in any of these practices relating to “criminal justice” for protestors. Sara also suggested we prepare statements that we would be able to make to the judge.
            Wednesday is commissary day, so after dinner (served at 4:30), women were given the bags of goods and goodies they had ordered (if they weren't "indigent"). What excitement over bottles of conditioner and elastic bands to hold back hair, a pad of paper, candy and powdered coffee. I'd been without my beloved coffee for two days, so I could relate (and I had a headache). Our dorm mate I'm calling Red in the bunk below and next to us prepared dessert for herself and three friends, a tortilla filled with broken up Butterfingers, some kind of chocolate smear, marshmallow mess, and a host of other sweet items heaped on top. Maureen looked at me wryly and said, "Uh oh! Sugar!”
            Indeed. Conversation and laughter lasted until well past midnight. I couldn’t sleep through all the talk. Actually, some of it was too interesting to miss.
            Janet, who has spent one and a half years inside, bemoaned, “You know what I can’t wait to have again? Sex! But it’s gonna hurt after two years. My man’s cock is big! No, I mean 9 inches! He’s so big that I even met other women in here who were dating him, and we all talked about how it hurt so bad.”
            I was laying there with a sweatshirt sleeve over my eyes to be able to catch some sleep, but I just had to be the teacher, you know, so I called out, “Lube!”
            Some voices laughed loudly. “Did you hear her?! What'd you say?”
            More loudly now and with gumption below my sweatshirt sleeve, I repeated, “Lube! Lots of lube.”
            They all got a good laugh. Well, it is good advice.
            “Hey,” one of them called to me. “Let’s hear your speech to the judge!”
            I had told a few of the women who overheard my conversation with Maureen about court that we were going to make a statement, and that had also given them a good laugh—I could only imagine why: how intrepid, if not presumptuous, we were to think that we could make a statement in our defense that might make a political difference.
            I wiped my bleary eyes, sat up, and read my one page statement aloud to all those still awake and listening. I began, “I decided to trespass on the Caltrans site because I could not allow one more day of their destruction against the hills and valley.”
            “Don’t say ‘trespass,’” Maria called out. “Don’t admit anything.”
            "Okay," I said, taking in that perspective. As I continued to read, they gave me a couple of other pointers. At the end, I said, “Hey, thanks for the editing help.”
            One woman laughed, “Oh, you ought to hear the help I got on my letter to my boyfriend.” Other laughter and testimony followed about how they had helped each other find the right words to parents, kids, and lawyers when the right words were essential, and they had lots of time to mull them over.
            The sugar high finally seemed to wear off for our roommates by 1:00 am. I’d just gotten to sleep when I heard the metal door now make its familiar click and a huge slap came down on the floor. I bolted upright. Angela interpreted for me. “That’s the ‘boat.’”  It was a plastic mattress container with the pad in it, accompanied by another inmate who would be sleeping on the floor since there were no other bunks available. I realized it was La Llorona, the crying woman, who finally joined us from the Holding Tank. I felt sorry for her since she’d been in there another 28 hours after we’d left.
            I went back to sleep--until an hour later: a click of the door, a slap on the floor, and yet another inmate brought in. I did not even remove my eye shield this time.
            Though we'd had very little sleep, when the 5:30 am call for breakfast came across the intercom, this time Maureen and I were well practiced in getting up and to the meal-slot-in-the door on time.
              We sat again at the table with Cherise and another woman. Cherise prayed over our food as she had each meal. But the most incredible blessing now: “God, we ask that you be merciful to these women in their search for truth. May the judge hear their plea for the valley and be kind to them. And watch over all our loved ones, God.” I was moved to tears by Cherise’s plea. We had little time for dawdling in emotion since the dorm women were responsible for cleaning the day room before heading back to bed. I gobbled down my frosted flakes--the "best breakfast," I'd been informed, and grabbed a mop.
            We had heard that you get called for an 8:30 court appearance around 7:30 or so, but we were not called. Two other women were instead. I asked the guard, “What about Bancroft and Kane?”
            “Not on my list,” she insisted. "Maybe this afternoon."
            We were distressed to hear that. We didn’t want to play jailbird anymore—not that it wasn’t intriguing and worthwhile, but we felt the pressure to move on with our lives, with the campaign, with life on the outside. But I snapped back to how the other women inside must feel that desire to get out and its constant disappointment so much more thickly than we did.
            I called our ever present jail support and reported that it looked like we were not going to court that morning. Meanwhile, a whole group had arrived at 8:15 to support us in court. They were awaiting further news about our fate. I was sorry they had made the trip unnecessarily.
            We were resolved to spend the morning or even the day in limbo.
             Suddenly, in another ten minutes, we were surprised to hear our names called. “Bancroft! Kane! Prepare to be released.”
            Released! So we weren’t going to court after all. We were just going to be sprung! I immediately called our jail support back and gave her the happy news. "Congrats!" she said. She told me that the group would migrate over to the jail yard and await us outside.
                 Now “outside” means something even more.


Kim, Maureen and Steve, just out

            Maureen and I pulled our bedding and clothing into our duffle bags, and gave good-bye hugs to a couple of the women who were still there and who wished us well on our journey, including Cherise. I left the remains of my indigent baggie and leftover paper and pencils with Angela, my guardian angel, leaving her also a note of encouragement and my phone number for her to call me when she’s on the outside.

Anonymous friends who came to support us in court,
but who helped spring us from jail

            In twenty minutes, Maureen and I were walked quickly through the labyrinth to the booking cell. I laughed with our officer what we were being “debooked” much faster than it took to book us. In a small cement bathroom, we were told to undress and push our jail clothes through a hole in a door. The jail clothes were removed, and then our own clothes were pushed back through to us.
         On the other side of the door, we were given our shoes and a release notice, then effectively pushed outside the doors.
     Fortunately for us, we were received into the arms of several dear friends in the campaign who cheered our arrival. How lucky we were!
            Steve was released from the men's side at the same time. He said he was in the middle of giving a lesson on Buddhist meditation when he got the news.
        I finally read my "Detention Certificate" and discovered I would not even have to return for a court date: The certificate state that "any peace officer may release from custody instead of taking such person before a magistrate, any person arrested when he or she is satisfied that there are insufficient grounds for making a criminal complaint against the person arrested." I guess I did the time, so that was enough of a burden on the system, rather than taking me before a magistrate.
        When I got out, I learned that the following press release had gone out, a fitting end to this jail tale:

               Ripper Restrained from Destroying Hillside 
at Caltrans Bypass Site

 
Willits, CA—


        In yet another stealthy pre-dawn action, protesters against the Caltrans bypass around Willits again snuck onto the construction site, this time on the south end of the route, locking themselves to a giant bulldozer called a ripper. The machine is tearing apart a hillside and using the soil to fill in wetlands and streams to build a freeway. For the first time, press has access to the protest site, after Willits News photographer Steve Eberhard was arrested when he tried to cover a protest last week.

        Two women, Kim Bancroft and Maureen Kane, have locked their hands around the equipment in welded steel tubes, which are difficult to remove and must be sawn through. A third protester, Steve Keyes, was arrested when he would not leave their side, where he was stationed with water.  

         Temperatures have been in the nineties all week. A crowd of local citizens has gathered in support, and CHP is on scene. Bancroft explained: “Caltrans put out false information to justify a four-lane bypass. The people of Willits designed an alternative route that would not be so expensive or destructive, and it was ignored.”  The project’s cost at this point is $210 million.

   “Caltrans is attempting to mitigate for the loss of wetlands on an unprecedented scale, using an untried method with no long term manager and without long term funding to sustain it”, said Ellen Drell, founding board member of the Willits Environmental Center. “They’re replacing an already functioning wetland with a speculative plan”.


          Caltrans purchased one third of the entire Little Lake Valley in an effort to mitigate for this project, which will cause the largest loss of wetlands in 50 years. In a scheme that they themselves acknowledge to be experimental, Caltrans will excavate 266,000 cubic yards of wetland soils, gouging out unnatural depressions. In other areas the plan calls for stripping off existing vegetation and replacing it nursery grown plants. 
         “The total price tag of this mitigation travesty to the taxpayers is $54 million dollars”, said Drell.


           The Mendocino Conservation Resource District (RDC), which Caltrans assumed would take over management of the mitigation plan, has declined to accept ownership of the mitigation lands or responsibility for its management, after reviewing the mitigation plan.  Thus the plan is moving forward with no manager, leaving one-third of valley lands with Caltrans as the sole owner, and no plan for the future. While there is funding for earth moving, planting and 40 miles of fencing, there is zero funding for land management, including rotational grazing for cattle, oversight, maintenance, and flood control. 
          Protests over the Willits Bypass freeway have been ongoing since January when a young woman calling herself “Warbler” took up residence high in a pine tree on the route. Her tree-sit, and 5 others were ended after 2 months in a huge military-style operation by CHP swat teams. “Warbler” returned to the trees this week, this time in a rare wetland ash forest at the north end of the route. Over 30 people have been arrested, and rallies, petitions, protests and a lawsuit continue.