Dream of: 26 March 1996 "Busted"
I was in a flat treeless park covered with green grass. The park was rectangular, about the size of two city blocks, and was bordered by a street on every side but one, where there seemed to be some large buildings.
About a hundred people had gathered in the park – young free spirited people, mostly wearing colorful clothes. I had heard about the gathering and I anticipated there would be music and drugs. I didn't see any police and it looked as if there was an understanding that the police wouldn't interfere with the activities. I watched from a distance as the people began dividing up into different groups, apparently for different activities.
I then heard one long-haired fellow, probably in his early twenties, call out that the place where he was standing was where the acid would be sold. Interested, I walked toward him and signaled him to me. He came and told me to wait a minute. He then walked not far from me and picked up a cellophane bag. As he walked back toward me, I could see that the bag was filled with thin chocolate wafers, about an inch in diameter. When he sat down on the grass, another young man walked up and sat facing him. I also walked over and sat down facing him.
The long-haired fellow began talking about the contents of his bag. The chocolate wafers contained
LSD which the fellow described as being extremely strong and pure. I looked wistfully at the bag. It had been many, many years since I had had any LSD. I knew there was plenty of LSD available, but it would be troublesome for me to go out and try to find any and I never made the effort. I asked the long-haired fellow again about the strength and purity. He described it as being some of the best he had ever had and said that one wafer was equivalent to three hits. He then broke off about a third of a piece and handed it to the other fellow who was sitting in front of him. The long-haired fellow told us he was selling the acid for a dollar a hit.It was clear that I was going to buy some. The only question was how much. Since it was such a rare opportunity for me, I thought I ought to buy quite a bit. I started out thinking I would buy three hits, but I kept increasing the amount in my mind until I finally decided to buy 50 hits.
But before I could tell the long-haired fellow how much I wanted, out of the corner of my left eye I noticed that someone else had walked up behind me. When I looked up I saw a large overweight man – probably 250 pounds – looming over us. The man immediately bent over, grabbed up the cellophane bag, and told the long-haired fellow that he was going to need a lawyer. Although the overweight man was dressed in street clothes – a sloppy tee shirt with his gut hanging over his belt – it was clear that he was a cop, and that he was placing the long-haired fellow under arrest.
My first thought was whether I was also going to be arrested. The overweight cop had come just before I had actually consummated the deal. Although the bag was in plain view right in front of me, I hadn't actually touched it or possessed it in any way. I thought that would however make no difference to the cop and that he would likewise arrest me. However I was wrong. After a few minutes, I rose, and keeping a wary eye on the cop, I began backing away. The cop, although clearly aware of me, made no effort to stop me. Instead, he stood up with the other two men and began focusing his attention on the second man, the one who had taken the piece of one of the wafers. The cop now had one of the second man's shoes and was asking the second man if he had anything. The second man admitted that he did have one piece of acid hidden inside his shoe, clear at the end.
I watched in amazement that the second fellow could be so foolish as to tell the cop where the acid was. It was unclear to me whether the cop had sufficient reasonable suspicion to justify a search of the second man; but by telling the cop where the acid was, the second man had probably given up his right to protection from an unreasonable search.
The cop himself seemed well-versed in search and seizure law. Even as he poked his hand back into the shoe, he talked about how he couldn't simply start looking through someone's shoe like that unless the search was reasonable. I had the distinct impression that the cop was following the law rather closely. That was probably why he hadn't arrested me, because he knew he had no legal grounds.
So it seemed evident that I could now just turn my back and walk away. But I felt so bad for the long-haired fellow. He was obviously no criminal, and had even started crying loudly when the cop arrested him. By now the cop had pulled him over under a small tent-like shelter and had him sit down. I could hear the long-haired fellow talking about what was happening, rambling on and on. I knew that at this point, talking was probably the worst thing he could do, and I felt I should walk back over to him and give him some advice. Yet I was still worried that if I tried to advise him in any way, the cop might retaliate by arresting me.
Looking behind us I could hear a general moan going up from the other people who were gathered in the park. It appeared that they had just heard the news of the arrests and had met it with disbelief. I held my hands in the air and waved for them to come over where we were to see for themselves what was going on.
I then turned around and walked back over to the long-haired fellow. I walked up close to him and said, "Don't say anything."
I then quickly explained that the worst thing he could do now was say anything to the cop and that he should remain completely silent. The long-haired fellow was obviously extremely distraught and confused, but my words had an immediate soothing effect on him and he relaxed visibly. He could obviously tell that I knew what I was talking about and he immediately put his trust in me.
The cop also could tell that I knew what I was talking about. He gave me a fierce look and asked me if I was going to represent the long-haired fellow. Obviously the cop had been trying to wheedle as much information from the fellow as he could and he was upset by my intervention. However he also realized that if I were a lawyer that he couldn't stop me. He pulled a yellow card from his shirt pocket and threw it down on a table which separated us. He told me if I were going to represent the fellow that I needed to fill out the card.
Actually I had no intention of representing the fellow as his attorney. I simply wanted to give him some advice about not saying anything right now. He could get himself an attorney later. Nevertheless I looked at the card. It had the typical blanks for name and address and other information. However I also noticed at the top it said that whoever signed the card agreed to pay for 50% of the defendant's costs. I threw the card back on the table and said, "I'm not signing that. I don't have to sign that."
I had clearly aroused the ire of the cop. He immediately walked around the table to where I was and bumped into me. I called to the people standing around me to pay close attention so that they could testify at trial when I sued the cop and the police department for police brutality. The cop backed off. He obviously realized that he could take no action against me here, and he returned to the other side of the table.
Seeing little else I could do, I turned and slipped through the crowd. Once I was a short distance away I looked back on the scene. I thought to myself about how much hatred had been stirred up there today. The long-haired fellow would probably end up going to
jail for many years. All the people gathered around and watching the scene could clearly see the unfairness and injustice of the system. The major thing the cop was accomplishing was to diminish the freedom and increase the hatred in the world.