Jail is an extreme punishment that should be reserved for very serious offenses. In this country, we are conditioned to think of it as no big deal. No one bats an eye if someone sits in jails for months or years without being proven guilty. If you are eventually convicted, you get credit for the time you Sat in jail as an innocent. You were being punished although you were innocent. Yet people will recite that in America you are innocent until proven guilty. What good is your innocence if you are being punished. Land of the free with the most people in prison. All men are created equal in a nation built by slaves.
The only folks who know what the criminal justice system is like are those who have been through it. People have been screaming from the mountain tops that the system is screwed up, but as long as the folks being locked up don't look like the majority, the majority is happy to turn a blind eye. As long as the neighborhoods that poli e drive around all day looking to lock people in cages don't look like the majority's, the majority doesn't care.
Happened to me in January, very similar, a bit more severe.. in Mountain View.. Got into an accident ( not my fault, somebody just stopped, 40mph to 0.. i reacted, slightly bumped into him.. my bumper got damaged, little damage to his car. he was a visitor in a rental car. ), called the police hoping they will help to resolve the accident.. police came minutes later, stopped me from taking his information and immediately accused me of being drunk. i was polite, a bit informal and confident that it will get resolved since i was absolutely sober. they made me close my eyes, count 30 seconds.. i counted 25... then made me stay in one leg for 30 seconds, i only managed 20 ( even now i cant do it on even ground ). then field sobriety test, which i thought is finally when they turn attention to the accident which could have killed me. test came as 0, next thing i heard was you are arrested for driving under the influence of drugs. they kept saying i am slurring my speech and am swaying also that my car was reported driving erratically ( weeks later when i got the police report, it mentioned a phone call reporting my license plate, but in a part of town where i haven't been for over a year. and my phone tracking proves it ). they drive me to police station then search my car under the pretense of looking for weapons (i was driving to work, at 5PM, work in a very senior position at a big tech company. drive a simple sports car. not much about me screamed he has weapons ). now the bad part, they found some substances in my car, a toiletry bag in my gym bag. it had an altoids can, which had some stuff from new years, which i for got was there.. they only real drug there was half a pill of ecstasy. which yes, i was dumb to have in my car. then they drove me into the jail, where i spent 3 days. in first 5 minutes there, i stood up to ask when i can make a phone call and that made 4-5 guards jump me and beat me for 5 minutes or so. all on camera and in front of 40 people or so. bail was set to $25.000, $5.000 for each drug they accused me of having. first phone call was allowed 17 hours after arrest. after they beat me, they chained me to a chair for 3-4 hours. they stabbed me with a needle, saying this is just a routine TB shot. on they court day my legs and hands were chained and i was left in some cold cell on a metal rack for about 7+ hours. the judge let me go, pending my blood test for drugs. i had to go back to jail and be there for another 7 or so hours before release. around midnight the nightmare was over and i could go. my work was already considering a search for me, i couldn't call them since i didn't have their number memorized. my blood came out clean a month later. they attorney i hired isn't very helpful. i cant sue them, since they didn't break any bones. now they are testing all the substances i had, to prove they weren't illegal drugs. i get drug tested weekly since. lawyer burned through $10.000 already. paid about $700 to get my car back. next hearing in a few weeks, hopefully all tests are finally done. i am 39, and never experienced anything like this. it was all pretty surreal. now doing research the jail i got in is one of the most notorious for abuse. they just killed a guy a year ago in his jail cell, 3 guards convicted. after me in February a person was killed by them through negligence. ( google Santa Clara County Jail ) So i guess i should be happy nothing worse happened. I do feel guilt for having on me this half a pill, and a few doses of designer ketamine like substances. i feel i should be cautious of how i talk to police. there were 3-4 very professional and polite guards in jail. from the 40 i interacted with. they just seemed sadistic. starting with police and ending with the attorney, all very alarming and eye opening. its like an eco system, which pulls you in. As a professional who is producing value, i told my lawyer in an argument.. after you eat us all, who is going to feed you then?...
This is what I was saying in my comment. Most people don't think of jail as extreme, even through it is. Anyone who has been through it know this. We continue to lock people up for dumb shit. Take your experience and imagine that as your everyday. That's how people in communities of color feel. Police circling around all day, inventing pretexts to search them, which is itself a pretext to locking them in cages. Then imagine having now way to bond out and sitting in jail for months over a charge like yours. Spread the word to you fellow professionals, because, like u before this happened, they have no idea what is going on in this country.