This story was told by a person incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: Oh, it’s been something else. It’s been ridiculous. They’re holding onto us for dear life because COVID-19 has caused for a lot of people to be released, and they’re just more worried about money more so than people being exposed to the virus.
UCI: What do you mean by “more worried about money?”
Caller: Because that’s, instead of releasing people that are really like low-level offenders or really non-violent offenders, they’re doing anything to hold onto them for as long as they possibly can unnecessarily.
UCI: Oh, oh. How’s the vaccination-
Caller: They’re more concerned-
UCI: Oh, go ahead.
Caller: Oh, the vaccinations – the vaccinations, they’ll provide all of those services to you. But they’re not too well in keeping you not exposed, and the treatment here is kind of like torturous ’cause they don’t have enough staff. We’re not allowed out enough at recreation time, we’re not given regular clothing exchange. Like one month, we had this, we weren’t allowed to change our uniform for over a month.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: Yeah, but you see, the worst of all, I found out that Alameda County officials are illegally entering information in the databases of CLETS and CRIMS to have you falsely arrested.
Because if they put out a warrant for you under the exclusionary rule that’s been – that’s been mandated by the Supreme Court of California under an invalidated warrant; that if an officer is suggested to have had acted reasonably objective on the information that the warrant was valid but even though it’s invalid; if you’re legally searched, seized, and falsely arrested because you were found with contraband; the exception to the exclusionary rule is that the officer acted legally objective to not knowing – of any way of knowing that the information that they were receiving was untrue.
So that the exclusionary rule won’t apply and you will still be convicted. And that’s what Alameda County is doing, and the CLETS and CRIMS that these judges and district attorneys have these officers entering illegal information as if you have a warrant when you really don’t, so they can get you locked up again to make money off of you.
UCI: Wow. That’s, wow. Well-
Caller: Doing that in county. Huh?
UCI: Well, I wish there was more time to talk with you, I didn’t know there was only like a minute remaining, but I just wanted to say that thank you for calling in, thank you for participating in the PrisonPandemic project. Is there anything else you would like for us to know?
Caller: Yeah, I’m gonna call back.
UCI: Okay.
Caller: I got more I wanna tell you.
UCI: All right, for sure.
Caller: Okay?
UCI: All right.
Caller: All right, bye-bye.
Caller: Oh, okay. Hold on. Yeah, I’m calling back ’cause this is me again, right?
UCI: Yeah, yeah.
Caller: That’s what they’re doing within the database. They’re having people that are ClETS and CRIMS certified to illegally enter information in ’cause see, I had a warrant that was put out for my arrest that was false. I was supposed to be arraigned on [redacted].
They had a person, a judge, a real scoundrel in Alameda County. Had somebody put it in the computer that I failed to appear on it.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: And I had to stay in jail for two and a half days, almost three days, until I got released on it. But they enter it, you into a database like that and say you have a warrant and you really don’t, they’re taking the information in and putting it in there and taking it out at will whenever they feel like it. To hide it.
So, if I would’ve got caught with some contraband like drugs or anything on me because an officer acted objectively reasonable under Arizona v. Evans and again in Herring v. United States. Arizona v. Evans is 423 US 1(1995) and in Herring v. US 555 US 135 in 2009. The Supreme Court ruled on that.
The exception to the exclusionary rule doctrine is if the officer can say he was acting reasonably reliant and is reasonable objective reliant on the information that he did not know that the warrant was invalidated, that the contraband that was illegally seized, searched, and seized that was found on you can still be exemptable in court. That’s what they’re using to try to circumvent your Fourth Amendment rights so they can lock you up and get another conviction, and they can make some more money off of you being incarcerated.
UCI: Wow, and are they overcrowding, like, your prison especially? With all these-
Caller: Yeah. They’re trying to get people in here no matter what they got to do. I mean, if they’re doing that with databases, then guess what? I have a newspaper editor that has confirmed with expert consult and we’re getting ready to do an article on it, and that the CLETS database is in San Mateo County.
Stands for California Law Enforcement Telecommunications Systems database. It is accessed statewide by every county in the state of California. All 27 counties. And it’s been left erroneously errored and inaccurate for decades on purpose to do this.
To, they’ve been saying that you’re on probation even if you are on probation and you earlier discharged in the original three years or five-year-sentencing guidelines, they’ll still keep you in the database as on probation when you’re off. So, you’re not, you’re never off. You’re always, on until that whole – wow, now all the free calls are gone, and now it’s saying I got one minute.
Wow. Yeah, so they’re listening to me giving you guys this information, and they don’t like it. I’m being honest with you.
UCI: That’s pretty crazy, especially during a pandemic too, where it just sounds like they’re trying to shove in as many prisoners as they can into like a facility – just one facility – with a virus that’s really contagious that can spread around pretty quickly. That’s pretty dangerous.
Caller: Yeah, they’re doing it on purpose. All they care about is their money. All they want is, “Okay since we have to empty a lot of them out of there, out of the prisons and out of the jails, we need to find a way to keep as many of them up in here as much as we can.” So, yeah. I’m going to call back one more time.
UCI: Okay. All right.
Caller: All right. Bye.
Caller: Yeah, so it’s me again. Right?
UCI: Yup, I got you.
Caller: They’re shortening my calls, you know what I mean?
UCI: Yeah, I’ve never had a call this short before. They’re usually like 15 minutes.
Caller: Exactly. So, that’s what I’m trying tell you. This place is going on, it’s so corrupt.
I mean, it’s like LA County used to be a long time ago; Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is now. It’s just taken over. What’s going on here is similar to the Rampart Division scandal. I’m gonna be honest with you.
UCI: What do you mean by that?
Caller: What I mean by that is that the corruption is coming not – just people think, “All right, the police officers, they get caught up in these scandals, and they did this and did that.” The orders are coming from the Superior Court judges, and the district attorneys are telling these cops to do certain things. And they have a code, a silence, where if they get caught, they gotta be quiet and ride it. You know what I mean?
UCI: Mm-hmm. Wow.
Caller: They have to – the have to suffer the consequences if you get caught. And if they don’t do the illegal acts that they’re requested to do, they’ll lose their jobs.
UCI: So pretty much, they’re incentivized to go ahead and try to get an arrest warrant out for you guys even though-
Caller: Exactly.
UCI: Oh, wow.
Caller: Yes. See, the personnel that are in charge of the databases, these criminal records; CRIMS is Criminal Records Imaging Management System, and CLETS is California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System database. Those are law enforcement officials because the probation department in Alameda County is in control of the CRIMS. That’s local. But San Mateo County is in control, San Mateo County Probation Department is in control of the CLETS database.
They are – I came up as erroneously errored in both CLETS and the CRIMS database at the same time.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: They’re trying now, ’cause I won’t take the plea bargain, they’re trying to illegally send me to [redacted] State Hospital to have me diagnosed with a mental illness ’cause I’m making all these factual allegations of these illegal acts that they’re committing.
UCI: Gee, wow. That’s – that’s-
Caller: That’s deep, huh?
UCI: That’s not fair.
Caller: No. What they, see, if you don’t have your own attorney and you’re represented by the public defender, the judge got tired of it, the same scoundrel judge. He sent me last time on another fraudulent case where he falsified evidence as if I had a past diagnosis of anxiety disorder.
I’ve never been diagnosed with mental illness. He had his court-appointed attorney stated a belief that I was incompetent to stand trial and that’s all that it takes.
So the expert witness psychiatrist of the court, they’ll make them, they’ll get them to conclude that you’re incompetent or whatever they want them to conclude. But when you get to the hospital, they’ll tell the psychiatrist up there to diagnose you with whatever they want to have you diagnosed with. And involuntarily medicate you.
UCI: That’s not fair for you at all. It really isn’t. But I mean, what can you do about it?
Caller: You got to have your own attorney. So, in other words, if you don’t pay for your justice, you’re not going to get justice. Even if you pay for it, you still might not get it.
UCI: Wow. Well, I want to ask you another question just like in regards to the pandemic. Yeah, I want to know how you’ve been coping with like all this going on right now in the world.
Caller: Oh my god. It’s, I’ve been in here for a whole year, and they’re trying to have me sent to [redacted] right now to be involuntarily medicated when I’ve never been diagnosed with no mental illness. That makes no sense. But that’s not going to hide what they’ve done in the CLETS and the CRIMS.
But yeah, I just wanted everybody to know that these court officials are the people that we have in the place of position to serve and protect the community; are the ones that are victimizing us. So, hey, you have a good one. I got to go.
UCI: All right, you take care, man.
Caller: Yeah, all right. Bye-bye.
UCI: Bye-bye.
