Had a nice discussion with a lawyer from the ACLU today about my kidnapping by the Waterbury Police Department. They are very interested in my case and eager to help. I will be speaking with them again tomorrow and trying to acquire a copy of the police report today.

Arrested by the Waterbury Police Department for protesting on a public sidewalk.

I was arrested on Friday at 11:30 AM for engaging in a peaceful political protest on a public sidewalk. I have been charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. Here is the text of the complaint I sent to the ACLU today. I tried to be as detailed as my memory allows. I will probably be asking frequently for your political support as this case continues.

I was arrested for engaging in political speech on a public sidewalk that offended police officers. On Friday, November 28th, I attended a protest that I read about online in response to the lack of police accountability for the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The protest was advertised on a Tumblr blog called the “Ferguson National Response Network”, and the advertisement said to meet at the Regal Cinemas at the Brass Mill Center Mall at 495 Union Street in Waterbury, Connecticut at 11AM. I attended this protest, and was arrested by police for trespassing while standing on a public sidewalk. I was not provided the names of any of the officers involved, but will try to give the limited physical descriptions that I do remember of the people I encountered. I arrived at approximately 11AM, and had a little trouble finding a parking spot and then actually figuring out where the Regal Cinemas was located, so it was probably around 11:05-11:10 when I actually arrived at the Regal Cinemas. I didn't see any other people who were obviously protesters, so I waited in a prominent position with my protest sign that said

POLICE
KILL
MORE
AMERICANS
THAN
TERRORISM

to try to attract the attention of any other protesters who might be there. 

The only attention I attracted was that of an elderly white male ex-police security guard, who ordered me to put away my sign. I told him that if he wanted to order me to leave the property, I would comply, but that I was not going to put away my sign. He trespassed me from the property, making sure I was aware that it was private property. I agreed and left as soon as he asked. He escorted me all the way off of mall property. I asked him where the edge of mall property was, and he told me the sidewalk, and escorted me all the way to the sidewalk. 

I was fairly close to the main entrance of the mall, so I moved (along the sidewalk) to be right at the entrance as cars were pulling in. The main entrance has a triangular median (center of this map: https://www.google.com/…/@41.5483322,-73.0268…/data=!3m1!1e3 ) that according to Google Maps has about 50 feet of sidewalk. I chose this strip of sidewalk as my new protest location, and stood around rather bored and discouraged since I was the only person there. I did not block traffic in any way and remained silent, just holding my sign on the sidewalk. After a few minutes of standing there, I decided I should write on the other side of my protest sign rather than leaving it blank, so I knelt to the ground and wrote

JUSTICE
FOR
MIKE
BROWN
‪#‎BlackoutBlackFriday‬

on it. Soon after I finished, a female approached me and started to interrogate me. She was not in a typical police uniform but seemed to be implying that she was police. I asked her if I was being detained, and she told me that I wasn't. I informed her that I was not interested in speaking to her and asked her to please stop harassing me. She said she wasn't harassing me, and I reiterated that I was making it clear I did not want to talk to her, so why was she still trying to talk to me? By this time a male (again not in a standard uniform, so I'm not sure his exact affiliation) had arrived to the scene, and I had stopped holding up my sign and started filming the encounter. The male was only there for a few seconds before he grabbed my arm and tried to steal my camera. I told him to let go of me but he continued to jerk my arm around and try to take my phone. I asked if I was under arrest and he said yes, at which point I stopped trying to prevent him from stealing my phone and complied with all orders. He put me in handcuffs, and a large group of officers (I know there were at least 6 total, but I'm guessing it was 7-9 officers) arrived and surrounded me, insulting me and telling me that Mike Brown was a robber who had it coming. I believe that all of the officers involved were employees of the Waterbury Police Department, but they weren't all easy to identify so I am not sure.

I exercised my right to not answer police questions, and responded “that's none of your business” to the questions that the officers asked me. One of the older white male officers put a different set of handcuffs on me, very tight, and multiple officers patted me down and seized the contents of my pockets. I joked “one set of handcuffs wasn't enough for you?” and the male officer asked me to repeat myself, so I did. He started to respond but the female officer (the one who initiated the entire encounter) told him not to respond to me, something along the lines of “he doesn't want to talk to us, so don't talk to him”. Then I was loaded up in the police prisoner transport vehicle and taken to the station. A female desk clerk patted me down again there, and I was placed in the holding cell right at the entrance. The officers asked me a lot of routine questions. I provided my identifying information, but when they asked for personal information like where I had attended school, I answered that it was none of their business. At all times, I complied with the directions of the officers, and did not physically resist them in any way. I did however remain highly critical of what they were doing. I was shifted back and forth between the cell at the entrance and one of the more permanent cells down the hall a few times over the next few hours. I will have to be very approximate about the times for the events that happened in the police station because I could only see a clock the times I was in the entrance cell. I believe it was in the very first interactions upon arriving at the station that they informed me that I was being charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct.

One of the times the female Hispanic desk clerk asked me questions and I answered “none of your business”, the older white male officer next to her told me I was rude. I argued that it was not rude to refuse to answer personal questions, and asked if he “liked it up the ass”. I asked him this twice- the first time he just got mad and left the room. The female desk clerk said “now that is a personal question”. I asked “does he like it up the ass, though?” and she did not like that question and he overheard from the other room and returned asking what I was saying, so I repeated that I was asking if he liked it up the ass. He replied that yes, he does like it up the ass, but from “real men, not little faggots like you”. He left the room again, and the desk clerk continued to ask questions. She also engaged in some conversation with me about my protest, asking me why I was coming and causing trouble in Waterbury instead of my home town of Middletown. I told her because there was a protest planned here, and in America it's my first amendment right to go wherever I want to publicly protest. She told me “you don't have first amendment rights, you're under arrest” and continued to criticize me and tell me I shouldn't protest and getting more and more angry with me, eventually yelling at me and sending me back to the more permanent cell.

A few hours into my incarceration, an obese white male officer with a white uniform shirt came to check on my cell and ask a few questions about my protest. I told him that I was protesting because I believe that police need to be held accountable in court when they're accused of crimes just like every other citizen, and that the prosecutor in the Darren Wilson case had clearly made some serious ethical violations by not doing his job. The prosecutor essentially argued for the defense. The officer asked me to prove it, and I told him that the prosecutors had provided the jurors with an old version of the statute regarding appropriate use of force by law enforcement that said it was legal for an officer to shoot a fleeing suspect regardless of whether that suspect was a threat. The prosecutors provided this information on the day of Darren Wilson's testimony, so that the jurors would view his story under the light that it was legal to shoot any suspect that was running away, and that later at the very end of the hearing, the prosecutors corrected their mistake but refused to elaborate on exactly what the correction was. He tried to cut me off, but I told him he had asked me a question, so why wasn't he letting me finish answering it? He let me finish and said he didn't believe me. I told him he didn't have to, because the grand jury testimony was public record. He also put his hand over the radiator and remarked that they were keeping it warm (they were not- it was very cold and they took my jacket so I was stuck with short sleeves). 

I could see that this argument wasn't going anywhere, and I was getting pretty impatient, so I told the officer to agree to disagree and asked him to get on with the booking process already. He changed the subject to accusing me of threatening a female officer with sexual assault, which I denied, and then he left. After that discussion nothing happened for several hours, and I had no contact with anyone except for a couple periodic checkups where an officer would walk down the hall and glance in the cell and then leave. On one of these checkups I asked the officer what time it was, and he said 7:45. I told him that I had been here for 8 hours, and asked when I was going to be allowed to speak to the bail commissioner. He told me “you haven't even been booked yet!”. I asked him what the hold up was, and told him I was ready to be booked. He told me that the other officers were claiming I was being uncooperative, and that they were waiting until I was cooperating. I told him that I had been cooperating, and had followed every order since I had been arrested and answered every question that I am required to answer.

He left, but he came bac

k within an hour and they finally took me in to scan my fingerprints, take my mug shots, and ask some more questions. I cooperated fully during this process. The fat white officer with the white shirt asked the officer taking my prints several times “is he being cooperative?” and the officer always replied “yes”. The officers asked some medical questions, like what medications I take. I informed them that I take Pristiq daily, but refused to elaborate on why I take it. They told me they might need it for medical personnel to help me, and I told them that if I encountered any medical personnel, I would tell them about it privately. They also had me sign paperwork- forms stating what they had confiscated from me, a form waiving my need for a medical examination, and a form acknowledging what the charges were against me. There may have been one or two other forms they had me sign here; I can't remember. 

Around 9PM they took me back to the front cell and asked some more questions. A new officer I hadn't dealt with before asked about my employment, and I told him that I was employed, but that it was none of his business what my job is. He told me that he was the guy who was going to help get me out of there. I told him he was welcome to get me out of there, but my job was still not his business. He said “enjoy the 3 days, then” and left. Then the officer who had taken my fingerprints and told me that I was considered “uncooperative” talked to me and told me my bail was set at $2500. He explained what that meant and then gave me the phone to call someone to get bail. I called my mother, Linda Schroth, and it went directly to voice mail so I asked to call a different number. The officer started to help me call my father, Richard Schroth, but then told me to hold on for a moment. 

That moment turned out to be a very long time (long enough for me to do 160 laps walking in my cell) but eventually he came back and let me call both my parents again. I left voice mails for each of them but realized they were on vacation so they weren't going to be able to help, but the officer had already informed me he was “being polite” by even letting me call two people so a third call was out of the question. I was returned to the permanent cell and the rest of the night was pretty uneventful. It was on the way back to my cell around 10PM when I asked if they were ever going to provide me and food or if they were just planning to starve me. The officer then grabbed a cold Styrofoam container of food from the floor and handed it to me. I ended up not eating it because it was disgusting and cold. I alternated between trying to sleep and pacing around my cell, but I was unable to sleep because the cells do not have any sort of bedding material. I could only try to sleep on the mattress holder (with no mattress), and it was ice cold because it was metal) I could only lay on it for brief periods with my arms tucked into my shirt and across my chest to protect my internal organs from getting chilled before I had to get up and exercise to warm up. I removed my underwear and used it as a pillow to keep my face off the cold metal. Later in the night I asked one of the guards checking up on me if they had blankets, and he said no. Around 9AM on Saturday, November 29th, an officer finally came by with the bail commissioner to interview me. 

I answered all the bail commissioner's questions, and she told me that she thought she would be able to release me on a promise to appear, but she would have to look into my criminal record first to be sure (I do not have a criminal record). I tried to keep track of time by walking laps around my cell, and I think it was about 1-2 hours before she came back and said I could be released, on the condition that I avoided going back to the mall. I asked her if that order included the public sidewalk around the mall and she said yes even the sidewalk. I was brought back into the room where they took my fingerprints to fill out the final paperwork for the promise to appear, and the officers returned my property, except for my protest sign which they pretended to have somehow lost. I was finally released at approximately 11AM, just under 24 hours after my arrest.

My promise to appear paperwork states that my appearance date is 12/8/14 at 9AM.