I arrived at the protest around 8pm central. we started at the corner by modern love and marched peacefully through the old market. cops were around telling us it was an unlawful assembly but keeping a distance and managing traffic as they should. we had nearly made it back to midtown where we were set to disperse when police kettled 100-150 of us on the bridge and arrested everyone including press and minors.
people were held on the bridge for up to 2 hours as they took us in 1s and 2s to dcc where they put everyone in the parking lot to wait to be processed. i was one of the last people inside and i got my cuffs off at 5:15am so 7+ hours in the zip ties. i have blisters and friction burns that have faded but other people’s were worse than mine not to mention the toll it takes sitting with your arms behind your back on the ground for that amount of time.
by the time i got inside they had already put the trans people in solitary and everyone else in the two holding cells, half at a time out making phone calls. there was some sort of lockdown around 6am and thats when they put us 40-50+ in each of the male/female cells, men counted 43 but i know there were more women than men there.
i dont remember exactly how long we were in there for but it was unbearably hot with all those bodies and no ac. we were eventually shuffled around and split again with people here and there being taken to do 1 of who knows how many steps to book in. people booked before me were told they would probably be leaving by 7, 8, and then 9am but those times came and went as they continued to very very very slowly process us. there were so many excuses as to why there was almost no progress over those first 12-16 hours we were all pretty much certain we were being gaslit and held to scare us out of acting again.
by sunday afternoon we were all so over the lies we just tried to remain resilient and wait patiently. i got out right about 11pm so just about 25 hours detained despite, like most everyone else, having bond posted way before. there are a handful of particular events that stand out like the person that passed out from heat exhaustion in cuffs and holding the three trans people in solitary for 24 hours but it was general cruel bullshit from start to finish.
i didn’t sustain any serious injuries but i personally did not get a health intake examination in the 25 hours it took to process and release me. I had a tattoo i was worrying about getting infected but other people had to practically beg to get their medication with the surprise day in jail.
