A Case of Blind Injustice

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When was the first time you let yourself feel
the injustice that was happening to you because of your disability?

From: Jody A. Harmon
Email: bluestray@yahoo.com
Date: 15 Aug 2000
Time: 23:18:38
Remote Name: 204.214.120.5
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I have bipolar disease, a mental illness which profoundly affects one's life but also adds another dimension -- isolation. Isolation often becomes a byproduct of stigma and prejudicial treatment by society. This was partly the case in reasons for my arrest down by the river October 5th, 1999.

Corvallis, Oregon, a university town enriched with wealth from hi-tech companies in the area, wanted to develop its riverfront. I lived along that riverfront in a low-income hotel. I also cared for feral cats along the banks of the river. I came into this task by accident. Walking the river bike path one evening, I met an elderly woman. She was feeding strays beneath a tree I came to call the welfare tree. Elizabeth and I became friends. But, Elizabeth also had Alzheimer's. When she finally had to leave her home to live with a son in California, I promised her I would care for her strays.

I did, too. I soon came up with a live trap, started a Wild Cat fund at a local vet fed by donations from others, mostly poor folks like myself. And I began trapping those cats and getting them fixed and vaccinated. I found homes for many. Others I returned to the river where I fed them daily. They became my lifeline. With no human acceptance in my life, I found these cats, strays like myself, readily accepted me.

I remember Mouse, son of Paint, brother of Muddy and Stripe and Half-n-Half. Mouse would come running, even in downpours or freezing cold when I would call. I would go to call him sometimes in the middle of the night, so desperate I would be for companionship. He would curl up inside my coat and purr, and I would feel love.

I knew before January of 1999 that Corvallis intended to pretty much raze the banks of the river and reform them with some kind of synthetic terracing. I could not bear the thought of losing my special spots along the banks. But even more unbearable was the knowledge my cats most likely would be killed as a result of this project.

Corvallis promotes itself as a citizen-involvement town, so I became involved. I wrote a long letter to the riverfront commission and was horrified when all I received in return was a two sentence form response. In that long letter, I had poured my heart out in concern over my cats. They didn't care.

In late December of 1998, after snow and ice storms, there came a sudden warming, and with it, downpours. This brought instant flooding. I raced to the bridge across the Willamette, fearful for three strays living on the east bank. I watched as one, Corona, slipped beneath the berry vines he clung to and disappeared. I returned to my apartment in the hotel, only three blocks away, and got a rope, inner tube, survival equipment and a friend. We went across the river and I went into the flooded area to rescue the second cat, also stranded.

It is not as if I had not been in this flooded field before. I had to rescue another cat and wade through this area to check on a homeless man only three weeks earlier. I even had trees and bridge posts marked for depth. But this time someone saw us and called the cops. They hung off the bridge with the fire department, told me I wasn't in much trouble yet. They ordered me to stay put until they got a boat. I refused. The water was only knee deep. I did not want or need a rescue.

Finally, disgusted and cold, not wanting to get hypothermia, I went under the bridge and proceeded back. This angered them. My friend pulled me quickly through the only deep area as I hung on to the inner tube. We just wanted out of there. A wet-suit clad fireman, however, shoved my friend, a respected community member, out of the way just in time to step into the edge of the water while a local paper photographer snapped a photo.

I was detained, told I was a danger to myself, frisked, handcuffed and thrown, dripping wet, into the back of a police car. The police sat around on the hood laughing about how delusional I was while my friend screamed, "This is America. This can't happen here." I was not even allowed to change into my wool clothing on shore.

The next day, the paper sported a photo labeled "River Rescue." Angered, humiliated by the entire experience, I called the paper to protest. They told me they knew this was not really the truth but that it was better for the community.

Shortly afterwards, the city held a "mitigation" meeting in the Julian, supposedly to address concerns of residents along the river as to the impact of the construction project. The meeting was a joke. Most of the old folks said not to go, that the city cared nothing about what low-income people felt. They were right. They told us they could violate their own noise ordinance any time they wanted, work all night right at our backdoor, make as much noise as they desired.

I knew they would and moved out and into my car. I slept along the banks with my cats, the raccoons, beaver, river otter, and other wildlife. I still sought help from the city in saving my cats from their project. I was met with lies, promises made and always broken and, finally, arrest. The arrest was in October. Most of my cats had already been killed, forced by the noise of a large barge dumping huge rock (riprap) along the shore and up the bank and also from the construction turmoil above, where the city was replacing the waste-water line at the top of the bank. They were hit by cars, killed by dogs, or just vanished in the tumult. I was in despair and desperation all summer.

In early September, a very good friend killed herself. The next night, I ran down to the river, seeking a friend, a furry friend to hold in comfort. Instead, peering across the river in the dark, I saw the glow of a fire on the barge. I did not want to report the fire, but I did. Afterwards, I was harassed by city police along the west bank.

It was one week later, right after Cindy's funeral, I came down to the river once again, so sad and lonely. I found a cat to hold. It was Stripe. He was dead. I raged and raged. I sobbed and screamed at the night sky. Then I went into a couple of weeks of delusion, believing everything and anyone I contacted would end up harmed by someone. I dared not even make eye contact with animals.

On October 5th, the local paper headlines read, FEDS HALT RIPRAP. I was overjoyed and headed down to the river that evening. But the barge was right there in the twilight, three men on it. I yelled at them that this was my spot, that they could line their pockets but that would not save their souls. I said they were down here working in the dark because they had been banned from the river, but this is the way the city operates. I said, "You have killed all my friends, why not just kill me, too?" They got in their skiff and went back to the east bank. They were laughing at me as they left. I picked up little fruit, dropped from a tree right there, probably three quarters inch in diameter and hurled them out into the dark towards the empty barge, naming a friend who had died with each throw.

The police arrived. The officers were kind, said, "But there is no one here to see your protest."

The city engineer and two contract workers, in the meantime, had roared back across the overpass in their pickup and were demanding I be arrested. A police supervisor was called in because the two patrol officers did not want to arrest me. I was arrested on two misdemeanors: a class C for tampering with property, and a class B, for violent conduct. The violent conduct charge was for yelling at the barge. I left the scene, ticket in hand, shaking, sobbing, suicidal.

A local attorney volunteered his time to defend me. He even shunned the court-appointed fee because he said they would probably somehow attach that to any fine.

Finally, April 27th of this year, it came to trial. The trial was at times hysterical, at times ridiculous. I was found innocent of tampering with property. The barge was too far out for me to have actually gotten any squishy fruits onto it. They had wanted to fine me $500 because they had to sweep a couple of little fruits off it the next morning. That was dropped as ludicrous. I was found guilty of violent conduct for yelling. I was given a fine, community service and one year's probation.

Steve Black, my attorney, was floored. He argued that I had saved the barge from a possibly devastating fire only two weeks prior, that the city had lied and lied to me for months, that I did hours upon hours of community service now.

I trap feral cats all over the state at my expense and transport them to Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon mobile spay/neuter clinics. I have trapped over 350 in the last year and a half and prevented much suffering. I do this on $512/month SSI.

They replied that they did not consider this community service. I was stunned. A local independent columnist wrote it up in the paper, entitled her column "Undo This Absurd Trial." The city got some bad publicity. I felt deluged. I could not grocery shop for over a month without feeling the good citizens of Corvallis would shoot me.

I am unable to walk along the river without going into violent shaking and panic. I also see the faces of my dead friends when along the river.

Mr. Black talked me into appealing the case. He filed the paperwork and the trial date in the county courthouse was set for August l4th this year. A week before, the head of mental health and Mr. Black talked to the city attorney. They told him to drop my conviction now or they personally would ensure the city got more very bad publicity on this case, which would not be good.

In September, a measure will be voted on in the city, challenging the city plan for restructuring the riverfront. The city did reverse my conviction. I owe much to Mr. Steve Black, a maverick defense attorney with a real sense of right and wrong. I e-mailed him my thanks and he replied with this: "Once again, the forces of justice prevail over the minions of evil." All I know is, Mr. Black, it felt good to not stand alone for once. Thank you, forever and always. I will not forget.

I feel intensely the injustice of all this. My cats paid for it with their lives. I now live with only their memories and a distant hatred of this city. The blows dealt me were unfair but directly affected other lives I felt depended on me. Sometimes the guilt drives me mad with regret and sadness. I see their bodies again, wish for them to be alive. I cannot foresee the full ability within myself to forgive this city the willful, knowing deaths of my friends while holding me up as a criminal for caring for them and about them. Perhaps this will be my greatest challenge.

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Date: 12 Jun 2008
Time: 11:24:22
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