“My wrists are messed up to this day because of how tight they put the handcuffs on”

Excerpt from an interview with Adolfo, a defendant in the Hall of Justice in San Jose, CA in fall 2021.

Interviewer: […] how did you come to care about rehabilitation of people who...who have been in the system?

Adolfo: I just seen the way people were treated, the way I was treated. I was treated wrongly when I was taken to, uh, to jail by the police officers. And it was partially my fault, but I just didn't like the way I was being roughed up. And--and um, pretty much. I have an assault on a police officer because he grabbed me and tried to put me in a chokehold. And I ended up...I got a...I do MMA and stuff like that, so I grabbed him, and I put him in a chokehold and I dropped him to the ground. And yeah, and then the light on my head turned on and I said, OK, here's my hands. I'm sorry. I apologize. It was too late.

Interviewer: Right.

Adolfo: Yeah. I got dropped. I don't know, like six or seven times that night. I got told I don't know how many times to stop resisting. And I just was not. I got picked up by my hands on my butt from the handcuffs. Yeah, my wrists are messed up to this day because of how tight they put the handcuffs on my wrists.

Interviewer: Mm-Hmm.

Adolfo: You know, they were dug into my skin and like again, again, I said, because I know it's my fault because I dropped the police officer, but I just didn't like the way he was trying to be really aggressive with me and not approach me in a--in a right way.

Interviewer: Mm hmm.

Adolfo: You know, and the right way was, you know...a humanly way, you know, not, you know, hey come here, let me try to grab you. And, you know, that just totally took me off guard. And I did what I knew best, and defending myself, which was not good at the time, but that's what I was trained to do.

Interviewer: Right.

Adolfo: And I was just caught off guard and so was he (ha).