So I'm pretty open about this but I don't talk personally a ton on Twitter cause it's generally pointless. I'm a felon, for stupid fuckin reasons, and I'm lucky enough that it was 7mos before I turned 18, so it doesn't show up on background checks now. Let's talk about it.

When I was young, I looooooooved urban exploration. I hadn't got into photography yet so I have very very few photos of this time. I dipped my toes into infiltration too, so I wasn't just hitting abandoned houses, we're talking active mills and shit.

Anyways, a very long story short, when I was 17 a friend let me move in to his living room in downtown Vancouver, WA. After about 2 weeks I had a friend visit who I had met at RF2008. Things got a bit uncomfortable hanging out at my house.

We decided to walk around DT Vancouver, and we happened upon a strange strip mall door from the 60s into a basement. Some stuff was strewn about outside and a passerby thought we were homeless and gave us like $5 or some shit.

We go into the building after realizing it's a costume shop that had been abandoned after a flood. I found a top hat and a flashlight I wanted (I was an extremely goofy kid). As we're leaving, my friend Sydney is packing shit into a bag we found.

I hear the door open and freeze. It's 6 cops, guns pointed at Sydney, and I announce my presence before walking into their line of sight.

We get cuffed, and they separate us. I told the truth, naive 17yo me thinking somehow the cops were gonna just let us go and tell us to fuck off. Sydney isn't as lucky. They can't make sense of her ID. She's trans, and this is barely 2009, the cops could NOT figure it out.

Anyways, I end up in juvi for the weekend, during which my roommate is gone at FC so I have no one to pick me up. I get the worst public defender I've ever seen, and I end up (badly) representing myself. I take a plea bargain. 7mos probation, back with my parents.

Burglary in the second degree. I'm branded a felon for what at the time was made to seem like the rest of my life. I spend about 5 days in a group home before my friend drives from FC and picks me up and drives me 3hrs home. He's a saint.

I couldn't get a job for 7 years, basically. I started my normal life in the workforce 4 years ago. That's not all.

About 4mos in, I find out Sydney killed herself. I didn't even get the chance to tell her I was sorry. Some of her friends blamed me for her death for years, until pretty recently! I'll never forgive the Clark County Police Department for the hell they caused her.

When I say all cops are bastards, I mean it with every fiber of my being. They killed my friend, they almost killed me, and they've made countless people miserable for fucking nothing. I took a fucking hat. She took a fucking dress.

If you want to tell me I'm wrong, you wait until you meet me in person and you look me in the fucking eyes when you say it. Fuck the police, burn their precincts down.

OH I FORGOT! if I ever get arrested again, my felony comes back! So I can't even join these protests because one night in lockup will ruin my life forever!

I may end up with a decent-ish job someday, if I schmooze just right. This isn't a redemption story, there is no redemption until my wrongly incarcerated brothers and sisters are free, records wiped. Our system profits off the minor mistakes of the poor and black/brown.

Until that system is dismantled, no, every cop is worthless slime.