Runcible Blog

The plan for Saturday is to wake up super early, board a bus in Roxbury at 5:00am, and head to the (hopefully large) protests in New York. It could be exciting. I just hope I don't lose my buddy somewhere. (At the RNC, it wasn't a big deal if I got lost or arrested because I was alone.)

Coincidentally, I just got a message from my friendly lawyer in New York telling me that I have a hearing scheduled for next week related to my "notice of claim". That's a little surprising because I had no idea I would have to return for such a thing. Although I'll talk to him tomorrow, presumably the hearing has to do with whether or not I'm going to pursue a civil suit against the city. It just so happens that I've been thinking about it recently. I received two letters from Legal Aid asking if I wanted to be included in a contempt of court settlement/case/whatever, but I didn't respond because something told me it would've been a bum deal and would've precluded me from a wider class-action suit. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up to date with the developments in those cases, and the legal system is slow and complicated. I'll find out tomorrow what the deal is, but I doubt I'll be able to make it to New York on a weekday with less than a week's notice.

The frustrating thing is that even though I have a year from last August to decide whether to go forward with a suit, the longer this thing drags on, the more I see it as a nuisance not worth dealing with. That angers me because when I was released, I (and most everybody who was held for two days without any justifiable reason) was determined to have my voice heard in court -- to add to the choir that would condemn the city for what they did. I still think that not being part of a civil suit, at least, is tantamount to letting the city off the hook. At the same time, however, I'm not looking forward to returning to court in New York every once in a while for the next couple years, or more.