The weekend is almost over and I am exhausted. I had too much going on this weekend and not enough time to rest.
I worked in the booking area at the safety center at the State Fair on Friday night. The booking area is where they bring fair patrons that get out of hand, cause problems, or get drunk and unruly. The police arrest them and then transport them to the safety center, where the subjects are patted down for weapons and processed for detox or jail. They actually have two horse stalls in the booking area that act as jail cells. Myself and a few other volunteers are the ones that assist in this process. We help out with the paperwork and do inventory on personal items that the suspects are carrying with them. We have surgical gloves that we wear every time we process someone…..it is for our protection. We touch stuff that no human hand should ever touch. Sometimes it gets very busy and sometimes it is dead.
Friday evening turned out to be a slow night. There were only two people arrested at the fair on Friday evening, so much of our time was spent visiting with each other and sitting outside the safety center in golf carts….watching people. My mouth was still very sore from the root canal I had on Thursday, so I wasn’t feeling very good. I tried my best to deal with the pain and soreness, but at around 11:30 pm, it got the best of me. Since it was slow and we had only processed one prisoner, I called it a night and went home. I made it home just a little after midnight.
I was up at 9 am on Saturday morning and trying to get things together for the family reunion we were attending in Midwest City. It was our yearly Sossamon family reunion where we meet at the park and have a huge potluck lunch with all my relatives. Gayla was making an important visit to OBU for the day, so she wasn’t coming to the reunion…..and Stephen was just doing his own thing. We did have a great time and I had the opportunity to speak to some of my relatives that I had not seen for a long time. At around 2:30 pm, we decided to head on out and go home. We arrived home at around 4 pm and I proceeded to lay down and get some rest since I was going back out to the State Fair to work at the safety center again.
I headed back to the fair at 6 pm and prepared myself for a busy evening. It was slow to start out with and then the police started bringing people in. Due to confidentiality issues, I am not allowed to disclose any names or charges of the ones that were brought in, but I can tell you that a couple of gang members were arrested for carrying weapons and having various outstanding warrants. The evening did turn out to be a little slow…….until midnight. At midnight, it seemed like everything broke loose and the police were bringing them in two at a time. One young female was brought in and was very uncooperative. They wound up having to hog tie her and pull her t-shirt over her face to prevent her from spitting on officers. At around 1 am, things had settled down, the police had already made a sweep of the fairgrounds and it was time to go home.
One thing I have to say about working in the booking area….it’s not for everyone. The language you hear from those being arrested is horrific and some of the things you see are things that you should never have to see as a human. There are those who get unruly and call you names…they ask you questions….they make fun of you…..and try to make you talk to them. As volunteers, we are not allowed to have any contact with suspects, verbally or physically. The closest we come to them is when we process their personal items during their arrest. When they take their handcuffs off, there are plenty of officers around that can handle the suspects if they get out of hand. The suspects know they are caught, so when they take the handcuffs off, they do act civilized. The last thing they need are added charges to their arrest. I have been assisting in the booking area for about 7 years now and I have never seen anyone try to escape while they were in custody.
Well, I had my alarm set for 7:30 this morning, but did not make it up until 8:30. I was still very tired and very sleepy. I was late for Sunday School and was not able to get the power point done for the announcements a church, but at least I was there. Our quartet sang during the morning worship service and Bro. Jerry brought a great message. After church, I had lunch and then took about a 2 hour nap. Now, here I am at work, covering another shift, working from 4 pm – midnight. I am actually hoping to leave at 11 pm so I can get some sleep….especially since I have to be back to work at 7 am tomorrow morning.
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