Retaliatory MDTA Officer and the Menu and the Perks at Central Booking

I have a case where the client was arrested by a MDTA Officer. Formerly the “Tunnel Police.” On the way to the station he was told, you will take the breath test, I will do your paperwork, and your wife can come and pick you up. When the client decided not to take the breath test, the Officer went “Postal”- maybe “Tunnel” should be a synonym. No discretionary release like today’s third offender got from the MSP. Nope he was told, no test you go to Central Booking a/k/a “The Bookins.” In light of the fact that this was a man who lived his whole life here, owns his home, has a job, has children in local schools, it doesn’t seem like he was much of a flight risk. Once this was announced to him, he became uncooperative, sealing the “Bookins Deal.” Unfortunately, the Commissioner was “offended” by his healthy income, as opposed to the lack thereof, and set a bail that his wife had to post. The client became, luckily for him, the joke of his pod. Everyone thought it was hilarious that “this guy has to post a bail.” He obeyed what he guessed were the formal rules of Central Booking and did not use the cell phone one of the inmates had brought in with him, or partake in the available drug that is a regular staple of the Central Booking Inmate Provided Menu. If you think I am kidding, I rode down the elevator one day and it stopped at the intake area that was staffed by guards. As the elevator doors opened and the air rushed in, the pungent smell of a green leafy brown substance that was and is ever present on college campuses and rock concerts filled the elevator. I made a comment about feeling that I was back in college and it was 1968 again, and the officer chaperoning me didn’t flinch. The inmate riding with us, joked that even the guards need to be able to relax. If a discretionary release was ever called for, this client was it. If a release on your own recognizance was called for, this client was it. Instead in Baltimore City, arrest and bail have become the new mode of punishment. If you piss off the police, any police, for any reason you are going to the Bookins. If you are a person of means you will piss off at least one Commissioner and you will have to post bail. The good news is, if you make friends in the pod, you can use a cell phone and chill out with some drugs until your bail is posted. Who said jail sucks?