The following, cross-posted from resistkxl.tumblr.com, is a personal account from someone who was in the car with Shannon Thursday afternoon when she got arrested. It is extremely disheartening to hear how long Shannon will have to face this repression while in jail for the second time in two weeks, but we are doing everything possible to provide her with the support she needs. If you can help, please consider a donation to the legal fund to support Shannon and others who have suffered the brunt of police intimidation. Love and solidarity,
– Tar Sands Blockaders
So basically here’s what happened. Shannon and I were driving down from camp to Houston. We stopped at a stop sign in Kilgore TX and as soon as I pulled into the intersection a cop turned on his lights and pulled us over. He said I made a rolling stop but I remember sitting at the stop sign waiting for someone else to go for at least 5 seconds.
So he took our IDs and came back, gave me a ticket then went around to Shannon and told her to get out because there was a warrant coming up from Wood County (where she locked down last week and was tortured by police). As soon as they got confirmation they arrested her and I followed them to the police station. I waited there for a while until a jailer came out and told me that she had a warrant for felony possession of a criminal instrument.
She was never charged with that originally but apparently it was tacked on after the fact and she was never informed. In fact, day before yesterday I sat next to her while she called her bail bondsman and he told her that she would have her court date in 3-6 months. Her bail was set at $7500.
So I waited at the McDonalds down the street for 2 hours for someone to come get her stuff from my car so I could drive home. When they got there they informed me that she could be bailed out that night and then transferred to the county jail to be released. We found a bondsman willing to bail her out for $1000 so we drove back to camp, got the cash and drove back. He then informed us that he didn’t deal with warrants out of Wood County so we sat in a parking lot until 1 am calling all 18 bondsmen on the list and were rejected by every one of them either because of the Wood County thing or because she’s from Lake Dallas. We called the Wood County bondsman who we’ve been using for all of the other arrests and who gives us a good deal but he said he couldn’t deal with a Kilgore case.
Last I heard, the entire transfer process will take 10 days for her to get to Wood County where she can be bonded out, but I’ve been on the road all day so I probably don’t have the most recent info. I’ll update you when I hear more.