Well, I guess I can finally say that I've experienced jail. Thankfully, not in the "having my butt sold for a pack of smokes" type experience, but in the "getting cuffed, having my rights read to me, getting stuffed in the back of a car" type experience. And after that, it was the "being hauled into a station, booked for assault and tossed into a cell" adventure. And I just have to say that it wasn't an overly agreeable experience. Even less agreeable was having the sister-unit come to bail me out. Not a lot fun.

The evening started off so well and turned ugly so very fast.

Here's the situation... After work, I cruised over to an anti-war rally. Things started off well, there seemed to be lots of support from the people driving by on the street. About an hour after the rally started, counter-protesters showed up and took up positions on the corner opposite our group. Everything was fine for about the first half-hour, forty-five minutes and then everything went completely sideways. It started off with the counter-protesters hurling insults our way and some in our group hurling insults back. That went on for about half an hour or so. I don't know exactly what happened, but all of the sudden, the group of counter-protesters was throwing stuff at us. Cups of Starbucks coffee, pieces of half eaten fruit, soda cans... pretty much anything they could get their hands on.

Naturally, things escalated from there. Their people were rushing across the street and just started throwing blows. Our group responded in kind. It was an all-out 60-person street brawl in no time flat. Just another nice evening at the local peace rally. It was brutal.

I don't know how long it went on, but eventually the police showed up and get this, hauled a lot of us away, but so far as I know, none of the counter-protesters, the people that started the damn fight were arrested!!! How screwed is that???

Anyway, I'm a little bruised and bloodied, but otherwise okay. I have to meet with a lawyer in the morning to see what can be done about the assault charges. This is just so wrong. So very wrong. I'm just really hoping beyond all hope that I can avoid jail time. We'll see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed.

So that was my evening in a nutshell. Fun, huh?

I'll update ya'll more later. I'm beat and need to get some rest.