Three Days in NYC Jails (Strange Story)

The Village Voice ^ | 9/24/03 | Bryonn Bain

[Hildy]

I've got it...Jayson Blair stole this guy's identity!!!!!!

[StriperSniper]

What I don't understand is the racism slant!

These events are not in themselves that extraordinary. Black men and women in this country have for centuries experienced far worse episodes with law enforcement.

When he started the third paragraph with that, I stopped reading and scrolled down to the comments. That was a red flag that there was at least an agenda working. I'm glad I didn't waste my time with the rest.

[bicycle thug]

I believe it too. I left my wallet on a bank table a moment and had it stolen. I spent time in jail twice as alias my own name. My AIRS number -in the local police database - is linked to the person - a crankster gangster - who used my ID here in Oregon and Washington state.

The first time I was arrested they released me when the next shift checked out the physical discription, which matches the criminal, not me.

I ronically enough, I was later stopped in Piece County Washington because a brake light didn't work and found I had arrest warrents for tickets in a city and county I didn't even know.

I spent the New Years weekend in jail - four days - and was released when my attorney gave them proof I had not been in Washington the time period of the tickets.

I also had to clear up other traffic tickets. This guy is in prison again, his brother just got out, and their immediate family and them are well known for theft, drugs, and many other serious problems.

If you think this guy's story is bizarre and unlikely, you just haven't found out yourself that this thing happens way too often.

I changed my licence number, and if I ever lose it again I imagine I will sweat and lose sleep a great deal until I know this is not going to replay itself again in anyway.

Dave - You remember this I trust. I was up visiting you know who in Tacoma when this happened.

[Natural Law]

I have no doubts that any of this ocurred. We are long past the point of any presumption of innnocence and only high priced lawyers in $3000 Armani suits have access anything other than an automated criminal processing system.

[Gunrunner2]

Whatever. . .it sure reads to me like he said he gave the license to the officer and then the officer came back and took his wallet, rummaged through it and THEN took his license---from the wallet.

Former prosecutor. . .really?

Now defense attny?

[PLMerite]

He had no one on the "outside" that his lawyer could have gotten in touch with to confirm his "true" identity?

Something doesn't sound right about this.

[AmericaUnited]

The details are a little weird (the defense counsel with the gloves and mask is especially strange).

Why, if you had to talk to the type of people in these jails, knowing an awful lot are AIDS infected or with TB, you'd do the same.

[Redcoat LI]

The cops told him to get out of his car and come here? Don't they usually tell the guy to lie down or something,especially if he has a warrant?This sounds a little strange.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

"But wait, officer, I've had my identity stolen, really!"

"Oh, well, off you go then."

It sure worked for the other Bryonn Bain!

[Hildy]

I took a poetry class at West Virginia University 20 years ago. The teacher was a KOOK. Major Kook. One day, I read him a poem I had written...the Poem started..I DREAMT I WAS STANDING AT THE EDGE OF MY TOLERANCE. (Lay off, I was in my teens when I wrote it)...anyway, he stopped me at the end of that sentence and said, "Stope, enough...you can't write poems about dreams." That was it. That poem was chosen to be published by a major magazine two years earlier. I told him he was a terrible teacher and dropped the class.

[Timesink]

The cops told him to get out of his car and come here? Don't they usually tell the guy to lie down or something,especially if he has a warrant?This sounds a little strange.

It sounds a LOT strange, as do a number of things in this account. My guess is that the most basic fact of the story is true - he likely was pulled over and arrested as a result of identity theft, and spent more than one day getting it straightened out - but that it has been greatly embellished, either intentionally out of a desire to make himself more valuable as a speaker on the Angry Left rubber-chicken circuit, or due to plain old paranoia on the author's part.

I'd be a lot more willing to believe this in full if it had been written by a third party who had actually taken the time to do the necessary investigative reporting.

[Timesink]

I took a poetry class at West Virginia University 20 years ago. The teacher was a KOOK. Major Kook.

See, you shoulda gone to Marshall.

[bert]

no harm, no foul

[RileyD, nwJ]

Sometimes life is strange - especially if you are involved with the law. Two personal experiences come to mind.

At a motel party around 1970 in connecting rooms with flight line and hospital enlisted Air Force personnel just outside Barksdale AFB, LA, the Bosier City police crashed the party.
One young airman asked to see the search warrant. He was taken to another room to have it shown to him. He could hardly stand when he came back and joined the rest of us leaning against the walls waiting to be frisked. Of course the detective had to ask, "Anyone else want to see the search warrant?" The answer was silence.
They didn't find any drugs although we had lots of alcohol. We later found out they had a tip one of the hospital airmen might have drugs. He didn't. Happened 33 years ago and I still remember it clear as a bell.

Next item, 1976-1979, time frame. Flying on EC-135N tail number 329 (ARIA Airlines) our crew was on RON in a Wakiki hotel with the plane parked at Hickam. Going out of the hotel in a small group we were approached by an individual selling some type of drugs - we laughed him off.
One block later 2 cars pull up and plain clothes policemen (at least they id'ed themselves) and THREW us against the cars. A quick search showed we had not bought any drugs.
After a mumbled conversation between themselves, we were told we could go and they sped off.

Yep the story posted is really odd. But let an innocent man get caught up in the wheels of justice and you will find they turn exceedingly slow.

While a grain of salt is called for ... go slow on granting no creedence.

RileyD, nwJ
Riley D. Driver
www.daytonchessclub.com
"A pawn can cast a long shadow."

[TheAngryClam]

Actually, that's a common problem among top-ranked law schools- fresh students don't know all that much nitty-gritty law.

Speaking from experience.

[Timesink]

He does indeed teach at NYU, or at least did at the time of his arrest (I can't find anything indicating he's teaching this semester, but I'll admit I didn't waste much time looking). However, I must ad the caveat that he is/was a teacher at Gallatin, which is NYU's goofy "make up your own major, wheee!" school. (It's also the school where undergrad applicants that aren't quite up to the admission standards of their chosen NYU school are given a chance to "prove themselves": Spend two years in Gallatin getting an Associates' degree in a "great books"-based program, and then we'll let you into the NYU school you really want. In short, the school for weirdos and kids that can't hack it in the mainstream.

Here's Bain's list of academic interests from Gallatin's web site. No conflicts of interest here, no sir!:

Bryonn Bain: critical legal studies (race, class and gender theory); African diaspora studies; black liberation movements; the politics of resistance; hip hop culture and politics; spoken word poetry

[thegreatbeast]

Come on! This is beyond bizarre! "Since I was interviewed on 60 Minutes in 2001 about the first incident, I have had more than a dozen cases of identity theft." What does that mean? Twelve different perpetrators of identity fraud? Police don't mirandize a suspect, especially one claiming to be a lawyer in training? It is hard to think that even The Village Voice would publish such nonsense without investigating it first but this truly tests the limits of credibility. And the guy is such a freak! Sure s* happens but to have circumstances snowball into this as told here would most likely be something coming from the pen of Rod Serling. And, as others have pointed out here, this guy was inconvenienced at the worst. There was no beating, he wasn't sent to Australia or put in stocks. If this were true it would be unfortunate but so what? Grow some stones, Brionn! This affirmative action case is a poor writer and a barbrastreisand poet! Have you any of his evacuations? It's a great country when a poseur like this can make money by performing his act at institutions of higher education!