(679) CONCLUSION (I Was Tortured In The Pasadena Jailhouse) TBN-Oct. 18-24, 2010

CONCLUSION AND PART 4 OF "I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE"
                                                                           By Bobby Fischer
                                                                      The World Chess Champion

                                                            Copyright (c) 1982 by Bobby Fischer
                                                                      All rights reserved
                                                         
                                                                          Published by
                                                                       BOBBY FISCHER


PART 1 --Post No. 570             Posted on July 30, 2013
PART 2 --Post No. 571             Posted on Aug. 01, 2013
PART 3 --Post No. 572             Posted on Aug. 01, 2013

                      ---CONCLUSION---

       "I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE"
                                  By Bobby Fischer 

No Written Charges...
The charges made against me until now, two weeks later, are still all verbal. All they gave was two receipts for $500.00 bail on each one. No accusations on them, and as a matter of fact no clear command to appear anywhere.

(No) Money Back...
Finally I was taken back to the desk where I had checked in at and had left my personal belongings in my pockets. I noticed that my wallet was empty of money. I remembered that when I left home that Tuesday that I have nine dollars in cash and well over another dollar in change. I also distinctly remembered counting out the bills when I was checked into the jail and they took my belongings. I remembered clearly the arresting officer snickering as he counted out the bills, "Six, seven, eight, nine dollars," snicker.
   So now I said to the chief jailer, "Hey, where's my money? I had ten bucks." He shouted, "No, you didn't! You had no money when you came in here!" I said, "What are you talking about? I had ten dollars." Some kind of eye communication went on between the chief jailer and the man behind the desk. The chief jailer quickly changed his attitude and ask the man behind the desk if I came in there with the money. He nodded and said, "Yes," or something, and chief jailer quickly gave me a ten dollar bill and marked something on a piece of paper, or made as if he were marking something on a piece of paper.
   Incidentally, I had given them when I checked in either a five dollar bill and four ones plus well over a dollar in change or nine ones plus well over a dollar in change (I'm 99% sure it was the former). What happened to those bills and change is an interesting question in itself. I had previously been given three dimes by the chief jailer for my phone calls so I didn't bother arguing about the exact change that might still be due me, especially since it looked like I was actually about to get out of that hell hole.
   That afternoon I was told I could go, and an electronically operated gate was opened and I took the elevator down and left the jailhouse. A while later I noticed several pills of mine had been stolen by the police/jailers. I presume they destroyed the pills hoping to find that they were illegal. When they found nothing - well, bye-bye pills.
   
Sham...
Legality is a sham at the jailhouse. There are No Smoking signs everywhere, and no smoking is rigidly enforced - for the prisoners. But I noticed a light-skinned colored cop/ jailer smoking whenever he pleased.
   Numerous interesting and curious questions arise regarding why I was stopped by the policeman as "a bank robbery suspect." The first officer who stopped me said, "There's just been a bank robbery..." etc. Then a few minutes later in the police car on the way to the police station, an officer told me that they'd just picked up the bank robber. My question is how could the police have had a photocopy of an artist's rendition of what the bank robbery suspect looked like in the short time that presumably had occurred between the time of the bank robbery and the time the first officer (photocopy of the artist's rendition of the bank robber in hand) had approached me?

Unasked Questions...
Why wasn't I asked any questions about the bank robbery if that were the real reason I was stopped? I was never asked where I'd been in the last few minutes, never told what bank had been robbed, how much had been taken, etc. I was not out of breath from running, had no weapon, only a little cash on me. They never bothered to check my face against that of the artist's rendition of the bank robber until I was already arrested. To say the whole thing stinks and is a frame up and set up is to put it mildly.

True events... 
The foregoing text was written between about June 5 and June 8, 1981, then later typed, edited, slightly revised, corrected, etc. However, no attempt has been made to bring it up to date or to incorporate later information or events, etc. It is a brief outline, a hastily written sketch, of the horrendous and incredible but absolutely true events that occurred to me in my life between about 2:00pm Tuesday, May 26, 1981, and about 1:30pm Thursday, May 28, 1981. I do not pretend that this is literature. However, it is absolutely accurate in all of the main points, at least a thousand times more accurate and truthful than anything you will hear from the other side - i.e., the policemen and the jailers and all the rest of the law enforcement authorities. Perhaps in the future when I have more time to devote to it I will write a revised and expanded and even more accurate and painstakingly written account of these events.

Sincerely,

Robert D. James (professionally known as Robert J. Fischer
                           or Bobby Fischer,
                           The World Chess Champion)


Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez
            Tia Belau Newspaper
            Pages 13-14
            Volume 19
            Issue 42
            October 18-24, 2010
    

(531) "I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE (By Bobby Fischer) Part 2

"I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE"
                                                                   Part 2
                                                     By Robert James Fischer

                 CONTINUATION OF “I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAILHOUSE"

                I THINK just for the record it is appropriate to physically describe the officer who choked me since I don’t know his name. He’s, I’d say, in his late 30’s, or early 40’s, with kind of two-toned hair that stands up kind of prickly or goes straight back. One part of the hair in front seems brown and the other blond or gray. He’s thin and lanky and fairly tall. He’s hyper-aggressive, like a little dog who barks and snaps a lot and bares his teeth. He is also quite vicious.  I believe this should be more than sufficient to pin down the name and identity of this officer. I describe him thus to someone who is familiar with the Pasadena police and he immediately knew who I was talking about although he didn’t recall the name offhand. I’m sure I could easily recognize him if I saw him again. For example I could easily pick him out of a police lineup.

After this I was taken upstairs to the jail part of the police department. One of the officers who arrested me said to the man behind the desk, “We’ve got him on the identity.” Or “We’ve got him on the identity thing.”

 When I told the man at the desk there who wanted me to answer questions, that I had just been choked by the neck downstairs, he sarcastically sniggered, “Aw, they wouldn’t do that, uh, uh, they’re good men. I know them. They’d never do that,” and he sneered. When I refuse to answer anymore questions and after they had taken all my belongings, I was led to a cell and they forced me to strip completely naked and leave all my clothes outside the cell. When I stripped down to my jockey mesh shorts, I said, “This too?” referring to my underpants, and the jailer nodded and said, “Yes.” I took my underpants off and gave it to him also.

                I was refused the right to make a phone call. After the desk officer locked the door of the cell he snickered, “The phone’s on the wall.” Of course, there was no phone there.

                The cell had no sheets, no bed, no mattress, no covers, absolutely nothing except a few thin pieces of toilet paper. I was forced to lie stark naked on a painted metal bunk with little round holes in it everywhere. After a very short period of time, of course, this became unbearable and excruciatingly uncomfortable and painful. To add to my discomfort the light was turned on in the cell. I was kept locked up in that cell until sometime Wednesday morning, May 27, when I was transferred to another cell that made my first cell seem like a picnic.

                This cell was a kind of isolation cell. Way in the far corner overlooking the street, it had 2 windows on different wall of the room, both windows being open. The cell door was completely solid with no opening except a one-way peep hole for the jailers to look in. The room was completely drafty and cold and dank.

                Of course, mu suffering in this room was completely horrendous and unbearable, being still stripped stark naked as I was. My body and flesh are still in pain and agony from this gruesome and cruel experience as I write these lines about 8 or 10 days later. I was left in there to freeze to death or die from exposure.

                I shouted to numerous passersby in the street to call a certain telephone number and to tell them that I was being tortured to death in the Pasadena police station, which was absolutely the truth.

                In addition to all the pain and torment I felt from the cold, the draftiness, and lack of clothes, at about noontime the room became extremely noisy from the street traffic. By any standards, the decibel level was such as could easily cause permanent hearing damage. Also, at intervals, trains would rumble by at extremely loud noise levels. And of course being imprisoned in the room above city traffic, the smog level was even worse than normal.

                I was left for many hours on end isolated in this room without anyone coming to the door or into the room to talk to me.

                I had once read a book on brainwashing and it told how in North Korea, captured American G. I.’s during the Korean war were placed in rooms and forced to sleep on freezing blocks of ice. But I simply could not believe that here in the “civilized” U. S., a somewhat modified and slower (though equally deadly) treatment was being applied by American citizens to another American citizen. And all this without a trial, without any accusations being made against me, etc. My crime was simply I have nothing more to say to these gangster police officers of Pasadena!!! Incredible, but true.

                After I have been tortured in this room for some time, some jailers came in and told me that if I’d talk to them and give them more information, they’d give me my clothes back, and that I was being punished for my “attitude”. They said they couldn’t take me down to the court to see the judge until the arrest form had been all filled out. They said the judge wouldn’t even see me until then. I reminded them that I’d been choked by the neck and that I had nothing more to say to them, and that I’d do my talking to the judge.

                They told me that they might have to send me to a mental institution for observation. They asked me what year it was, what month it was, etc. I easily answered these stupid questions.

                I told them again and again I wanted to make a phone call. I was refused. I was told, “You’ve not going to make a phone call or see the judge until we get the information we want.” Numerous times I was bargained with, that they’d give me my clothes back if I’d give them the information they wanted.

                I was denied food for some 24 hours or so straight. I told them they were starving and freezing me to death. They said, “Die! We hope you do. You can die for all I care, etc.

                In order to save my life and to try to get out of the cold and draft, I crawled inside the linoleum covered plastic mattress. A jailer looked in through the peep hole and asked me what I was doing inside the mattress. I told him I was trying to get out of the cold. He said I had destroyed prison property by doing so. So I said, “What do you want me to do—quietly freeze to death to make you happy?” He said, “Yes, I hope you d freeze to death. I don’t care.” I was told. “That’s another charge against you—destroying prison property.” He told me to get out of the “Give me my clothes and I will.” He left.

                Incidentally, I didn’t destroy the mattress or any other prison property. The mattress had already been opened by somebody else before me. Much later, just before my release from that hell hole-the Pasadena jailhouse- I was transferred to another cell (for many prisoners) and saw several more of these particular mattresses they have up there. They were all in good condition and sewed up. I looked them over and estimate that it would be extremely difficult—virtually impossible—to open them up without a knife or sharp cutting object of some kind. I suppose they are made that way deliberately. And, of course, I had no knife or any other object of any kind in my isolation cell.

                The charge that I destroyed the mattress is totally laughable because the mattress was my only chance to even partially try to get out of the cold, dankness and draftiness. It would have made absolutely no sense whatever for me to destroy it.

                However, I would add that in order to save my life from the freezing cold I would have been fully justified in destroying the entirety of the prison. If one is allowed to kill in self defense, how much more should he be allowed to destroy a cheap prison mattress to save his life. Although I reiterate I did not destroy said mattress or anything else in the jailhouse. On numerous occasions I was threatened with being sent to a mental hospital for observation. I was told if I didn’t stop screaming they were going to come into the cell and stuff a towel or rag in my mouth to shut me up. I told the jailer if he did I would smash his blanket-blank head off. I also added that I hadn’t eaten all day.

Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez

               Tia Belau Newspaper

               September 27-October 03, 2010