Lineup

Today I went to a lineup. Some people got stuck up. They called the cops. Eventually, the cops or the DA or whoever had them come down to the jail to look at some dudes through a one-way window or mirror or whatever. Two white attorneys, three white people who got robbed, one white investigator, a whole bunch of white COs, and six black dudes in jail, in orange jumpsuits, all of whom had to be in their late teens and early twenties.

It was comical, surreal, and, most of all, depressing. I'm still reacting. Comical because the guys were told to approach the one-way window thing and then turn to the side, then the back, then the other side, then to the front again in a full, clockwise circle. In between viewings, a few were kind of doing a dance thing with the turns. Surreal because they're in bright orange jumpsuits with bright orange shoes. The jumpsuits are huge, these guys are pretty skinny. It looked like they were rehearsing for a play.

And depressing. This was in the jail. They were brought into a room and had to hold laminated cards with numbers on them while facing the one-way window. A group photo was taken. One guy was a suspect. The rest were there because they were supposed to sort of look like the suspect, thus preventing the lineup from being unduly suggestive. Funny thing is, the other guys didn't have a lawyer present even though everyone knows these sorts of lineups are notoriously unreliable means of identification. Even one of the COs said that for some reason he was in a series of lineups and was picked four different times even though he was just one of the guys filling in. Each guy needs to have a lawyer present, as each probably has about the same chance of being picked. During one of the viewings, the person watching asked to see two people again, neither of whom was the suspect.

Complete domination. No one knows what is happening.