Ever been the victim of the “Guilty by Association” rule? Tried to apply for a job and got turned down, just because your car wasn’t in top shape, or because of the way you dress? I’m sick of the way the wrold is today, people in general don’t even TRY to take the time to get to know you, and in the end, you get screwed in some way, ormaybe even with the good end of the stick. Sadly, the only way to get around this is to pretend you’re someone you’re not, whether you’re more eccentric, but good at math and try to get a job at a bank, but they think you’re crazy. Or even if you’re more calm and business-like and you want a job at, say, a Laser Tag arena, and you dressed nice to make an impression.

     My case of that rule is this, I was exploring an area near my home, and was tresspassing without knowing it, this place had no signs and no gate or anything! I was in there, NOT vandalising anything, just walking around the lot and admiring all the huge, old industrial building and old, rusty trucks… It looked amazing to me! I was thinking to myself “This place looks abandoned, but who would leave such cool stuff just sitting here?” After about 30 minutes of taking in all the scenery this place had, a truck comes driving in with a trailer on it, a worker dropping off some materials. That’s when I figured out this place wasn’t abandoned, just kind of run-down… I turn to the guy as he’s getting out of his truck and try to yell “hi” and explain to him that I was just looking at stuff around here, but he started running at me and yelling that he’s going to kick my ass. So of course, trying to protect myself from injury, I turned and ran, he ended up catchng up to me anyways and grabbed the back of my jacket. Just the pure force of me running pulled him off-balance and he fell, breaking his wrist in two places. After going another 20 feet I stopped, turned around and walked back, so as not to be charged with attempting to flee the scene and evasion. Much later, while I was in court, they told me they WERE going to charge me with Tresspassing but one of the officers wrote up the report wrong and they could not, but were going to charge me with Battery, a Class C Felony. They said the man claimed that I turned and ran at him in order to push him down on purpose! This man was six-foot four and 285 pounds, while at the time I was five-foot nine and 127 pounds! Yet they looked at all my records and I had no previous trouble with the law, ever, and that this was my first time in trouble. This case SHOULD have been throw out because it was his word against mine and there were no witnesses or cameras for evidence. But because I grew up in a not-so-good neighboorhood and went to a not-so-good school and wasn’t friends with all the A+ students, so they still believed him. I ended up being charged guilty and given 6 months of house arrest, $200 of restitution owed to the guy, 545 days of probation and 30 hours of community service! If anyone at all in the court system took the time to get to know me, or used any right sense of justice, I would not be in this predicament for something I didn’t do, and alot of other innocent people that have been charged would be free…