The day I got arrested

It's January 6th, 2021. The one year anniversary of getting arrested on the campus I was going to, for having my service dog with me. The day that started my terrible year of 2020. The day my civil rights were violated. The day I was humiliated to the highest degree in a place I should have been safe. The day my school let me down and then refused to protect me from the discrimination I was receiving on their campus. If I had access to all the video footage to show you what happened I would. As of this moment I'm still trying to get the footage and I have been given 3 chances to plead guilty to being mixed and disabled and having my service dog with me on the college campus I was attending like that is a crime. I refuse to have my civil rights and be told I'm a criminal for doing nothing illegal.

Here is the events of what happened January 6th, 2020. My full day.

I just got off of a 14 hour shift in Duluth about an hour away from Athens with my service dog Zeus with me. On my way home I realized that today was the first day of the spring semester and I was locked out of my students email. I had to go to the school to inform a teacher that I work nights and can only come in for test and to reset my password to get into my student email. After getting to the school I parked off campus at the parking lot across from the K building, I walked Zeus a little bit off campus before going on campus to meet with my teacher and reset my password with Zeus. As I was walking up the hill beside K building where the classroom for my teacher was when I was stopped by an officer (the arresting officer) to tell me dogs weren't allowed on campus. I responded by telling the officer that "Zeus was my service dog. I was in a hurry cause it was the first day of the semester and I haven't slept in 18 going on 19 hours." (This is important cause I have narcolepsy and because of the changes in insurance causing me not to be able to get my medicine like I normally can, so, I'm unmedicated at this time and extremely tired as well). Afterwards the arresting officer started talking to someone else on his radio. At this point in time I wasn't breaking any laws or doing anything illegal so I asked the officer if we could "walk and talk" so we could handle the situation while moving so I could hurry up and get off campus and go home. He didn't want to and was wanting to waste time so I proceeded without him where he decided to follow. When I wasn't stopping and not responding the way the officer wanted he decided to rush in front of me and cut me off mid step to make sure my shoulder came in contact with his shoulder. Forcing contact with me so he could have legal reason to escalate the situation saying I ran into him. After bumping into the arresting officer I kept moving forward to check to see if my teacher was in his room cause he has big windows in the front of the building. The arresting officer continued to follow me trying to force himself in front of me again while telling me to stop and that he was going to arrest me if I didn't stop. I looked through the window of my teachers class room and saw he wasn't there and then tried to keep moving while the officer tried over and over again to cut me off like he did before. After the last time of getting cut off beside the welding lab I turned around and saw another officer moving towards me and walk past me and start talking to the arresting officer. I heard the new officer on the scene say something about its your decision on what you want to do because the new officer didn't know much about what was going on. So the arresting officer decided to arrest me as I was leaving campus. At this point I have said that I was leaving to put Zeus in my car and leave him there to stop the situation since it was escalating so quickly. (Apparently trying to deescalating the situation when nothing illegal is happening is something that's illegal to do in the state of GA.) When the arresting officer grabbed my hand. I pulled it away and kept walking away towards off campus. The arresting officer kept telling me to stop or he was going to taze me while I was leaving. Then he shot me in the upper left buttocks area. My dog was on his leash which was in my left hand. Even after being shot with the tazer I didn't get violent and just kept walking away. After they realized the tazer wasn't working both officers decided to tackle me to the ground while going down hill, scraping my up elbows and knees. After getting tackled to the ground Zeus got scared and escaped from his harness and ran to go get people and let them know I was in trouble. Zeus was never violent or aggressive towards anyone. After tackling me to the ground I started to struggle cause I just got surprise assaulted and Zeus got lose. I was more worried about getting Zeus back in his harness and safe with cops being known for shooting dogs they are suddenly afraid of. After about 45 seconds to 2 minutes of the two officers struggling to arrest me they eventually got me in handcuffs. At one point they were putting a lot of pressure on my chest making it hard for me to breathe I informed them of this and the Second officer let up an allowed me to breathe. After getting me cuffed and calling for someone to come pick me up and take me to jail. I saw the officer that arrested me standing on my sunglasses and let him know my sunglasses was under his boot, he looked and pressed harder down on them and did a slight twisting motion before taking his foot off of them I then said "those were my sunglasses, fuck you." After the officer who was picking me up showed up I heard them talking about getting animal control and sending Zeus to a shelter which immediately made me start crying out for help and some kind of student representative, cause I have had a dog get sent to a shelter in the past get scared at the shelter and then bite someone and get put down before I could get her. I lost my composure completely at this point. I screamed a treat of "if anyone hurts my dog I'll kill them. The arresting officers then whispers into my ears "you better shut up or I'll add making a treat on campus too". Then they had to pick me up and pat me down and go through all my pockets. I start telling them that my cuffs are too tight can you please loosen them it's mainly the left hand cause it was starting to hurt And I started getting huge waves of anxiety and start crying tears as I couldn't see where Zeus was and couldn't find him I was terrified that I lost him but he went to someone and they put him in the on campus PD office and he was safe. I then wanted to make sure Zeus was going to stay safe and wanted them to know I have someone who could come pick him up. Then because of the high stress of the situation I couldn't think of her number because I left my phone in the car cause I didn't need it cause I was going to be in and out no more than 5 to 7 minutes. So they said something about my emergency contact and I told them that it should be my roommate she will come pick him up. I was trying to let them know that they didn't have to call animal control. Then I was placed in the back of the car after the had to put two sets of handcuffs on me and slightly fixing the left cuff. It was a little looser so it stopped hurting at that moment but by the time I got to the jail and they started the pat down my left hand fingers was starting to tingle. I asked some questions along the ride and had waves of anxiety and sorrow and regret come over me and wash away over and over again. But after the officer coming to pick me up showed up he also separated me from the officer who arrested me. From there I was treated kindly by Athens PD. They even tried to make some jokes with me to ease tension. I didn't realize it at first and took the joke seriously and answered seriously until he said he was trying to help me relax cause I was crying and worried about my dog, my job, thought I wasn't getting out, and couldn't remember my roommates number and was beating myself up about not being able to remember her number and finally started to remember her number but couldn't remember the last digit. After getting processed and was able to make a phone call I took a guess of one of 3 numbers I thought it was and was going to pick my second choice before I switched back to my first choice and got it right first try she picked up the phone and I was trying to tell her I was in jail and she had to go pick up Zeus when she confirmed that she had him already and my worry disappeared completely and I told her that they told me I was going to be processed and sent home today and I would call her when I'm out and leaving before we hung up and then I sat down and patiently waited to be told I could leave once I got up to wash their blood off of me (cause I knew it wasn't my blood) and wash my elbows look at where I got tazed and dust myself off finally. Before sitting in the same spot waiting patiently to be let go. trying to let my emotions and chemicals in my brain settle before going home and try not to cry and get some sleep before work after going back to get my car. I ended up being to upset and stressed about all of this and wasn't able to get any sleep at all. around 2100-2200 I started to feel pains in my joints, knees & elbows, my left wrist is still swollen, my neck, my hips, if I lay flat and lift my knees to my chest I feel sharp pains in my hips picking up my knees and putting them down. After clocking off work around 4 in the morning I went to the hospital to get checked out.

That's it. That was my day last year today. The beginning of a extremely rough year that just got worse and worse for me. I'm supposed to have another court case about all of this in February. I'm not going to stop fighting this. I should never have been arrested and processed into the the system for doing nothing wrong or illegal. I'll keep updates as things progress. I am writing this because I feel alone in this fight. Almost no one knows about it or at least it feels that way. I needed to get this out. Thank you for reading and your support.