This came up in another thread, but I am giving it its own thread in case I ever want to go find the post in the future.
Feel free to share your own jail stories if you have one/some.
OK...here goes...
The year was 1994. I was living in Dallas (moved here from Stillwater in '92). OSU was playing in the first round of the NCAA tournament in OKC (at the Myriad). My parents, who lived in OKC at the time, had 4 front row tickets to the OKC first round games. My buddy, Keith, joined me and we drove to OKC for the games. We had a really great time. OSU and Tulsa were both there, along with Arkansas, UCLA and some others. The 16 seed was NC A&T (coached by Jeff Capel), and they were the highlight of the weekend. They brought an awesome band with them, and passionate fans. They were playing music every chance they got and their fans were performing choreographed dances to the songs. At halftime, the band played and put on a show with an impressive dance number while playing. They ended up hanging with Arkansas until the last 5 minutes, and everyone not wearing Arkansas shirts was going crazy rooting for them and hoping to see a 16 knock off a 1 seed. The whole weekend was an absolute blast...until Tulsa knocked off the Reeves/Rutherford/Thompson led OSU Cowboys in the round of 32 (Fred Burley was suspended, and the game was close. OSU likely advances if he plays). Keith and I headed back to Dallas. I was pretty dejected since the next round of games was going to be in Big D, and I was really looking forward to watching OSU make a run at the Final Four.
I had scored 2 tickets to the games in Dallas. However, they were in the absolute last row of Reunion Arena, and were "obstructed view" tickets. When I got them, I was pretty excited. I was going to get to watch OSU live in the Sweet 16, and tickets were hard to come by, since Arkansas was likely to be there and they had a rabid fan base and close proximity to Dallas. However, Keith and I were no longer so excited about attending the games. After the front row seats of the previous weekend, and OSU's loss to Tulsa, we (mostly me) felt that the next round of games was going to pale in comparison, primarily due to our terrible, obstructed view seats. We talked about it, and decided that we were going to sell the tickets, and go watch the games in a nearby sports bar.
We showed up at the arena a couple hours before tip off of the first game. I'm pretty sure it was about 4:30 on Thursday evening. There were plenty of other guys buying and selling tickets. Sellers were holding up 2, 3 or 4 fingers to notify buyers of how many they had for sale. Keith and I started to do the same.
At some point, Keith said he needed to go make a phone call and headed toward a bank of pay phones (this was before cell phones, obviously). I continued trying to unload our 2 tickets. Two guys walked up to me and asked me if I had tickets for sale. I said, "yes", and one of them said, "no you don't, you are going to jail". One of them quickly slapped cuffs on me and they began to escort me away (eventually taking me to a police van, and loading me in with 5-8 other busted scalpers). As they were escorting me, Keith approached and asked where they were taking me. Had he not seen them cuffing me, I would have just disappeared, and the situation would have been even more of a mess for both of us.
Just before they loaded me into the van, one of the cops must have realized that I was pretty shaken and scared. He said, "Don't worry, man. This is just a Class C misdemeanor, and won't go on your permanent record." On the way to jail, the van driver informed all of us that it is illegal to scalp tickets within property lines of the arena/venue, and that they usually never enforce that law, but the President (Clinton) was going to be attending the Arkansas game on Saturday, and they were told to "clear out all the riff raff".
I was still pretty nervous about my situation, because we were on our way to Lew Sterrett Jail, which is the only jail in downtown Dallas. I was expecting them to throw me in a giant holding tank with drunks, gang bangers, etc. At the time, I was 5'10 and weighed about 135. I had visions of getting the shit kicked out of me, or worse. Fortunately, they put me in a private holding cell, where I sat for approximately 3 hours. I guess they must have mirandized me, and given me a phone call, but I don't remember either of those things happening.
After the 3 hrs, they came to get me from the cell and let me out. Keith had shown up and had been jumping through the necessary hoops to get me out of there. He had paid the approximately $500 fine. In addition, the cops had confiscated my tickets, along with the tickets we had for the Saturday games. By the time I was free, the 2nd game of Thursday night was at about halftime. We talked about going to catch the end at the sports bar, but ended up heading home instead. We figured that luck wasn't on our side, and going to a bar was just asking for trouble.
Feel free to share your own jail stories if you have one/some.
OK...here goes...
The year was 1994. I was living in Dallas (moved here from Stillwater in '92). OSU was playing in the first round of the NCAA tournament in OKC (at the Myriad). My parents, who lived in OKC at the time, had 4 front row tickets to the OKC first round games. My buddy, Keith, joined me and we drove to OKC for the games. We had a really great time. OSU and Tulsa were both there, along with Arkansas, UCLA and some others. The 16 seed was NC A&T (coached by Jeff Capel), and they were the highlight of the weekend. They brought an awesome band with them, and passionate fans. They were playing music every chance they got and their fans were performing choreographed dances to the songs. At halftime, the band played and put on a show with an impressive dance number while playing. They ended up hanging with Arkansas until the last 5 minutes, and everyone not wearing Arkansas shirts was going crazy rooting for them and hoping to see a 16 knock off a 1 seed. The whole weekend was an absolute blast...until Tulsa knocked off the Reeves/Rutherford/Thompson led OSU Cowboys in the round of 32 (Fred Burley was suspended, and the game was close. OSU likely advances if he plays). Keith and I headed back to Dallas. I was pretty dejected since the next round of games was going to be in Big D, and I was really looking forward to watching OSU make a run at the Final Four.
I had scored 2 tickets to the games in Dallas. However, they were in the absolute last row of Reunion Arena, and were "obstructed view" tickets. When I got them, I was pretty excited. I was going to get to watch OSU live in the Sweet 16, and tickets were hard to come by, since Arkansas was likely to be there and they had a rabid fan base and close proximity to Dallas. However, Keith and I were no longer so excited about attending the games. After the front row seats of the previous weekend, and OSU's loss to Tulsa, we (mostly me) felt that the next round of games was going to pale in comparison, primarily due to our terrible, obstructed view seats. We talked about it, and decided that we were going to sell the tickets, and go watch the games in a nearby sports bar.
We showed up at the arena a couple hours before tip off of the first game. I'm pretty sure it was about 4:30 on Thursday evening. There were plenty of other guys buying and selling tickets. Sellers were holding up 2, 3 or 4 fingers to notify buyers of how many they had for sale. Keith and I started to do the same.
At some point, Keith said he needed to go make a phone call and headed toward a bank of pay phones (this was before cell phones, obviously). I continued trying to unload our 2 tickets. Two guys walked up to me and asked me if I had tickets for sale. I said, "yes", and one of them said, "no you don't, you are going to jail". One of them quickly slapped cuffs on me and they began to escort me away (eventually taking me to a police van, and loading me in with 5-8 other busted scalpers). As they were escorting me, Keith approached and asked where they were taking me. Had he not seen them cuffing me, I would have just disappeared, and the situation would have been even more of a mess for both of us.
Just before they loaded me into the van, one of the cops must have realized that I was pretty shaken and scared. He said, "Don't worry, man. This is just a Class C misdemeanor, and won't go on your permanent record." On the way to jail, the van driver informed all of us that it is illegal to scalp tickets within property lines of the arena/venue, and that they usually never enforce that law, but the President (Clinton) was going to be attending the Arkansas game on Saturday, and they were told to "clear out all the riff raff".
I was still pretty nervous about my situation, because we were on our way to Lew Sterrett Jail, which is the only jail in downtown Dallas. I was expecting them to throw me in a giant holding tank with drunks, gang bangers, etc. At the time, I was 5'10 and weighed about 135. I had visions of getting the shit kicked out of me, or worse. Fortunately, they put me in a private holding cell, where I sat for approximately 3 hours. I guess they must have mirandized me, and given me a phone call, but I don't remember either of those things happening.
After the 3 hrs, they came to get me from the cell and let me out. Keith had shown up and had been jumping through the necessary hoops to get me out of there. He had paid the approximately $500 fine. In addition, the cops had confiscated my tickets, along with the tickets we had for the Saturday games. By the time I was free, the 2nd game of Thursday night was at about halftime. We talked about going to catch the end at the sports bar, but ended up heading home instead. We figured that luck wasn't on our side, and going to a bar was just asking for trouble.
