FRESNO WOMAN ARRESTED FOR HAVING A BAD DREAM

By Mike Rhodes

January 18, 2004

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream about racial equality. We celebrate King’s dream and vision every year at this time. Dr. King’s shared his dream with the world, but in a bizarre story out of Fresno California, a woman was arrested and spent time in jail for sharing her dream with a friend. Denise Martin shared her dream, which was about killing her bosses, with a friend she had known since high school. Her friend then told Martin’s former employers about the dream and they called the police. Martin thought she was telling her friend about the dream, which she described as a nightmare, in confidence. She was taken into custody on May 5, 2002 but was released on her own recognizance until December 2003 when she was put in jail and held without bail. Martin has no prior criminal record.

Denise Martin was brought into court last Friday in a Fresno County jail jumpsuit with her hands and ankles shackled. She had spent her 53rd birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s behind bars because she had a dream about killing her ex- bosses, one of whom is married to a judge. After a two hour hearing, Judge Franklin P. Jones, released Martin from jail and told her she did not have to post bail. She must return to court on February 17, 2004 to face 5 charges of making terrorist threats. Two Fresno Bee article about this story can be seen at:

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/crime/story/7985784p-8852489c.html

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/8015672p-8880105c.html

There was an equally strange story in Fresno a couple of months ago when City Council member Jerry Duncan made what many interpreted as a terrorist threat. Duncan sent an email, during a City Council meeting stating that “If I had one dirty bomb ... I could eliminate all the liberals in Fresno at once." At the time the email was written, the City Council chambers were filled with members of the progressive community, who were there to defend the Human Relation Commission. For background on this incident go to: http://sfbay.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/1646466.php Members of the human relations commission asked the Fresno Police Department to investigate this threat but they were told that there was nothing they could do. The FPD said that it would be a conflict of interest for them to investigate a member of the City Council. Of course, that conflict of interest did not stop the FPD’s investigation of a certain progressive African American City Council member several years ago.

In the current political environment of hyper sensitivity to terrorist threats, why did the FPD ignore a written threat directed at the progressive community? Instead, they arrested and jailed someone for having a dream! Are there implications or lessons here for other workers who might have bad thoughts or dare to dream about their employers demise? Are the new laws being implemented as a result of the passage of the Patriot Act only intended to apply to the working class and the poor or will the ruling class be held accountable for their actions as well?

Until we know the answer to these questions you might want to be careful about what you dream, or at least who you share those dreams with.