The following is an account of what goes on at "Coachella Jail," from our sister paper, the OC Weekly.
We told you earlier about the ways folks try to sneak drugs into Coachella. Also, we told you about how to avoid trouble with the police. But what if, despite your best efforts, you're arrested? Or even taken to Coachella jail? Yes, it is a real place.
See also: - We Hang Out With Some Crazy Marines Drinking Their Asses Off at Coachella - Worst of Coachella 2013: Weekend Two - Best of Coachella 2013: Weekend Two
We got the story on it from a guy we'll call Derek, who was arrested for possession of pot and cocaine in 2009. It went down like this:
It was 2 p.m. on the festival's first day that year, but Derek hadn't made it in yet. Returning to his campsite after using the bathroom, he was entirely too stoned to notice a group of plain-clothed men rummaging through his belongings. One said they had a report of a man of his description selling pot.
"Well it wasn't me," Derek replied. They told him he looked nervous, so they searched him anyway, finding a few grams of pot and one gram of cocaine.
The men -- apparently undercover security -- threw Derek down on his stomach and held him down, he says. They cuffed him and then whisked him away on a golf cart, off toward Coachella jail. On the way, they stopped to pick up a middle aged "hippie-looking-dude," Derek recalls.
"Hey, I know you," Derek said. "You just tried to buy drugs from me while I was waiting by the bathroom."
Apparently, the guy was in cahoots with the rest of the undercovers. "Can you tell them I didn't sell you drugs?" Derek pleaded. He agreed, but it did no good. The journey to the slammer continued.
Coachella jail is -- or at least, when Derek was arrested, was -- an outdoor police area near Monroe and 51st. According to Derek, it was very hot and he wasn't given much water. The jail looked like a make-shift work area with lots of tables and cops and undercover officers swarming about. And reportedly a collection of girls on drugs crying. "They'd made like 40-something arrests already that day so it was pretty busy," Derek says.
After he was interrogated and processed, he was slipped off with other arrestees to Indio jail, a few miles away.
"Indio jail sucks," he says. "I do not recommend spending any time there."
Once inside the premises, Derek was led from room to room for a while. They took his mugshot, and he was sure to smile. He landed in a cell around 4 pm. They gave him a wristband -- a different sort of wristband -- with his inmate number on it. He shared a cell with a large man laying on the floor and a German kid arrested at the festival for selling ecstasy.
Derek says the large man finally woke around 2 a.m. He proceeded to tell his fellow prisoners his story: Just before he was arrested (he didn't specify why) he stuck a ball of meth up his ass so the cops wouldn't find it.
