Linda Jensen lives a quiet life on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood in Castaic. She's the conscientious mother of two young boys, president-elect of the PTA, a participant in community affairs, and generally loved and respected by everyone who knows her.
Then why, I hear you cry, was this beloved, middle-aged PTA mom in the L.A. County slammer for six days?
Good question.
She was there among the whores, drunks and druggies because she may or may not have bumped the bumper of another vehicle in a local hardware store parking lot.
She was also there because a Superior Court judge, in a twisted display of judicial power, was angry because she denied the incident and because, due to some strange quirk of logic, he considered her a flight risk.
He saw her, one supposes, as fleeing into the Colorado wilderness, avoiding howling bloodhounds and armed deputies, and swearing she would never be taken alive, like James Cagney in one of those old prison-escape movies.
Forget that this is a 43-year-old lifelong resident of Southern California and a happily married woman whose only previous brush with the law was a parking ticket. The possibility that she would jump bail was as likely as Martha Stewart giving up her kitchen.
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It all began in December when Jensen, driving her Ford pickup, was alleged to have brushed the bumper of an unoccupied pickup in the parking lot of Valencia's Do-It Center. She says she didn't. A witness said she did.
Unknown to her at the time, this soft-spoken, almost fragile woman had become Case No. 100-15799-0644-250 in the files of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, charged with misdemeanor hit-and-run.
Jensen was informed of this some days later by officers who rang her doorbell after the family had turned in for the night. She maintained her innocence then, and through subsequent proceedings, before Superior Court Judge Floyd Baxter.
"I never thought it would go as far as it did," she said to me one day in her modest tract home. The sounds of children playing in front of the house drifted into the living room. "I thought the worst that would happen was I'd get a fine and that would be it."
Her home bears the imprint of a mother deeply involved with her kids. A wall is filled with their schoolwork and their drawings. A table is piled high with material being gathered for an upcoming spring festival. In addition to her involvement with the PTA, she also volunteers as a teacher's aide two days a week. Eleven years ago, she gave up her career as a legal secretary to be with her sons full time.
