Civil Rights/Senior citizen discrimination

On Thursday 6th of November my mom was arrested for jay-walking! She has just gotten her flight ticket to go to Germany on November 22nd and was getting out of the bus in Costa Mesa on Wilson Street to go to the grocery store across the street. Since the bus was waiting for the next passenger to get their bicycle off of the bus, she decided to cross the street to the other side. She noticed a motorcycle peace officer but did not know that she could be ticketed for crossing the street. She is a senior citizen and has diabetes. She has not been driving a car for more than 10 years.
The officer calls her to go back saying on the side of the street where she came from. When she goes back the officer asks her if she saw him. She says yes. The officer says: “but you still crossed the street?” Where my mom admits that she did but is confused as to what the problem is. When the officer gives her a ticket, she tries to tell the officer that she didn’t know about the jay-walking. However the officer says that she should sign the ticket and go to court (we are assuming he meant if she wanted to contest the ticket). My mom who is an immigrant and a U.S. citizen understands that the officer is forcing her to go to the court.
Since she was scheduled to go to Germany to visit her son for Thanksgiving and had already paid for the ticket, she decides that she doesn’t want to go to the court and wants to pay the ticket. So she asks the officer how much the ticket was. The officer once again tells her that he didn’t know and that she has to sign and go to the court. My mother refuses to sign. The officer pulls out his handcuffs to arrest her. My mom asks to make a call on her cell phone to her son who lives close by because she doesn’t understand what’s going on. The officer refuses and tells her that she will have 1 call when she goes to the jail!!! The officer hand-cuffs my mom and have her sit on the street curb for almost 1 hour until the patrol car comes. Eventually they take my mom to the County jail on Flower Street in Santa Ana. They take all her identification documents including driver license, senior citizen pass and her passport and keep them as “evidence(!!)”. Once at the jail my mom places a call to my brother who pays the $500 bail right away. 6 hours later around 1:00am they let my mom out on the street. She calls my brother and waits for him on the street … at 1:00 am!
After the initial chock and frustration and a lot of discussions my mom says that she should have signed the ticket but she was not sure what she was being asked to sign and the officer confused her. Once she found out that the court was scheduled for December 11th she went ahead and changed her ticket (after paying $370) to now fly on December 27th.
On December 11th however she was notified that the court is postponed! No further information is given to her other than “her file is not ready yet”. Now, since they (I am not sure who actually) are still keeping all her ID documents she cannot leave the country. I just called the Superior Court Information Line and they tell me that in fact “no case is charged against her” yet because the district will discuss first if the case is worth pursuing and if not then they will send it back (sorry, I don’t understand all the details, does anyone?!). And now the REAL problem is that they were not able to give me any new dates and when pressed they said it can take up to ONE YEAR!!!
I am not sure how to tell my mom about this! She has had periods of depression and her Physician has testified that is showing symptoms again.
She is de-facto a prisoner and cannot leave the country!
How can a senior citizen of this country end up in jail for jay-walking and a misunderstanding and get stripped off of all her ID documents as if she were a criminal?
Anyone I have talked to so far just can’t believe it. At this point I really just want to find out how long she has to put her life on hold and wait for a new court date. - Is this your question? Add additional information