A Surreal Visit from
the Police State
Eric Paul Nolte
It's been a year and a half since my eldest daughter's surreal encounter
with a branch of the police state, and I am still outraged by the behavior of
the Northampton police.
Early on Sunday morning, 2 October 2011, Devon was ARRESTED by FOUR
aggressive, pistol-packing policemen who shattered the peaceful ambiance of the
Haymarket Cafe, where she works as a barista, and descended on Devon -- yes, my
darling 20 year old daughter, who is a sweet, gentle, thoughtful soul, and
perhaps the most compassionate person I know. Devon was entirely compliant and
willing to leave with this little platoon of policemen, but these meatheads
brusquely twisted Devon's arms behind her back, clicked handcuffs around her
wrists, and man-handled her out of the cafe and into the back of a police
cruiser.
Can you believe it? Down at the police station, they finger-printed her and
locked her in a jail cell for hours before she was given the opportunity to
post bail and go back to work.
What's going on? Was Devon caught dealing drugs? Mugging old ladies?
Burgling houses? Smuggling Freon for old automobile air conditioners?
No, of course not.
This outrageous and idiotic display of police state muscle flexing was
prompted by ... a traffic ticket ... but not even a moving violation ... that
Devon got for ... AN EXPIRED INSURANCE CARD, which led the gendarmes mistakenly
to conclude that Devon was not insured, when in fact her car IS INDEED insured.
Now, alright, the situation is a little more complicated than I've allowed
thus far, but still ... CHEEZZ!!! We're talking about some red tape, a silly
little clerical matter that the authorities got wrong in the first place!
Here's the story: Devon had a tiny little fender bender with her Oldsmobile
in August. When the police arrived on the scene, they issued Devon a ticket for
failing to have insurance. While her insurance card had expired, she WAS, in
fact, still insured through GEICO! For some reason the police data base
couldn't pull up this fact, and they could not be bothered to speak with an
insurance rep who could have told them the car was insured, so the cops wrote
her a ticket and gave her a court date. Then Devon spoke with a GEICO Rep about
the problem and got the mistaken impression that the insurance company would
handle everything and that the police matter, namely, the ticket, would be
dropped ... somehow .... Poor girl, this tender naif who had never before run
up against a problem with the government.
So, of COURSE the matter was NOT dropped, because we're dealing with a
relentless, box-checking, paper-pushing, dogmatic, one-size-fits all government
bureaucracy! One might expect that anybody with a dram of common sense and a
dollop of humanity would dismiss the ticket because it's obvious that there was
NO VIOLATION ON WHICH TO BASE WRITING A TICKET! God!
But we're dealing with the government, not a business that still has the
right occasionally to use some common sense, when it's not in violation of some
dumbass regulation spelled out in the 75,000 pages of the Federal Register.
So, Devon mistakenly thought the insurance company had arranged for the
ticket to be dropped, and come the court date, Devon happened to be out of
town. Whoops ....
Devon doesn't check her mail very closely unless she is expecting to
receive something, and she lives in a big old house with five other young
people, which makes the whole flow of mail a little loosey-goosey under the
best of circumstances.
To the point here, Devon was not aware that the police sent her a notice
about her failure to appear in court.
And of course the police could not be bothered just to TELEPHONE her and
ask what's going on.
But the police damn well COULD be bothered to dispatch four big burly
police bruisers in their cruisers to scare the hell out of my darling little
baby girl and create this ridiculous and reprehensible public display of police
state tactics!
The authorities kept Devon locked up in a jail cell for hours! Eventually,
she was allowed the opportunity to pay $40 bail and go back to work. On Monday,
she appeared in court and settled the matter by paying the $50 fine (but a fine
for what, I wonder? -- she was NOT uninsured, and it was the insurance question
that was the basis for her ticket!)
So what would you do in my situation? Write or call the police to complain
about this absurd and humiliating overkill in dealing with some red tape -- a
stupid little misunderstanding over some paperwork? Write Devon's political
representatives as a citizen who is outraged by how these armed,
knuckle-dragging fatheads in the police handled this matter so callously?
It won't help to tell the authorities why I already felt contempt for the
way security is handled, even before Devon's experience with the police.
As an airline captain in uniform on my way to greet 300 souls who entrust
their very lives to me so that I can fly them from New York to, say, Hong Kong,
I am daily subjected to the indignities of being treated like a criminal every
time I come through an airport security plaza. I already believed that we have
ninnies in charge whose capacity to grasp the true nature of airport security
is exceeded by children who have only just learned how to use the toilet by
themselves.
Before Devon's run-in with the Northampton police, I was already outraged
by the security apparatus in this country, which remains too coarse and crude
an instrument even to begin figuring out who the hell are the good guys and the
bad guys, much less how to deal with all these people effectively and with
common sense.
Yet ... you know, I've always felt that stupidity is a largely forgivable
lapse ... we all do occasionally stupid things inadvertently ... but crusading,
militant, righteous stupidity, armed with guns and handcuffs, and bossing us
around with the threat of jail time ... just makes me see red. Red tape, here,
I guess. Maybe I'll just have to get over it. Surely there's some explanation
for it in the Federal Register, if not the Constitution.
Anyway, Devon came through this experience pretty much unscathed, as far as
I can tell. While she told me that she was initially shaking with fear, when
the police appeared at the cafe to haul her away, she soon began to see the
surreal insanity of the matter, and with her wise serenity and ironic humor she
just rode down these crazy whitewater rapids on which she had been cast off. It
speaks highly of Devon's wisdom and healthy perspective on life that she would
ride it out so unruffled.
E P N
