Over at Scott’s Take, the author offers solidarity and relates his own tale of Park Police thuggery:
I know from first hand experience how thuggish the Park Police can be. One Autumn Sunday morning I was sitting with my son and our two dogs in Meridian Hill Park. We were sitting in the middle of a large lawn, and Eli was playing in the fall leaves while the dogs lounged nearby. A perfect Sunday morning.
Then the Park Police showed up. I saw her stop her cruiser on the sidewalk and she got out and walked across the grass over to us. My smallest dog, being the extrovert she was, got up, tail wagging, walked over to her to say hello. I honestly didn’t know why the officer was approaching.
“Sir, your dogs are out of control.”
What?!
“It’s illegal for them to be off the leash.”
I pointed out they were still wearing their leashes.
“You weren’t controlling them. They walked up to me.”
“You walked up to us. They were laying in the grass. Had you walked by, they’d still be laying in the grass.”
It went downhill from there, with her threatening me with arrest. Although I’m usually pretty stupid in a confrontation, I eventually realized this was not a fight I needed, especially with my three dependents caught up in the middle.
And so, our perfect Sunday morning shattered by a thug with a badge who went out of her way to prove her authority.
It is not only the Park Police, the regular DC cops can be pretty tyrannical as well. I used to live on New Hampshire Ave in a building that had a fenced front lawn. Most residents became friends and it became common for a group of us to gather on the stoop and take turns providing a little beer.
So here we are on a stoop that is separated from the street by a small lawn, a hedge and a fence. Certainly much father from the street than a seat at any of the many restaurants in the area.
But the cops would come and hassle us about the beer and that we had to get rid of it and all that. We would protest that we were doing nothing wrong but they would threaten tickets and arrest to force us to comply. Of course we would go through the motions and as soon as the fuzz left go back to drinking.
By: First Little Pig on April 17, 2008
at 3:13 pm