This link exemplifies an experience I’ve come to identify with:
The men involved as plaintiffs in this case had something I did not have the night I encountered a Bureau of Land Management officer alone – witnesses. Suddenly, I was fair game to a thug with a badge.
As a wrongfully accused man given a choice between making an equally wrongful guilty plea or a likely-futile not guilty plea, I chose the former and saved a life: Sophie, my service dog of 8½ years.
In my haste to be reunited with Sophie, from whom I’d been wrongly separated and incarcerated for a week, I gave up all my subsequent legal rights.
The Bureau of Land Management officer who brutalized my service dog, Sophie and I as we walked alone in the desert one week earlier, as well as his county sheriffs cohorts involved were well aware I would do so to save my dog, who is family.
In effect, they held my service dog hostage in exchange for my wrongful guilty plea. They threatened to euthanize her if I didn't "cooperate" with them.
While I gave up many legal rights of appeal, etc. that day in court, and even agreed to restitution for damages I did not create, I did not give up my right to maintain my innocence.
Only someone with a fear of the truth would oppose me in so doing, and try to deny me this privilege.
Given the fabricated accounts made by nefarious officers and intimidated witnesses, I believe the truly guilty parties involved – the law enforcement officers that were present – have such a fear.
And rightly so. What they did was more than wrong, it was criminal. Further, their unconscionable actions are evidence of a culture of abuse of power and lawlessness by those empowered to enforce the law insofar as it applies to public land.
Our Ordeal:
It began in the desert on the night of Friday, February 12th. Sophie and I were alone on public land near Lake Havasu, Arizona.
Heading toward a hilltop trail along a rocky ridge overlooking the area, Sophie and I were beginning an evening hike.
We walked through the empty campground toward the trailhead, located just beyond a trailer occupied by the campground host.
The previous night, I’d shared a friendly conversation with him, and we left there feeling quite welcome. I had no reason to believe Sophie and I would find anything different when I approached him and a uniformed visitor with whom he was talking.
Just to be sure, I stayed with in their line of sight for a few minutes as Sophie sat still by my side. I wanted it to be obvious that Sophie was a trained dog and that her approach would be as a result of my release command to her.
When I felt the time was right, that we had been seen by the people ahead and were able to establish as best we could that we were not the danger, I began to walk toward them.
At a distance of about 15 yards, I tucked my water bottle and T-shirt under my only/right arm, then gave Sophie the Release command. With my hand, I then raised Sophie’s photo ID badge.
It identified her as my seizure dog and, though I know it likely could not be seen clearly, I wanted it to be known that Sophie had a formal association with me; she was not just some dog running loose.
Most important, however, I verbally reinforced the clear visual association I made up the trail moments earlier, as Sophie sat by my side.
I loudly and clearly stated to the stranger that she is my trained service dog and that she is curious, friendly and safe, and certainly not a danger to anyone.
Because Sophie had met and had my consent to approach the man with whom I’ve spoken the night before, I believed my allowing her to approach would not be taken for anything but friendly, or neutral at the very least.
But the stranger with whom our acquaintance was speaking, though in uniform, was different. His immediate display of belligerence quickly made clear he was not a trusty park ranger of the sort Sophie and I met many times before in our travels.
Rather, this person was an intimidating, opportunistic thug with a badge and some weapons and some authority to back it up. He had a decided unwillingness to let a chance to bully someone go unheeded.
As an amputee, I am a visibly disabled man walking a dog without a leash. This officer, representing the Bureau of Land Management, saw in me a prime opportunity toubeavy-handed assert his authority.
Sophie was clearly under my voice control and responding as her typically well-behaved self. But that didn't matter to this young man. He tersely informed me that Sophie was to be on a leash and ordered me to do so immediately.
Knowing that the area was vacant and that holding a leash would have been dangerous given the trail we were about to hike anyway, I chose to speak up for my rights.
So I did my best to paraphrase from memory a certain section of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 regarding service animals, including my Sophie. I'd had to do so before, always with success, because Sophie is an exemplary service dog.
The section of the that federal law to which I referred legally permits any service dog handler to work with their dog without a leash provided the circumstances are safe for both the handler and anyone present.
I really had little choice, for the only dog leash I own is buried somewhere in our camper for lack of need.
It's also a liability, as it's one more thing to carry I'm all but guaranteed to never need. That's the trust I've developed in working with Sophie over the years.
The officer understood but, in an apparent attempt to save face, he insisted he would cite me for what he claimed was my violation of the law.
Given that I was en route to Colorado and leaving the following day, a ticket would require me to show up in an Arizona court to dispute it. In effect, I would have to pay a fine regardless.
Having a disability, however, is not a crime, and I would be remiss in not speaking up for myself, and all people, law enforcement officers in particular, should agree. Even in the face of a bully.
Any citation that required a financial penalty was a sum I’d have to pay as a result of being nothing except disabled, and that's not OK.
In speaking up for myself, the expression on the officers face told me everything I needed to know.
No longer did I see myself speaking with someone who had the best interests of anything or anyone in mind. Rather, I was looking into the eyes of someone whose intention was not to help anybody, but to hurt me physically.
Part of Sophie’s training as my seizure dog is to help me avoid certain negative or dangerous stressors, be they people, places, or things, by steering me in another direction. This is something for which she has a keen sense, and something else our working relationship has honed over the years.
As I felt Sophie's body pushing me away from this officer, I knew I needed to get away from him. At that instant, I turned to run away, toward my camper.
Off-balance, I tripped and fell after just a few strides. The officer fell on top of me, his weight pushing my body to bend in ways it hadn’t for years, prior to my accident.
He dragged me through the rocky sand toward his vehicle. As I lay face down, I looked up to see Sophie approach as she is trained to do in the event I have the seizure. When I’m on the ground, she stands by me until I can gather my wits to take care of myself.
In seeing this, however, the officer deployed his pepper spray directly into both of Sophie’s eyes as I watched helplessly underneath this officers knee.
Immediately, Sophie’s head twisted and turned as if to shake the burning chemicals out of her eyes. That was the last I saw of her for the next hour.
Laying face down next to the officers truck, I could smell the rubber of its tires. Suddenly, I felt myself having a seizure, but it was unlike any I’ve ever had.
Within a moment or two I realized that the officer deployed his Taser into my back as he stood over me.
“What are you doing?” I remember asking him, in a voice that I could not quite recognize, though I know it was my own. By way of response, I only heard the sound of him laughing.
The officer moved me to the front of his truck so he could attach my only, handcuffed wrist to the brush guard. There I sat, in the sand for the next two hours or so.
On two or three occasions, the officer who assaulted us and confiscated the ID tag I’d shown him approached me and stated his disbelief that Sophie is truly a service dog.
I remember him accusingly stating that “You just have this ID card so you can take her into places with you,” and other, similar remarks.
If this officer had any real understanding of a service anal’s purpose he’d know that being accompanied by the dog is exactly the purpose for which a service animal is trained. It further emphasized his ignorance of the laws he's charged with enforcing.
At one point, prior to loading Sophie into a marked Mojave County SUV, Sophie was let go from their restraints, apparently to see if she’d automatically come to me. Which, of course, she did.
It’s then I began to understand that the other officers on the scene realized that Sophie and I hadn't been even a remote danger to the officer who arrested me and hurt Sophie. From all appearances, it wouldn’t be physically possible for me to do so.
Perhaps more telling is Sophie, who has always shared a mutual affinity for law enforcement officers. She's clearly the intellectual and behavioral superior to the BLM officer who assaulted us.
The other officers who showed up to torment and threaten me nonetheless respected her, for only the best and brightest law enforcement officers become K-9 handlers.
They'd seen firsthand what such teams can do and Sophie, as usual, was a good reflection on me. Therefore, they knew a crime had been committed, all right, but a coverup now needed to be made.
With the exception of the campground host who wordlessly stepped around from behind the truck and a sheriff’s officer who stated he’d subdue me “with my fists, if I have to” as I sat, silent and unmoving, everyone else was out of my line of sight.
But he sunddenly seemed to stand down, perhaps realizing for himself that I was not the awful criminal the guilty cop was making me out to be to make himself sound tougher to his cohorts.
I don't claim to be a physical specimen these days-I've long conceded that I'm just a physically subdued, out-of-shape man with one arm unlikely to commit assault on anyone.
In a rare gesture of humaneness that day, the sheriff's officer demonstrated some sympathy for Sophie's pain and situated her comfortably in the back of his marked Chevy Tahoe SUV, and gave her a bowl of water.
From her seat, Sophie could see me and vice versa. I spoke to her continuously and reassured her that she would be all right, that none of what was happening was her fault and that I was sorry for the pain she must be feeling.
I repeatedly told her how much I love her and that I was sorry we’d been separated by people who hurt us, and that I didn’t understand why it was happening, either.
I reminded her how smart and strong and beautiful she is, and much more.
Eventually, without giving me any idea where she was being taken, the county officer left with Sophie. It would be a full week until I saw her again.
This did not stop them-and likely inspired them-to falsify reports from the campground host and others with whom I’d personally been in contact with, e.g. the animal control shelter from which I picked up Sophie that I was “obviously a nut case,” and a poorly behaved man who screamed at the animal control workers.
The few witnesses had been intimidated by the BLM officer and he simply faked reports from others who'd have said no such things. Only such a truly sick person to come between any disabled person and their service animal.
The animal shelter workers where I picked up Sophie had their words falsified in the police report the young man wrote created.
All I recall feeling when I saw Sophie alive and well and I held her body against mine once more was immense gratitude to the Universe and to the people at the shelter who took such good care of her.
The officers falsified their reports in, I believe, a weak albeit effective means by which they covered up their crime.
And this crime for which the BLM officer is guilty is nothing I take personally, for two reasons:
First, he doesn’t know me on any level, so a personal attack by him wouldn’t be possible.
Second, I believe this young man would have, and likely already has, assaulted others on a whim.
In speaking up for my rights as a disabled person, he rationalized his being triggered to behave with such cruelty toward Sophie and I.
The sound of my voice gave him all the reason he needed, and he knew he could act with impunity. All he had to do if it came down to it was claim he felt endangered by Sophie and/or I, and he did.
But, in fact, the only thing that stood between my and Sophie’s safety was his conscience.
It was this officer’s lack of conscience and his poor judgment that became a source of terrible pain for us both, particularly Sophie, whose eyes were burned by his pepper spray.
Only two people have ever not been moved by Sophie’s beautiful presence and approachability to comment positively about her, and each of them caused her terrible pain. This young man is one of them, and it’s proof enough to me that something’s very wrong with his perspective of the world. All the others who see in her such a wonderful dog cannot be wrong.
This officer’s behavior toward me was not personal. Still, if anyone else he is charged with protecting is to ever be safe, his behavior is unacceptable.
He is a trust bandit, someone who knowing and willfully violates others faith. But any law enforcement officer should be at least a stable person anyone should be able to call on for assistance and perhaps even compassion as best he/she can offer.
But in failing to accept Sophie and I for the accepting and peaceable beings we are, that BLM officer who assaulted Sophie and I fails all of us.
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