“Never do anything to help the police.“
-George Carlin
My use of the blanket descriptor “law enforcement” includes most any inappropriately titled “peace officer” who wears a badge, handcuffs, pepper spray and a gun.
Never mind the attitude, good or bad, the officer carries; they are trained in the use of lethal force if need be. If you happen to be or do or say anything they take as wrong, you just may be the only reason they need.
Sophie, my beautiful sweet soul of a service dog and I know this firsthand. Despite her years of love and loyal partnership, she has also been there to shield me from any harm should I unexpectedly seize.
And while my seizures are never something I expect, Sophie somehow knows it in advance. I know this because she is trained to rouse me from seizures, even the mildest of them. It’s such times I’ve seen her at work, and with no consideration for her own safety; it’s her job, and she’s glad to do it.
So it was an unimaginable moment when, with no witnesses present we were cruelly and violently the target of a young, trigger happy law enforcement officer one year ago.
Sophie was pepper sprayed and I was beat up and, still in shock, we were both separated held culpable for the officer’s actions. Our separation, the first ever in nine years lingered for a week without knowing the condition of the other.
The brave young officer who afterward spoke as if he were David and I his newly-conquered Goliath hadn’t justice in mind when he hurt us. His motive, like that of a rapist, was about nothing more than power.
I rarely feel anger over the subject, for what is done is done. But on the one year anniversary of our ordeal, my heart still hurts and my mind is still confused and frustrated over what happened.
This is the perspective I’m coming from in writing this today:
Law enforcement means park rangers where Sophie and I have stayed in my RV. From the Arizona park ranger who hurt us to the county park rangers where Sophie and I have set up camp, they all qualify.
Their MO in enforcing the laws, rules, regulations and what have you is the same everywhere. And that one intangible- their timing in so doing- I can only attribute to the work of the devil.
This week, for instance, I unknowingly broke a rule that said I couldn’t camp more than two weeks at a county campground in one month. It was an honest mistake. And this as we approached the anniversary of our Arizona ordeal. The devil’s own handiwork.
This regulation is not written anywhere yet all campers are expected to comply. Even a park ranger later told me “We don’t yet have any way to enforce it, but…” I rightly figured the end of his sentence was “but I can and will if I feel like it.”
In keeping with the lousy timing of the whole situation, which should have been-and I thought would be- a big nothingburger, things somehow digressed further still.
At our campsite two bad things happened in quick succession: After approaching a park ranger I asked if he’d be good enough to drive us to the park office 3 miles away so I could pay our first night’s fee.
I knew it was a long shot and didn’t like the idea of getting into an SUV emblazoned with a Park Ranger logo. But I liked the idea of driving the motorhome down-then back up- the steep hill to the office even less. As it went, things were fated to go downhill anyway.
Realistically, I expected the ranger to say “No,” but then offer a good alternative. To my surprise, he said “I can take you but there won’t be room for your dog.”
He was a nice enough younger guy who looks like the prototype of the ideal law enforcement officer. All the park rangers here are nice. But each of them are also deputized county cops.
That means that they carry a gun and pepper spray and wear their handy-dandy radio mikes clipped neatly on their uniform sleeve, right next to their mouth so they can call in backup after apprehending someone without having to take their hands off them.
For the entire past year, Sophie and I lived across from another county campground. In summer their marked “park ranger” suvs are a common sight. And every single ranger that Sophie and I met had been friendly and largely receptive to us.
Still, I remained scared at the sight of them and, upon seeing one coming my first instinct was to run and hide. In the back of my mind I knew that they’ve only got jurisdiction over the park and county roads.
But on private land, like the kind Sophie and I lived on then, I’d be safe. Never mind that I was not committing any crime and had every right to be there. Yet my fight or flight kicked in before I could rationalize and my heart would skip a beat. I felt afraid.
Without realizing it at first I mentally created escape routes from anyplace in the park where Sophie and I might be walking. From just about anywhere I could quickly lead us to “safety.” It was months before I’d realized I’d been doing but, once I saw it I understood.
In visiting our new campsite I hadn’t intended to see any of the rangers. But in the absence of a self-serve pay station it became inevitable. It’s probably why I preemptively approached the ranger to begin with for help; for better or worse I couldn’t stand the idea of not knowing what bad things might happen if they were to come to us first. I just wanted to get it out of the way.
When I told the friendly ranger that Sophie was my service dog and that I can’t travel without her he suddenly changed. Though it shouldn’t have surprised me he suddenly assumed a physically defensive posture, which I read as nonverbal way of saying that “This one might be trouble.”
He took half a step back, put one hand on his hips and with the other lowered his sunglasses. He presumably didn’t want his eyes to betray something deeper he was thinking: Maybe he thought I was faking limb loss and actually packing heat underneath my jacket, so he wanted to draw first. Who knows?
He’s undoubtedly had to draw his weapon before but I’m not stupid; we were standing in the shade. Plus I spent several minutes in plain view of their one-way office windows so they could see us. I had Sophie sit next to me and gave her some hand commands. Just like in Arizona.
That’s when I realized that I’ve no way of ever preventing what happened there again anywhere else. Since our assault last year I’ve maintained I’d be too afraid to travel south again. But our Arizona experience realistically applies to anyplace and this seemingly friendly man’s response to us is proof.
Sophie is my only family and indeed my best friend. We’ve gone everywhere and done everything together for years and are inseparable.
So last year after the cop who beat us up in the Arizona desert charged me with assault I said “Sure I’m guilty” to whatever the biased judge said. Sophie and I both deserved better than to endure one more day apart for some travesty of so-called justice. For a week I went without eating, sleeping, medication and Sophie.
But to Sophie, wherever she was it must’ve seemed like forever. I was determined to find her, wherever she was and comfort her for a change. If that meant lying in court and pleading guilty to something I could never do, so be it.
So now I’m a one-armed pot bellied violent criminal or offender or whatever their term for me is. And my arthritic Sophie to them is my white-fanged accomplice who’s long overdue to be euthanized for the safety of the general public.
So I imagine that it could be anytime I may approached by cops who’ve radioed for backup and weapons drawn. It could be walking her without a leash, a burned out brake light or turn signal or just some odd profiling. Only the devil knows for sure.
But one thing I do know for sure: If probation lady Lisa Pence still sees Sophie as dangerous and me as an irresponsible pet owner - and not as an accomplished service dog and handler team who have trained hard to get where we are today, federal law enforcement itself is egregiously guilty of breaking one of its own laws.
Further, I can thus expect her- and her colleagues - constant take on me to be based on some fictional police report. “You must’ve done something wrong if the officer had to taser you” she once told me, and that Sophie still belongs on a leash.
It tells me that law enforcement is every bit as ignorant and unwilling to acknowledge my rights as a service dog handler or as a person in general. Able-bodied or otherwise, what that officer did to us was criminal and it could just as well be you next. Or Sophie and I again. One need only look to the devil to know for sure.
Since Sophie and I continue to travel alone, I’m painfully aware that we remain an easy target still.
Back to the campground:
On the afternoon of our second day, as I lay in my bunk easing some increasing humidity-related neuropathy I suddenly glimpsed a face quickly peeking in my window and then heard a knock at my door.
Two smiling rangers stood outside, both of whom were quite pleasant. But I was already taken aback: The initial shock of being roused by a face, then a knock, and then the sight of two uniformed ranger/cops right outside my door in this otherwise tranquil and pretty place had terrified me.
I was instantly back in my “Don’t show fear or things will get worse” mode I learned as a kid with my father. For a moment I felt trapped in my own home.
What I momentarily saw in them they would likely have never guessed. But, this being the anniversary I’m surprisingly open to suggestion: Even though those rangers smiled at me I instead saw them as backup for each other, each one able to back up the other’s story in court, and blah blah blah.
It’s a byproduct of my having to plead guilty to an assault that was committed on me by a criminal law enforcement officer. It’s like having that terrible experience constantly re-litigated, always with the same terrible result.
The male ranger introduced himself and magnanimously proclaimed that they were going to “let me stay this time” at the campsite I’d already paid for online because it’s the slow season” and I wasn’t causing any trouble.
Then he reiterated chapter and verse their rules about camping duration and how I ran afoul of them. As if I was going to return?
But that’s why I agree with George Carlin; I’d no intention of returning to their campground now that I learned their goddamned rule that I didn’t have the sense to divine on my own.
To them I’m somehow an anarchistic asshole to whom they’ll one day smugly say “We informed you of that rule once, Sir. You’re going to have to leave.”
That ranger morphed into a cop the moment it became clear to me that he, as the superior officer felt he needed to make sure he was right about something and that I was wrong and that he had all the power and I had none.
It was the same cute little act I got once from a traffic cop in Denver for failing to use my left turn signal in getting out of his way. Never mind why I did it-the cop was wrong and he knew it and my missing left arm did little to help his case,
I suspect he hoped my car was stolen or that I had a warrant out for my arrest so he could save face with the pretty little officer trainee traveling with him.
She stood in my blind spot, presumably to keep an eye on me and be sure I wasn’t smoking crack or getting ready to make a run for it. Sophie just sat on the drop-down rear seat of our Outback, a little peeved at the disruption and even snoring occasionally.
Ironically, I was on my way back from the MMJ dispensary and had a few syringes of the best, most effective anti neuropathy and anticonvulsant medicine I’ve found.
But (thank God) it’s legal, I don’t look like a hophead or a crack addict or whatever because I’m not. It sure would have felt good to that cop to have had a chance to search my car, though.
He cited me anyway: A hundred and fifty bucks but no points on my driving record, aka “vehicular probation.” Prick.
Sophie and I are not now and never have been a danger to anyone. Yet my overly trusting and naïve side has swung completely in the other direction; I don’t trust anyone any longer and now I just try to avoid people - out of fear and not selectively and by choice, like most people do and how I once did.
I wrote to my disability advocate in Denver about my concerns that last February could happen again anytime, that cops are no more understanding than ever. Looking back, I don’t know what the hell I expected to happen.
People don’t know what they don’t know and aren’t inclined to want to learn anything new. And since cops think they know everything already, they don’t see the need to ever change. Kudos again to George Carlin. Nobody likes a know it all, especially another know it all.
My advocate, also a service dog handler empathized. She said we have enough to worry about without having to deal with being hassled and that she’ll write a letter for me to show to anyone who hassles me about Sophie and I, including/especially cops.
But I realize that still will involve a confrontation with someone and that’s what I want to avoid. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to avoid; I’ve had enough conflict for one lifetime. But it’s not up to me.
I expect nothing less from anyone with a badge and a gun, some of whom are rabid, prey-driven dogs with a nose for weakness and the firm belief in survival of the fittest.
And some are slick, so slick that you don’t recognize them for their sheep’s clothing. By then it’s too late; you’ve already been chewed up, spit out and incarcerated. Law enforcement my ass.
You can try to tell me I don’t have the right to have my Sophie on a leash and that you and every other psychotic asshole has the second amendment right to own a gun.
But no matter how much you’d like me to shut up and not expose you for the frauds some of you are, I have the first amendment right to speak up for myself, here or anywhere in the USA. But you’ve already got that covered, right?
Sure enough, it’s the albatross around the neck of every criminal except for Donald Truck*: Credibility.
*Truck can say the moon is made of green cheese and that we should privatize the space program to prove it - so some of his cronies can benefit and cabinet members can fly first class- and President Truck will become a two-term free-flowing sperm president.
According to the probation lady, within a few weeks there is some final paperwork that will come in the mail. Hopefully it will make it to my new address, though who knows what the return address will say.
US Federal Police Department? Violent Offender Unit? Federally Mandated Piece of S*** Hunters? Federal Bad Guy Catchers? No matter how they put it, those words can likely set a negative tone on my new living situation.
One of the questions on their damned monthly probation forms-that didn’t apply to me but still indicates their need to keep their nose in my business - was “Does your employer know about your criminal record?”
It gets deeper and deeper and I think that’s the idea. Such a cleverly planned setup the little turd in Arizona was able to manufacture, up to and including a report about my being “violent and verbally abusive” at the animal shelter when I picked up Sophie one year ago.
What? The only violence I might have perpetrated was how I couldn’t stop myself from hugging and squeezing her and telling her how much I love her.
The sewer these people inhabit only runs deeper and deeper. Why were Sophie and I beat up then charged with a crime in the first place? Simply because I said that I have a legal right to not have Sophie on a leash nor can I be ticketed for that because it’s not a crime to be disabled.
How the hell would anybody feel in my shoes after what I went through for speaking up for myself, especially to someone I believed I should’ve been able to trust? George Carlin, I second the motion and rest my case.
Deeper and deeper it gets still. The only thing I’m sure of is that it all drastically lowers Sophie’s and my quality of life. Now if only the government can also find a way to eliminate my disability benefits...
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