Debriefing re: Police Visit Wed. Morning, Jan. 12, 2011

I was working upstairs at my computer when the doorbell rang. I thought it was Garrett, a neighbor with mental problems who frequently asks for money or a ride somewhere. I could see thru the open blinds that there were a woman and man, neither of whom I recognized. I opened the door.
She was shorter than he, and in front. They both flashed legitimation, but she was at least 4 feet away, and he 10 and I could not read it. The woman took the lead in speaking. (Much of what follows is the meaning of their words, not always the exact words.) She said that I was implicated in some kind of plot, and that they wanted to ask me a few questions. I still had not the slightest idea what she was referring to. My adrenalin shot all thru my body. I had all I could do to appear calm.
I am a Catholic: I believe that I need to show kindness to others, especially when they threaten, and this certainly seemed threatening. So I invited them in. They entered my living room. The man took a seat on one sofa; the woman on the other, unbidden. These sofas are arranged at right angles to each other. The woman told me to sit down. “This is MY house; it is the height of rudeness for a guest to be telling me what I may do in it” I thought, but said nothing. I sat down in a chair meant to be placed at a desk, but which I keep a few feet away from my TV. (I like to watch up close.) So there was a kind of triangle. When she spoke, I swiveled toward her; when he spoke, I swiveled toward him.
They stated their names, but I was concentrating too much on staying composed to have caught them. They said that they were part of the Intelligence something or other. (A week later I called 630-7600 and asked for the full name of the department which began with the word, “Intelligence”. The man at the other end acted as tho he did not know what I meant, but when pressed said there was something called the “Intelligence Unit”. I asked for the name of the person who headed it. He wouldn’t give it. Instead, he gave the phone number: 630-2185.)
She produced a dossier which she opened. It appeared to have data that she had accumulated, at least 1/8” thick, presumably on me. The first sheet had a colored picture of me about 3” square, in the upper left corner. I could see, as she folded it back, that the next sheet had a colored picture of an acquaintance of mine, Al Lamoureux. She asked if I had sent an email in which I stated, “Audrey Moran must be scotched right now.” I said that I had. She asked if by that word “scotched” I intended to kill Audrey. I said that I did not. I am a practicing Catholic; go to daily Mass and Communion. Killing someone would be totally inconceivable for a practicing Catholic. I said that she could find out what sort of person I was by consulting my pastor. She ignored this and went on.
She said that she had looked into a dictionary, and had determined that the word “to scotch” means to kill, harm, maim and the like, and that it was often used to kill a snake. (I have retold this story to many people by now. Some of them have looked up the word, unrequested by me. They came up with innocuous meanings. The inquisitor seems to have limited her meanings to those which would damn me.) She asked how I meant it. I said that the image that I had in mind was a long wooden stick with a Y at the end, which is placed behind a snake’s head to stop it. (After the inquisition I went to my own dictionary and read, “to cut or maim. To put down, to stifle, as, to scotch a rumor.” My dictionary was published in 1963. I believe that the word has evolved since then to the exclusive meaning of “to put down or stifle”. My three thesauruses do not even contain the word.) I explained that there is a time when language is used strictly, and another when it is used loosely, and that writing an email is generally considered a time to use it loosely. I said that I do not consult a dictionary when I write an email.
There has been ample time since then to re-run the entire interrogation in my mind. I wish I had thought to say that I am a writer, and that writers try to avoid hackneyed ways to say things.
The man asked if I were a member of the “organization” known as 40 Days for Life. His tone and demeanor conveyed the message that he thought that this was some kind of sinister society. I explained that it is not an organization at all, but an idea. There are no dues, meetings, initiation. The word goes out and we show up to pray at abortion mills. I said that I had shown up a few times this year, more last year.
“Forty Days for Life sinister!” I thought to myself. “Everyone I ever met there is mild-mannered. They stand and pray. They hold signs. There are websites to which these two could have gone to learn that the most violence re: abortion is that perpetrated by pro-aborts against pro-lifers. I believe it was Janet Napolitano who implanted this canard against pro-life people in American society. And these two have fallen for it.”
When referring to the places where unborn babies are killed the man referred to them as clinics. A clinic is a place where health is dispensed. He thereby showed a bias toward abortion.
The man said that their visit was made necessary by the shooting of the six people in Tucson, Arizona, on Jan. 8th. I have thought about his seeing a connection to me since then. It was established almost immediately on the radio, at least, that the shooting was the work of an insane person, Jared Loughner, and unconnected to any right-wing group; that, if anything, he was more influenced by the left-wing, since he extolled the Communist Manifesto, and hated George Bush, to name just two things. People in the left wing have been doing their best to divert attention from themselves and to create a connection between Loughner and right-wing causes, hoping to shut them down. I wondered if anyone from Planned Parenthood, or the ACLU, or Andy Johnson was being grilled. So when police come to me and suspect me of wanting to kill a pro-abortion mayoral candidate, and believe that 40 Days for Life is a malignant organization, they have succumbed to being partial to one side and biased to the other. Police work should be neutral.
The man gave me a lecture as to how the police have to be impartial. “You’re preaching to the choir”, I thought. “And you can say that with a straight face after your bias in favor of the Left?” I told him that heretofore it seems that relations between pro-lifers and the police here in Jacksonville HAVE seemed to be good. I told him about my experience with the police of Pittsburgh, which used to level trumped-up fines against pro-lifers, and how judges who were partial to the abortion cause would uphold those fines, how I was twice personally assaulted by a pro-abort with the police looking on, doing nothing.
At the end of their probe they seemed satisfied and more relaxed. The woman asked if this is a condo. I said that it is. She seemed surprised. (I thought: “I don’t seem to be fulfilling the profile of a deranged killer.”) I told her that it is “under water”. She said that she had owned a condo, too.
At the very end I said that I fully expect that someday I will be hauled before a judge and accused of being a Catholic, and I hope that there is enough evidence to convict me.
We still have a First Amendment. When the Judeo-Christian ethic was in the driver’s seat, one could say the most outlandish things and be protected by it. Now that Socialism is in control, we are becoming like Nazi Germany or the USSR. It doesn’t matter what I said; I do have a right to say it.
I am disappointed in Sheriff Rutherford. He is supposed to be a practicing Catholic. If one IS a practicing Catholic, he practices all the time, and that includes at work. (Otherwise, he has two faces: a church face and a work face. During the grilling I told the woman that I used to have three faces, but that I had consolidated them all into one.) The sheriff seems to have permitted this interrogation. Perhaps his organization is so large that he was unaware that some under-chief did this. He needs to investigate.
I have to assume that my emails are now being intercepted. My phone conversations may be listened to. It used to be that when a phone conversation is recorded a beep was necessary. Now, in this brave new post-1984 USA, that is probably not required. I wish that I had asked if they were carrying a recording device.
It is so hypocritical: a woman’s “right” to an abortion is based on her right to “privacy”, a right which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. My privacy will be routinely violated, even tho my right to speak anything I want is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.