Open Heart to Four CHP Officers
...by Bernadette Webster
It was oddly refreshing to jam into a radio studio with Bonnie Blackberry and four cops on the evening of April 29. I never imagined I would enjoy it so much. We met just minutes before having to rush into the studio. It had the sense for me of sitting in front of a fireplace with our feet up, talking out what's in our hearts. The gulf between our perspectives on the subject of searches and seizures in the name of the Drug War is perhaps unbridgeable, but these are meaningful issues to all of us which grab our focus.
My hat is off to you, Lt. Stan Templeton, for pulling in more speakers on the last day when you learned that the other guest likely wouldn't make it! When he did show up, after all, there were four of you instead of two, and a good selection the group of you made. Thank you so much for your generous effort in this regard and I hope that the community takes note of your cooperative contribution.
My thanks, too, to Hal Rosendahl, the man in charge of Operation Pipeline on I-5, and Kevin Cotronio, who works out of Lake County overseeing the stops along Highway 101. Both of you came from some distance away for the opportunity to be grilled by us, a probably less-than-savory task. Cecil Smith came in as well. He lives and works locally, but deserves equal praise for voluntarily sitting down in one of the hot seats. I appreciate your coming, each and every one of you.
The conversation was so incomplete, but I comfort myself with the thought that this was only the beginning for us. Sitting there, it seemed that it should be the opportunity for the community to meet you. I made a conscious effort to hold my tongue, so that I wouldn't get in the way of that. The whole while I was holding the people of the area (and some who simply drive through it) in my heart. I think that there is much that we agree on. The rest will be fodder for further rumination.
You really grab me where I live when you start talking kids. It's my love of kids that keeps me going in this work when I'd otherwise want to quit. I believe it is the sacred duty of all adults to create a close-to-ideal world for those who will follow us on this planet. Allowing the removal of their primary freedoms does nothing toward accomplishing this goal. A freedom lost is lost and very difficult, if not impossible, to regain.
There is so much that we do not agree on. I have personally learned never to trust cops. This is learned from experience. You looked at me, Kevin, and asked if I believe everything people tell me. I have seen so much law enforcement lying and obfuscation that I can no longer take it for granted that what a law enforcement officer says has anything to do with the truth. This is a hard reality for me, because what people need is open and honest communication between themselves and the police. I believe that any problem can be solved when the parties involved turn to each other and focus on their common issues. Sitting in that stuffy little room with the four of you gave me the first hope that this might indeed be a possibility. It was your eyes searching out mine as you tried to make me understand the way you think, the respect with which you asked me questions on matters we're 180 degrees apart on. I came away, but obviously I'm still talking to you. We've got a Big Problem here, the Drug War and its ramifications, and it needs fixing bad. It's just been mere mortals that got us into this place in History and it will be mere mortals that take us out of it. Out of it to Where? is our job.
I am not comfortable with internal investigations. My daughter was held at gunpoint (M16s) by a bunch of government goons eight years ago while she was taking a walk on a public trail. Excuse my hard language, but there is nothing nice to call them. They didn't even have the common decency to speak to her as she stood there, knees knocking, kissing her life away. The agency was allowed to investigate itself. There is no evidence in nearly 40,000 pages of discovery documents that an investigation ever did occur. I can rant forever about this one, but I will spare you the misery. Please, just take my word for it, that my distrust of cops runs deep. The Great Drug War only magnifies this distrust as it protects and hands more and more powers to police officers, the guys with the guns, while steadily dismantling and removing the rights of the country's citizens.
Which is more dangerous to my daughter, the drugs or the drug war? She is an intelligent human being who can make the decisions about what she'll put into her body and how she will treat other people. Her study of therapeutic massage and, now, nutritional therapy leaves a path of smiling people in her wake. I suppose I should thank the Great Drug Warrior for not twitching and blowing her away but, somehow, I can't find it in me. I think that after they apologize to her, they might have a lot to learn from her.
The people who come to me upset by dealings they've had with the police do not know each other, and yet, there are surprisingly consistent threads running through all these tales. These are very serious allegations and only thorough, rigorous and open
investigations can restore people's trust. We need assurance that their complaints are actually being considered and dealt with. I think that you gentlemen would agree with me that doing that would be in the best interests of all involved -- the police, the complainants, and all who watch and listen.
My folks stopped by to visit last month. They were returning from their winter home in Arizona to my hometown in Washington state. I was thinking of them when I was talking about the teachings of my elders. I was so rattled at your offense, Stan, that I never did finish the thought. I was NOT calling any of you Nazis. I was about to point out the primary lesson that History repeats itself if people don't learn from it. This Drug War does carry some signal warnings of historical catastrophes and seeing ordinary people being searched alongside our highways is a red flag. I think it deserves careful note by everyone. I started to say all that on the air, because I saw an image of my old dad, 86 years old, getting stopped for a running light that didn't work, and then being put through the indignities of a search. He would have been pretty outraged at it, as would anyone, but, hey, too bad, after all, "snowbirds" are one of the types of drug couriers I heard mentioned on the show. Maybe the odds aren't high that this would actually happen, but the fact that it could at all horrifies me.
I wonder if you guys consider me some well-meaning crackpot. I consider myself to be a very conservative person. Politically, all I want is a free country which allows its citizens to live lives of liberty.
The following are thoughts taken from some court rulings. These guys might be crackpots, too, in this day and age, but I'd like to point out what they have to say:
"The spectre of American citizens being asked, by badge-wielding police, for identification, travel papers -- in short a raison d'etre -- is foreign to any fair reading of the Constitution and its guarantees of human liberties." (State v. Kerwick, the famous Florida bus-boarding case.)
"Rights against unreasonable search 'are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of individuals and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government."
"We must remember that the extent of any privilege of search and seizure without warrant which we sustain, the officers interpret and apply themselves and will push to the limit." (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who also served as a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials.)
I would welcome any and all responses to my reflections. Bernadette Webster
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