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The detective and I talked a bit more about the incident. He told me that they had charged the guy with breaking and entering, filing a false police report, and a few other misdemeanors, and that he would be held in West Virginia until he agreed to be transported back to Virginia for prosecution. Apparently the guy had a criminal history of trespassing, illegal entry, things like that, so he would probably do some jail time for this one.
Toward the end of our conversation, Detective Clark mentioned that he had read my tent living blog. "It was part of our investigation, so I read the whole thing", he said. "By the way, I really respect what you’re doing out there, and I really like your setup. I think we should probably all be living simpler lives."
"You read my blog?" I said. Wait a minute! If he had read my blog then he knew who I was and why I was living this way. And surely he had also checked my criminal history and found that it was clean.
It was at that point that I started thinking more about the role of the police in all of this. Not only was I squeaky clean, but so was my landlord. He’s an upstanding citizen, well known in the community, with no criminal record and a security clearance! Shouldn’t that have raised some alarms? And did they even bother to check out the guy making the false report? He had a long criminal record! Couldn’t they have been more diligent before sending a bunch of guys into the woods surrounding my home with guns? What if I would have been there? What if my grandchildren would have been visiting!
I understand people like Alan. I even understand people like his friend who are willing to break the law and do bad things in order to "protect" their friends (if indeed that’s what happened). I don’t excuse such acts, but I understand how people can behave badly sometimes. But I expect much more from the police. How could they have been fooled by this guy so easily, especially when they knew who I was and why I was living in a tent? Had they just been sloppy? How incompetent were they? Or worse yet, were they corrupt and actually wanted to raid my place for some reason? The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. Nobody was hurt during this particular raid, but that was only by providence. Was this a typical example of the general caliber of the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Department? If it was, then something had to be done to correct them before they injured or killed an innocent person due to their ineptitude.
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More worried now rather than less..
ReplyDeleteWell, it all ended okay, from a safety point of view. Nobody was hurt. And I suppose now at this point, after all that's happened, I won't be bothered much by either the neighbors or the police.
DeleteWhat a crazy series of events! Its too bad some people aren't more open minded.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I find to be ironic about people like Alan. He considered me to be sort of "sub-human", so he felt justified in treating me inhumanly. Interesting, isn't it? His low opinion of another served to lower his own behavior.
DeleteDon't be too hard on the Detective. He's just doing his job. If there is a report, then they have to go check it out. People with clean criminal histories are capable of committing crime as well.
ReplyDeleteHe got the report and investigated. As soon as he saw what was going on, he had the false accuser arrested.