“Major” Issues

Today, folks, “blue” has faded to black. In my 39-year career, I have never seen this type of behavior before.

To put it bluntly, I am shocked—and that is not an easy feat. I’m not even sure where to begin this tale, and a whale of a tale it is.

You see, usually I prefer to write my blogs in bright colors. The blog is meant to entertain while exposing the truth. However, in light of my mood, today’s words will only be in black—the color of the severe storm that is engulfing the county and its police department. Black as the night when those things that go bump in the dark put fear into the souls of people.

It all started with a phone call from the Baltimore County Police Department to Karen Cruz and Bob Staab. Both represent Dundalk United, which opposes the sale of the Government Center.

The phone call was, in the opinion of someone with a 39-year history of wearing a badge, unprecedented. A child with one finger raised could figure this out.

The sales pitch was good. The police are only trying to help, or enlighten, both Mrs. Cruz and Mr. Staab on the rules of council decorum. (Blogger’s note: This education was being offered despite the fact both Mrs. Cruz and Mr. Staab have been involved in many council meetings.)

The whole pitch reminded me of those “as seen on TV” products—the ones that work fine on the screen, but don’t do very well in real life once you’ve paid for them. The offer looks good, but the product is definitely lacking.

Another analogy is that the situation seemed a little like reality TV—very little reality and a lot of scripted/staged moments that defy logic and hook the viewer.

Now, as the famous radio personality Paul Harvey would say, “The rest of the story.”

The police said that they were reaching out to groups that might—God forbid—decide to protest. There was one problem with this logic—although the corporal rattled off some names of other groups, those groups had little (or nothing) to do with Dundalk United. In fact, they forgot to mention Mays Chapel and that rather “boisterous” protest.

Major Butch Wilson said the police department’s job was to make sure everyone knew the rule “about signing up.” With those words, Mrs. Cruz asked, “You mean after almost two years of testifying you want to tell us the rules?”

Seems rather suspicious, don’t you think?

Now, here is where both Mr. Staab, a former state delegate and director of Recreation and Parks, along with Mrs. Cruz a 15 year community leader trumped the Major on what can only be described as a “screw up.” The Major said the police were there to make sure that anyone who wants to protest does so “by the rules.” Mr. Staab interjected, “Protest? We were there to testify.”

Major Wilson they said the police were informed by the security detail that things got disorderly, and that there was profanity in the hallway.

Cussing??? This is all being done because someone got frustrated and used bad words in public???

Geez, are we going to call the tact unit for cussing in the hallway now? (Wait, sorry, does the county still have a cohesive tact unit?)

Hell, cussing in the hallway happens every day in our schools with little or no recourse. These days, because of the fear of being sued by wronged parents, kids have “cart blanche” to cuss out teachers at will. Are the police getting involved there, too?

Answer: nope.

Now, since I wanted to understand the situation a little better, I joined Mr. Staab in asking a couple of questions. The first, and most important, one was, “Who said that Dundalk United acted in such a way to deserve this special visit from Big Brother the police?” Major Wilson’s response was that the accusation came from the security detail.

Mr. Staab, along with Diane Carliner form the East County Times, asked again, “Who said this?” Major Wilson suffered several “senior moments,” once again not remembering who specifically told the department of the facetious “near riot” that caused cussing in the hallways.

Let me just point out, folks, that I was there, in the front row, the whole time that this “disturbance” supposedly took place. I did not hear any nasty words being uttered.

Again, the Major was pressed on the name(s) of the accuser(s), but he pleaded the now infamous “fifth.” He said that he couldn’t remember either of the two or three names of the officers that were there.

This really bothers me, because the Major could remember all the details of the so-called allegation of disorderly conduct, but not who the complainant was.

I asked him if there was anything in writing, to which he replied no. If what the Major was told is true, it should have been written on an official form.

However, as I have seen numerous times, when you put something in writing, you can’t push your weight around by inserting baseless accusations.

After a few more minutes in the hot seat, the Major decided that we were wise to the “Big Brother-ish” scheme, so he decided to pack up his crew and vamoose.

I guess the Major knew it would not go too well when I told him this meeting would be taped by Dundalk TV and myself. The Major said the taping will not happen, but I informed him that he had no say in this, as both Mr. Staab and Mrs. Cruz requested it.

For the police, it was all downhill after I pressed “going on the record.”

Blinded by the Light, as the song goes.

The police seemed to lose sight of the agenda and purpose of the call, instead trying to intimidate, coerce, and intimidate the Dundalk United group.

The sign on the county police cars reads, “Fairness, Integrity, Service.”

A few of those things were missing on that day, I suppose…