Confused about the future of our democracy

Ridiculed for their own amusement by customs inspectors. [Mittell #1,085]

By David A. Mittell, Jr.

After a flight from Munich two years ago, I was held up and ridiculed for their own amusement by customs inspectors at Logan Airport. Being a journalist and a child of the 1960's I had seen myself as practiced in talking back. But exhausted, only wanting to get home, and fearing that a hint of defiance would lead to hours of detention, I melted abjectly.

I was on the sidewalk when a police car pulled up with its lights flashing.

After 9/11 I accepted most aspects of the Patriot Act as the right response to a new Pearl Harbor. Since then, I have sensed a more gradual and therefore more insidious threat to liberty in aggressive police practices -- reversing the trend in my lifetime toward better training. After the Logan incident I resolved to try to do better if anything like that happened again.

Late on Wednesday night, October 26, it did. I was jogging in Jamaica Plain on a four-mile route from my Marathon-running days, along the Arborway and up Centre Street, past Faulkner Hospital, to Trinity Lutheran Church. I was on the sidewalk, just shy of the hospital, when a police car pulled up with its lights flashing. Since no other cars were in sight I stopped and asked, "Are you looking for me?" An officer got out and asked what I was doing. "Jogging," I said. "Haven't you ever seen a jogger before?" He asked my name, which I gave. Almost immediately two more cruisers arrived, turning the black night bright blue.

I decided it was time to exercise my rights. The officer allowed that there had been a call. I may have been running so slowly someone took me as on the loose from a nursing home. My initial answer had been a bit of a wisecrack. Hereafter I would be calm and assiduously polite. I have parried with corrupt police inside their offices in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this kind of talking-back I am practiced.

I said that I live in Jamaica Plain, but under the innocent circumstances under which I was being detained I saw no reason to give my street address or date of birth. I added that for more than 40 years it has not been a crime in Massachusetts to "fail to give a good account" of oneself. When the officer said I needed to answer just one question to "help him out" I didn't believe him. When he asked why I was doing this I told him it was for the future freedom of his children. It was also for the freedom of every down-and-out, different-looking, homeless or intoxicated person, and for every immigrant stopped by the police.

I was handcuffed, put on a gurney, tied down, and driven  to Faulkner's emergency room. The pretext given was that I was confused.
Indeed - but only about the future of our democracy.

This went on for about 20 minutes. Several times I offered my hands for handcuffs, saying, "If I'm under arrest I'm going to cooperate." Finally, I said, "We can go back and forth on this for another hour. If you need to arrest me let's do it." By and by an ambulance arrived. At that point there were two cruisers, four police, and two ambulance attendants at hand. I expressed regret that I was tying up so many services. I was handcuffed, put on a gurney, tied down, and driven the some 100 yards to Faulkner's emergency room. The pretext given was that I was confused. Indeed - but only about the future of our democracy.

Now I was the prisoner of Partners Health Care -- as to some extent we all are. But that's another story. I declined to put on a hospital johnny and forbade the nurses to touch me. One of them told me I would soon be back in my cell in jail or the nut house. The charge nurse told me I was in her custody, and if I tried to leave she would have me restrained. From running free, minding my own business 45 minutes before, I was suddenly, unexpectedly, not free. A good lesson, a good thing to actually taste the bitter of.

I suspected the nurses' game was to hold me all night if I didn't "cooperate." I had several minders, including a security guard, whom I assured that what I was doing was not directed at him. I told him I had the right to sign myself out of the hospital. To establish I was being held against my will I might have to take physical steps toward my freedom. He pleaded with me not to do so. We went back and forth on this several times until, I felt, we had each other's trust.

Finally I told him I had decided to do it. He asked if I would wait until he informed the charge nurse, who was now on a different floor. I agreed. When he returned I held out my hands and took one step from the gurney I was on. Three members of the staff gently walked me to a time-out room. I knew there was a risk I would be held and force-treated indefinitely. Had they given me something to read I might have stayed put.

It was now after 2:30 A.M. Within minutes the charge nurse sent the doctor. Dr. Kimberly Schoen walked in with a great smile and accepted my handshake. I repeated that I believed I had the right to refuse treatment and to sign myself out of the hospital. She said, "You're absolutely right," and produced the papers in ten more minutes. I signed them at 2:55:14, and resumed my run home.

The Boston Police got stuck in an unnecessary and more menacing form of bullying.

Analysis: The reader will judge this incident, and I may reassess it in good time. All in all I see the private Faulkner Hospital as better-acting than the public Boston Police Department. One of the nurses was verbally obnoxious and the charge nurse was bullying. Neither had Dr. Schoen's felicitous smile. But they did have an emergency room to run after midnight.

The Boston Police, by contrast, got stuck in an unnecessary and more menacing form of bullying. When I cracked, "Haven't you ever seen a jogger before?" the officer's cue was to say:

"Just making sure you're O.K., sir."

My cue would have been to say, "Thank you for your concern. Sorry to trouble you!"

Rather, it seems to me, less than well-trained police, enabled by the lingering effect if 9/11, acted out of ego and without restraint. It is the old warning of John Adams about the danger of rule by men, not of laws.

                          - Political columnist David A. Mittell, Jr. lives in Jamaica Plain.