An amusing story from yesterday, July 2nd, the day Worcester celebrated Independence Day with concert & fireworks, an annual event with lots of attendance. What with it being the high political season and all, me with my
BernieSanders.com 2016 banner, I head off to express myself. I setup at the entrance, eBike, trailer and banner. Only to be confronted by the Worcester Police. WTF?? The question was, "Do I have permission to be here?" Like...??? I, as civil as I can be, say I need no "permission", I'm the public at a public event and have first amendment rights, it be the 4th and all. A long drawn out argument ensues - they really want me to leave. I don't. The police officer says, we'll see, she's going to make a couple of calls, asks for name, address, and ID.
Latter, she comes back around, sits down and we have a second conversation. Making no demands, polite. We get to talking. I've got two signs - the Bernie sign, and my "Car-Free, Light Electric Vehicles" sign. We talk bikes, trails, safe roadways. She's a cyclist herself and was curious about the eBike thing. After awhile, she says something that indicates it was not my Bernie sign, but the bike that had them worried. All the while, I'm thinking they trying to deny my first amendment rights of free speech, and at an Independence Day celebration. I'm really incensed, but not visibly angry.
So public event, Boston Marathon bombing, dude with some strange looking contraption, at crowed entrance... yea, I could see what must have been going through her mind. I'm sure they looked me up in the vast security database to check me out, and I must have come back clean, or else would have been arrested. As I sit there, I notice just how many policemen are there, the squad cars, police on bikes, plain-clothed, uniformed. At one point a canine unit with 5 dogs comes through. Now I'm wondering if they did not have some cause for suspicion, a bomb threat or something. The dogs in particular looked like bomb sniffers.
Yea, dude, we live in 'merica and f'em all, I've got the freedom to bomb the f'out-of'em if I disagree with their brand of sh*t. Glad, being there, that the police took what ever it was seriously.