Jailed for Crossing the Street

[Ogre]

http://www.wptz.com/news/22826310/detail.html

"Steam was coming out of my ears from the treatment by the state cop. I felt that he had been misinformed about my ability to enter the country on Church Street. I've done it my entire life many many many times," said Roy.

Fed up by what he perceived as hostility from the officer, Roy walked down the street, crossing the border a second time. And then a third.

"I went back and did it again, and this time I was met by the border patrol and he frisked me and handcuffed me, put me in the back of his cruiser, took me to border patrol headquarters, put me in a cell, held me for three hours, then let me out and told me I was going to be fined $500 dollars," Roy said. He will fight the fine, but said that his story speaks to larger issues. "I firmly believe that to this day ... they just make up rules from day to day."

Just amazing. Must spend time and money jailing people for literally crossing the street for a pizza. Utterly insane. And worse, there are so many people that will defend the police action: "He was just following orders." Too bad its not NH, would give a good CD operation...

[Lloyd Danforth]

Bebe Plains in that area is an interesting town.  That is where I would cross the border if I had to sneak into the other country. Just run thru one of the backyards, cross the street and run out the other back yard!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beebe_Plain,_Vermont

[KBCraig]

But he could go into the Haskell Library and step back and forth across the line all day... so long as he doesn't step out the Canadian door.

The more people who wake up and realize the silliness of an arbitrary line on the ground constraining people's freedom of movement, the more harshly the government will try to enforce it. There was unchecked movement across most of the Texas/Mexico border for decades, but when they started enforcing it, at least there's a geographical barrier in the form of a river. In Derby Line and Stanstead, they've had to rip up streets and erect barricades... before long, it's going to look like the Berlin Wall.

Satellite map of Church Street/Rue Church.

[KBCraig]

There's a pretty good movie called Frozen River about crossing between New York and Quebec through a Mowhawk reservation.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978759/

It's available on Netflix. It's not a real heart-warming tale, but it's well done.

[EthanLeeVita]

Hehe. I should start sharing my facebook article crazes in the forums. As I said on facebook, a guy can't buy a pizza because of some imaginary line.

Discussed this in an IRC channel a bit and they had the idea of going to a border crossing and pretending that they were delusional for stopping us at some imaginary line. Of course, they'd think *we* were delusional. Might be something worth filming for their reactions though.

[KBCraig]

IRC? Wow, it's been almost a decade since I've been in an IRC channel.

[EthanLeeVita]

There's a couple small IRC channels that are liberty-oriented. Unfortunately, they are on separate networks, which is a pain. The main reason I use it is because I'm Community Manager of a game that has a myriad of various channels I sit on. Used to be in a couple other networks as well, but too many networks/channels and the bar gets too crowded.