The police might have been tipped off by people in fear. It is not a 1st time this has come about. Fear of the unknown has always been used as a means to control the people. In the Dark Ages it was any one who opposed the Pope. During the time leading up to World War II those to fear were the Jews. During World War II, in The United States, it was anyone of oriental decent. Fear of Blacks and Hispanics, by whites, have lead to false arrests and convictions based on racial prejudices.
All of these lead to horrible occurrences. The Pope led The Crusades. Fear of the Jews caused mass exterminations of them, during World War II, at the hands of the Nazis. Fear of oriental people caused the building and use of concentration camps in the United States; with false convictions of minorities blemishing the face of the United States Judicial system. Of course I could go into many more cases, but I feel the greatest threat to liberty and freedom now is the lack of true freedom of religion in the United States. Most of this comes from the fear emanating from the citizens who are ignorant of other religion. They fear what they do not know.
My old band, The Hyred Goons, would put up fliers promoting our shows with satanic imagery to try to help us gain interest on the campus and in the community. Although we laughed about how cheesy they were our newest bassist made a comment that maybe they were taken seriously. Though we laughed at him, he felt that there was a really good chance that several of those fliers were actually on file at the police department. He knew firsthand what it was like to be feared from ignorance.
Back just before I knew him, he had been pulled out of his car and put on the ground at rifle point because “He looked like someone the police were looking for”. They tore his whole car up looking for drugs that he never had. (At that time in his life, he never imbibed alcohol on any occasion; let alone any other drug.) But because his hair is long and he wears a full faced beard he had to be scary and a criminal. No one took the time to care that that look was simple a family look that had been passed on for generations, and in all those generations, they have been very law abiding citizens. But this did teach him to fear those who carry guns.
Even as a band we were harassed by the police. Each time we got done with a rehearsal we would go for a walk around the town. We used this as a great opportunity to be together and in that time we learned a great deal about the town in which we lived in. We found the caves that were used in the Underground Railroad, we got to see the old courthouses, houses, and learn about them from the historical markers in front of them. Almost all of our walks were educational in some way. We would learn about each other, the town, or unexplored parts we’d never seen with our own eyes. One day we learned a great deal about the police.
We were talking one of our walks around town and it was Spring Cleaning for many people. They had a ton of things out at the curb. Some of it was still useful and we picked some of it up as we were on our way. Also, a dog decided to follow us on our walk.
This dog loved to walk right into oncoming traffic. It was as if the thing should have been a moth. When it saw light, there it went, right into the middle of the road so that he could be hit without any extra effort on the part of the driver. But, being the animal lovers we were, or at least not wanting to see an animal killed in front of us, we did all we could to keep this poor, dumb animal out of direct harm’s way.
One of the vehicles that we tried to save it from was a police car. We did all that we could to keep it out of the road, this included surrounding it so it was blocked from the street. As the car drove on our friend said, “I bet he’s turning around and calling for back-up”. We laughed about it. But sure enough, that is what happened. The officer stopped and told us to come to the car as another patrol vehicle come to a stop at the top of the hill. We were surrounded.
This officer took each one of us aside and asked us everything he could think of. (Not very much...) He asked us what we were doing with that dog. Though he suggested we were peeing on it, we simply said, “He keeps following us. We have never seen him before in our lives.” He asked my wife what drugs she was on and where they were. (She has never been a drug user.) He searched me. (For drugs or weapons and found nothing.) He asked what I was doing with the things I had picked up. “He’s just a pack rat and thinks he could make use of it. It was in their trash and no mess was made.” After not finding anything he could use against us, he finally allowed us to be away from his halitosis that even the gum he was chewing could not cover up.
Although harassed and belittled, it did give us the name of our album “Chair Legs, Duct Tape, Cops, and Strays” which we released on June sixth of 2006.
Go to: The Hyred Goons web page to hear it,
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