Clearwater, December 1998

Subject: Picket Reports: Clearwater, Mesa and Good Cops
From: bpetty@primenet.com (Bruce Pettycrew)
Date: 8 Dec 1998 02:26:42 GMT
Message-ID: 74i2p2$n0j$1@nnrp03.primenet.com

I won't go into detail about the pickets in Clearwater, since others have already given excellent reports.

Kathy and I arrived late Thursday night and attended the press conference the next day. We picketed the ex-Bank building at Cleveland and Ft Harrison streets on Saturday morning and the Ft. Harrison culthouse that afternoon. There were many more "official" picketers this year than last and we were joined by more local residents as well.

The candlelight vigil on Saturday evening was extremely moving. Kathy and I stood along the sidewalk a little removed from the main group, and when Lisa's aunt came by and saw us- the look of gratitude on her face was worth the entire trip.

The weather was in the high 70's and quite humid. When we arrived back in Phoenix on Sunday afternoon, it was snowing!

The police in Clearwater were omnipresent and very professional and even-handed. We felt quite safe during the entire trip.

Today (Monday) I took off on my lunch hour to make up for the fact that no one picketed the Mesa org during the weekend.

I arrived at 11:25 and began the picket. Almost immediately a new handler came out (male, about 5'8", mid-thirties) and took my picture. He began to call me a dupe and asked how much Bob Minton was paying me, and insinuated that Minton had paid my plane fare to CW, etc. While we were talking, a police car arrived and an officer got out and went to talk to some other Scienos, after sitting in his car and observing for a few minutes. Then two more patrol cars arrived. The first officer came over to talk to me. The cult had called and stated that I was "screaming and yelling" . This was a lie, of course, as I told the officer. After talking to both sides, the first officer consulted with the other police, who then left. The officer in charge took my personal information (did not ask to see my driver's license) then just said that that was all he intended to do - he had not seen me yell, he had observed me picketing in the past and had never seen me block traffic, etc, and that I had a Constitutional right to picket. By this time it was 12:15 and I had been there longer then I would have been if they had not called the police and lied about my activities.
I continued to picket the entire time, except when I was talking to the officer.

I will, of course, picket more than ever because of this.
Foot. Bullet. Bang.