You may have heard about this by now. Biologist and science fiction writer Peter Watts [1] was stopped on his way back into Canada by border guards. He’d been helping a friend in the United States move and he was returning. He was flagged to the side and the guards fell on his vehicle. He stepped out to ask what was going on, was told to get back in his vehicle, and when he asked again for the reason for the search, he was pepper sprayed, beaten, thrown in a lock-up overnight, and the next day sent into a winter storm on foot in shirtsleeves, all his personal property confiscated pending arraignment on charges of assaulting a federal officer.
In his own words:
Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.
In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.
Here [2] is a post on his behalf.
A legal defense fund is being built by the writing community as you read this.
The first thing, I admit, that occurred to me when I heard about it was a kind of reflexive “well, he must’ve said something,” the kind of self apology for representatives of my government that springs automatically to mind. Because none of us want to believe that thugs and bullies work for us.
I dismissed that idea. Watts is the least likely individual to provoke such a response. I have no doubt he just asked for their justification and they responded from the mindset of the untouchable authority. It’s not like this hasn’t happened A LOT in this country. Local police to federal officers, in a country that embraced rendition as a defensible tactic and has used torture in interrogation, no one ought to be surprised at something like this. But even further back, the clear posture of many law enforcement workers is that they may not be questioned in the pursuit of their duties. Nor may they be challenged on grounds of authority, nor will they ever apologize when they get it wrong.
The next thing I thought was that the only reason this is making what news it is making is because it happened on the Canadian border and the victim is white. I’m sure this happens regularly on the Mexican border and it just never makes the news.
What is a bit baffling, even if one is inclined to make excuses for these “officers”, is what were they after? I mean, you could almost understand it if Watts was entering the country—Homeland Security and all that—but he was leaving. Make no mistake, these were American border guards.
Police are harried in their daily jobs, no question, and no doubt their nerves are stretched to the breaking point occasionally. I have personally witnessed police officers enduring insult and abuse far beyond where my tolerance would have ended—but they still restrained themselves. They are supposedly trained to do so.
Watts is to be arraigned on the charges. This could become enormously expensive for him and he could lose a lot. Even if he doesn’t, the likelihood of his receiving anything resembling an apology from these people is remote, something I believe officers of the law ought to be required to give when they are wrong. There are many reasons for police to make mistakes, not all of them (probably not even most of them) their fault. But they almost never apologize to the wronged citizen. I would like to see that changed, rather than seeing citizens forced to sue to get some kind of accommodation when their lives have been thoroughly disrupted.
And I would like to see bullies removed from duty.
P.Z. Meyers on his Pharyngula [3] blog has some pointed observations about this, so it is not a one-off event (although it may be extreme).
Here is another article [4]. And another [5]. And one more [6] just for good measure.
When I was a boy, in the late Sixties, St. Louis had a rising crime rate (and what major U.S. city did not back then?) and a shortage of uniformed police. Standards were lowered and officers appeared on the street with the minimum of training and a clear glee for being allowed to smack perps with eight-cell flashlights and rough up anyone they didn’t like—blacks, gays, hippies. It led to a situation where public outcry forced changes in policy.
I point this out to make it clear that this is not, as I said, an isolated problem. Law enforcement draws certain personalities, some of them ideal for good public service under extremely difficult conditions. But others…it’s just giving the schoolyard bully license to be an asshole.
What would be good here would be for Peter Watts to be make whole over this. Acquitted, property restored…an apology. But then further to see higher standards enacted to cull out the intolerant, the trigger-happy, the bullies from the ranks of those who are supposed to be working for us.
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