NOTE, March, 2007:
This report comes from the archives of my old website. Since that time, having thought about the incident described here, although the whole thing still seems suspicious, I believe that it may have been more incompetence and apathy on the part of the police than anything else.
Some of them here in Old Orchard Beach (the detectives, anyway) turned out to be pretty decent when I made reports about criminal harassment and stalking by perps, some of whom I know to be connected to government operations. They took my reports seriously (they were in writing, as always.)
On the other hand, a friend (ex-CIA, who's had as much trouble with government goons trying to neutralize him as I have, the same tried-and-true harassment tactics) warned me that in every town, the perps (government criminals) operate through the chamber of commerce to target designated individuals in the community. This made sense to me, as I know they have a 'network'...and they're everywhere!
Which is one reason that over the years, I have become the almost total recluse that I am. But when it comes to ANY violation of my rights, I don't let it slide. And I write a report, for the public record. 'Plausible deniability' is ALWAYS a possibility to consider. As for the VERY REAL damages, there can be no doubt, whatever the 'real' explanation turns out to be.
January, 2004
POLICE STATE SHENANIGANS IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
Just call this an "incident report", describing the latest injustice perpetrated upon me by law enforcement and a private towing company affiliated with them. The perpetrators are: Old Orchard Beach Police Department and Southern Maine Towing.
It's a ludicrous story, and laughable, unless of course you had the misfortune to be me. Believe me, I'm not laughing.
Some reading this may think I seem a bit paranoid, but under the circumstances, having been a target of illegal surveillance, phone taps, stalking by government goons and political persecution by criminal elements of the U.S. government for the past ten years, since I escaped with my life from CIA, and became a whistleblower on government corruption, I cannot rule out some cloak-and-dagger monkey business being plotted by my enemies behind the scenes.
I had recently switched my license from New York to Maine and got a second used vehicle, with intent of registering it in the state of Maine, where I now reside.
On Thursday night/Friday morning January 23, I was jolted awake from a sound sleep at 3 AM by the loud noise of vehicles gunning their engines outside my home in Ocean Park, Maine.
At first, judging from all the intrusive noise, gunning of engines and proximity to my house, I thought it might have been some government goons, come to harass me in the middle of the night. It's happened before, and would have come as no surprise. The goons generally have the mentality of "fraternity boys" and are usually young enough to be my sons. (Thank the Lord, they are not!...I'd kick their asses twice as fast, if they treated their mother with such disrespect.)
But looking out the window from the second floor, what I saw was a police car parked, with lights flashing, on the other side of the street. As my eyes adjusted to the scene outside, the next thing I saw (It was hard to believe my own eyes!) was a tow truck, hauling away my vehicle, a Chevy van, which had been parked on the street right outside my house.
Before I could get dressed and get downstairs to call a halt to this outrageous act, the tow truck turned the corner, heading toward the beach and was gone, my van in tow. The police car sailed off in the other direction, back to headquarters, I assume: Mission accomplished.
I immediately called the police station and demanded to know WHAT THE HELL they thought they were doing, coming to my home and towing away my vehicle from RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE AT 3 AM, and making enough noise to wake the dead, without so much as a by-your-leave????
I was told that the "reason" for towing my vehicle was that it was "unregistered" and had no plates; therefore it could not be parked on the street (where it had already been sitting for about 2 weeks, with nary a problem to anyone). I was told that I would have to call Southern Maine Towing the next day in order to retrieve my vehicle.
I had no knowledge of any such law, and I was NEVER warned nor otherwise informed in advance that such an incident might take place. The vehicle was parked on the street right outside my home because I had some workmen here, on and off, winterizing my home and I had left the space on my property open for them to park their truck.
Now, I ask you, WHY did the police come AT 3 AM, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, with NO warning, to snatch my vehicle?
WHY didn't they simply send an officer at a reasonable hour of the day or evening, to knock on the door of my house, and have the courtesy, the COMMON DECENCY, to ask me to move my vehicle off the street and into the parking space on my own property? Which I would have gladly done, in order to avoid my vehicle being towed.
Ironically, I had made an appointment by phone to insure the van that VERY day, Friday January 23, with a local insurance company and if not for the Old Orchard Beach Police and their minions, Southern Maine Towing, it WOULD have been registered, with new Maine plates on it, that same day.
WHY did they come the NIGHT BEFORE, just after I had made a phone appointment with the insurance man? Would the government bastards actually stoop so low as to tap my phones and then alert the local police of an opportunity to cite me on some minor violation I was not even aware of, just before I was about to get the vehicle registered?
Could it be they would take any window of opportunity to make some trouble, cause some stress for me? Why not? They've done it, over a miserable period of ten long years, more times than I can count.
I called the culprits from the towing company early Friday morning. I had not been able to get back to sleep, since my rest was so rudely interrupted by the cops and their accomplices. I was told that it would cost me $70.00 to get my van back! I expressed my displeasure and outrage to the towing man, just as I had done with the police the night before.
I posed the question: WHY do Y'all run this type of operation? Why not WARN the person before just HAULING AWAY her property? WHY not give the victim an opportunity to MOVE it off the street herself?
WHY do they come in the dead of night, like the thieves and scavengers that they are? Is THIS the normal policy, or have I been targeted for special treatment?
I told the towing man that I needed to make certain that no damage had been done to my vehicle, before I took it back. He rudely informed me that such a thing was "not possible". Oh, but it certainly IS possible some damage had been done, I told him.
And whom was I supposed to trust? The towing man, looking to pick up some extra cash by hauling away my property in the dead of night? The cops, who ordered it to take place for some completely unwarranted reason?
The towing man then rudely informed me that he "had no time for this stuff" --apparently meaning my reasonable complaints and questions about WHY my vehicle was towed away, by HIS company, in the dead of night. But he informed me that if I were going to complain about possible damage, NOW, in order to protect himself, he must have a police officer on the scene when I retrieved my vehicle. And that NOW, I would have to wait an extra forty-five minutes to get it back so that the police could be notified of the situation.
I said, Great! Get the damn cops over there, then.
In fact, I DEMANDED to have a police officer present to answer my questions and to assure me that no damage had been done to my vehicle. I then hung up on him, after telling him I'd register the vehicle and pick it up later that day, and told him to alert the police what time I would be coming.
Interestingly enough, they had no answers for my reasonable, pertinent questions. Not the police, not the towing men. When asked WHY I was singled out to receive this anomalous treatment, suspicious at best, they just mumbled that they had no clue.
What a newsflash!...They're clueless.
But let me get to the primary point of this report. This incident and the fallout that followed, cost me TWO NIGHTS of sleep... SLEEP DEPRIVATION, my worst enemy... as well as extreme stress and money I can ill afford to part with.
Since I suffer from disability, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and chronic illness, ALL THE FAULT OF THE GOVERNMENT BASTARDS TO BEGIN WITH, I am ill-prepared to deal with an incident of this nature. Of course, the perps are well aware of this, which apparently is exactly the point of these harassment tactics, using minions from the local police department and their money-hungry brethren in the towing business, to carry out their sleazy little operations.
As I said, such things have happened before.
As a result of my vehicle being towed away in the dead of night, I was forced to cancel an appointment to meet with the priest from a church I attend to discuss forming a prayer group. Then I was forced to spend an ENTIRE DAY dealing with the morons from the police and towing company, just attempting to get my vehicle back!
I ask you, WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?
At the end of that Black Friday, Southern Maine Towing extorted a total of $115.00 from me, on the authority of the Old Orchard Beach Police Department, who gave the order to tow my property away and impound it.
This, after I was forced to spend the day on the phone with the towing company extortionists, and running around in the freezing cold, attempting --but ultimately failing-- to register my vehicle, so I could drive it back from the impound lot. As it turned out, the town hall closed before I could get back there and I was forced to pay another $45.00 to the towing extortionists to have them tow it back to my property later that evening.
Are the police so bored, so desperate for some excitement, in a small beach community in the dead of winter, when the carousing tourists have long been gone, that they need to resort to harassing a quiet, innocent, law-abiding citizen, who has never caused any trouble in the neighborhood? To come to a woman's home in the middle of the night, with loud gunning engines, flashing lights, a tow truck and a police cruiser?
What's the deal here? Why me?
You'd have thought it was a crime scene, the way they carried on, shouting to each other across the street, waking up the neighbors, whose lights suddenly came on all over the block, obviously concerned as to what all the ruckus was about, at THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
And consider this: Knowing they had woken up the neighborhood, they couldn't just knock on my door and give me a chance to move the vehicle myself?
Although I repeatedly expressed my outrage to both the police and the towing company, they just shrugged it off like it was no big deal. What do they care?
Ironically, when I had called the police several times last summer to report tourists parking their vehicles and BLOCKING my driveway (I use the yard as a driveway, for myself and guests and it is perfectly legal, whereas, it is ILLEGAL to block my entrance and egress from the street) the police REFUSED to tow the vehicles that had been sitting there for the better part of an afternoon, ILLEGALLY PARKED because it was blocking MY driveway!
I guess the cops think that's just hunky dory, just fine and dandy, no problem at all.....
One cop actually had the nerve to tell me ,"Well, you have to look at it from THEIR perspective. They don't know they're not supposed to park here."
I explained, slowly and carefully, as if I were talking to a five-year-old, that I had NO interest in the "perspective" of some irresponsible joyrider from Canada, or Connecticut, or wherever, BLOCKING MY DRIVEWAY, just because it's convenient for HIM so he can park near the beach. No, I told the cop, I do NOT "have to view it from HIS perspective. I LIVE HERE. Just get this damn car out of here, pronto!"
Did the cop comply with my directive? Did he enforce the law? Did he protect MY rights? No, he did not.
The car sat there all afternoon, until around 5:30 PM, when some scruffy young punk decided he'd had enough sun for the day. I had left a note on his car, telling him it was ILLEGALLY parked and BLOCKING MY DRIVEWAY. When I saw him approach the vehicle, I went out and ordered him to move it, post haste! and get it the HELL out of my way.
Like the cop, the kid just gave me a shrug; he looked at me with frog-eyes and mumbled an insincere apology. He then shifted some beer bottles from the front to the back seat, and hauled ass out of the illegal spot he had occupied all day, at my expense.
By using intimidation tactics (the only thing he seemed to understand) I made the cop AT LEAST put a ticket on the offending vehicle. Which by the way, was more than I got, not even a ticket........when parked outside MY OWN HOME.
No, the cops let the kid slide, but no such luck for me. No warning, no ticket, they just TOWED MY VEHICLE AWAY, with impunity, in the dead of night.
That $115.00 I was forced to pay the Southern Maine Towing Extortionists?
Well, that may not seem like much to some folks. But it could have fed me and my cats for a week. Including a couple bottles of good wine and some fresh flowers for the mantelpiece, the only small luxuries I can generally afford.
And what about the sleep deprivation, all the phone calls I was forced to make to the brain dead cops and towing morons? The plans I was forced to cancel because of these jerks?
And by the way, my van is still not registered. Because, to add insult to injury, I'll now have to hire someone to sweep it for bugs and to make sure no tampering was done, as has happened more times than I can count in the past ten years.
And if I find even ONE thing wrong with that vehicle, ONE little bug, ONE transponder, ONE microchip, ONE thing that isn't as it should be, ONE thing that isn't exactly as it was when they snatched my vehicle, there will be HELL TO PAY. Yes Sir, for the police, the towing company and for any government goons who had the bright idea to snatch my property in the dead of night.
I ask you, WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?
Barbara Hartwell
January 25, 2004