During June, 2008, I drive in the evening to a familiar local sandwich shop in the small town in the Catskill region of upstate New York where my wife, youngest daughter and I mostly live. I notice a parked police car outside and then spot a police sergeant from the village police right outside the shop.
When I enter, I immediately noticed the agitated face of the
young woman behind the counter. When I asked what was wrong, she said:
This guy from Rhinebeck [45 minutes away] drives up here
almost every night when I'm working. He buys a sandwich, sits
at a table and stares at me. Then he sits in his car and stares at
me. Then he drives slowly back and forth in front of the shop
and keeps staring at me...it's real creepy.
I called my father, he's a sergeant on the police here. He called
and the sergeant on duty came up and talked to the guy outside.
I find out she's an eighteen-year-old local resident and student at the nearby Community college, do my best to comfort her, and remind her always to have a cell-phone while working. She says she does that. The sergeant then enters the shop and I ask him what he could do. He smiled and said: "I talked to him: he won't come back."
I imagine that conversation as follows:
The sergeant: What's your name?
Joe Blow
Show me your license.
(The sergeant writes down his name and address and his
partner checks the computer in their car for any
outstanding warrants against him. Negative result)
Joe, you're from Rhinebeck; what are you doing up here
in Catskill?
I came up here for a sandwich?
How long is the drive?
Forty-five minutes.
You drove forty-five minutes to get a sandwich
in Catskill!
Yeah.
There are many sandwich shops around
Rhinebeck.
Yeah, but I like this shop.
Why?
(silence)
You like this shop! You've been scaring the young
woman inside.
(silence)
I should lock you up right now. You tell me why I
shouldn't.
I won't come back.
You certain about that.
Certain.
If I ever see you back here, I'll lock you up and ask the
prosecutor to seek high bail from the judge for you. You
understand that?
Yeah. Now, get the hell out of here and don't come back.
[vulgarisms deleted]
The sergeant lingered that night just in case. I also stayed
a bit.
Comment
This police response is, I suggest, a superior resolution to arresting Joe. The young woman's interest is in having Joe's creepy behavior stop. Her father probably shares her choice (I'm the father of three woman and grandfather of three girls and I would). This informal resolution by the Sergeant provides such a remedy (provided that Joe doesn't return). In talking to her, it's clear that she has a busy life with college and work and does not need the distraction of being a complainant in a criminal prosecution whose outcome is inevitably uncertain. In this small town with a low crime rate, such an arrest and prosecution would be front-page news in the local newspaper, and I suspect she would not want the notoriety (a recent front-page lead headline was: "Town Supervisor Reflects On 2008"). The police response is an apt example of policing in action, often quite different from policing in the books.
Legally, the creepy behavior here is on the borderline of the criminal law. There is no crime against creepiness as such. Efforts to shoehorn it into an existing crime category - say harassment or disorderly conduct - would be uncertain. In addition, the eighteen year old would not be helped by a later dismissal or acquittal, even on legal rather than factual grounds, that again would be featured in the paper and could cast a completely unfair but real shadow on her among friends, neighbors and the malicious. In addition, such a result might enable Joe Blow to claim vindication by falsely equating, as many do, technical legal insufficiency with the separate realms of social and moral vindication. By the way, do you agree that even if his behavior does not fit neatly into a criminal law category, Joe Blow's behavior remains creepy in the extreme?
Professor John Delaney |
