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(NOT for the faint of heart.) by quig The first thing I recall about the shopping center was an impression that a friend of mine was being instructed to "move along" by one or more First Alarm security guards for merely being at the Rancho del Mar shopping center in Aptos, California. I decided it was important for me to start to pay attention. The first actual event I remember was the "no smoking" fiasco. One afternoon, I got a telephone call from a young woman who was explaining that her mother had been accosted by employees who were apparently enforcing the "no smoking" signs they had posted in their front windows — dozens on signs hand printed on standard sized copy paper — in an effort to regulate behavior outside the Aptos Coffee Roasting Company coffee shop in the Rancho del Mar shopping center. I decided that one needed my immediate attention. When I got to the area, I purchased a cup of coffee and went outside. I found a seat directly in front of their window, in front of one of their signs, sat down and lit up. Although these days smoking may be resented outside the coffee shop, it is no longer treated as if illegal. It took a trip to Federal Court (filing a case which I lost), but we found out it's quite okay to create resentment smoking outside a coffee shop. It's a constitutionally protected right. Anyway, the next thing I know a sheriff's substation is moving into the neighborhood . . . two doors down from the coffee shop. Aptos is not exactly a hub of criminal activity, so what did we need with a sheriff's substation? As I was trying to resolve that waste of manpower, I showed up one day and noticed that one of the shopping center parking spaces — the one directly in front of their new substation — had been set aside for sheriff's parking . . . painted in red. Say what? I stopped by and introduced myself to the new sheriff in town, Sergeant David Deverell, and asked him why he would do something so rude? I pointed out that the parking in that particular shopping center is already far inadequate for the number of stores they have, that parking behind the substation office would make it easier to leave the area quickly if called on to do so, that just moving in and taking a parking space out front was, on its face, rude, and otherwise, the color red is for marking areas a no parking, except in case of emergency. He blew me off. I had figured out what I was seeing, and what I had to do about it. What I had just witnessed was the stomp of a fascist boot, together with the tagging of turf by a gang, all rolled into one. Starting then, I made it a practice to get up in the morning and drive to town for a cup of coffee, arriving early enough to park in that sheriff's designated parking space every day. From Deverell's perspective, every single day. Deverell reacted to my hints of his rude behavior by calling the validity of my driving license into question, and taking me off the road (temporarily). Next day, he came to work only to find my girlfriend, Laurie, parked in his parking space, with me sitting on the hood the car having a cigarette and a cup of coffee. Deverell ran Laurie's license plate number to find out who she was. (Except when permitted when investigating a crime, this invasion of Laurie's privacy was illegal, which her parking in Deverell's designated parking space was not — I know that because they pulled back the only ticket they ever wrote me for parking in their parking space, because they knew is was not a legally restricted parking space.) Deverell then apparently went through sheriff's records to see what he could find out about her there — since he couldn't intimidate me directly, he apparently decided to go at someone close to me. Next thing I know, I get a collect call from the county jail one evening. Laurie had been arrested . . . beaten up and arrested on her way to my place. The main reason for this page is to give you access to the audio tape recording that was made at the time of Laurie's arrest — a recording so disturbing that I was not permitted to play it for my audience on KSCO radio. (I understand where they were coming from . . . if you are female, a particualy sensitive female, you probably should not listen to it either. But if you can handle it, you really need to know what Tracy and his department are capable of.) Keep a few things in mind as to listen to the audio tape made by Laurie at the time of this arrest. One, Laurie was aware that the sheriff's deputies had been reacting oddly to me of late. And two, she saw the deputy (that turned out to be one of two) follow her from the well lighted and populated area of downtown Aptos, out of town to a dark secluded portion of Trout Gulch Road, before he made the traffic stop. She was terrified! At the very least, legitimately concerned for her safety. She was not a person who knew that she'd just run a stop sign, or was speeding, or driving with her lights off, or anything else wrong or illegal. From her perspective, she was just a citizen on her way to see a friend. She had no idea that Deverell had just days before found a "confidential informant" to say that she and I had been loading weapons into the trunk of her vehicle, or switching license plates on vehicles (both allegations completely unfounded and untrue). She was just an innocent person going about her business. Why was she stopped? She had an absolute right to know. And why, when the deputy originally started following her from work, in town, wasn't she stopped long before she got out onto this dark, desolate stretch of road? In fact, if they had a legal reason to search her vehicle, why didn't they approach her at work and search it there? Simple. Bad cops like the cover of night. Whether or not you think you would have reacted the way she did, just take a listen to what happened to her. Listen to how she was threatened, and then assaulted and battered, for trying to find out why she was being accosted at all. Click here to read the transcript and hear the 4 minutes and 6 seconds of the traffic stop from the time the first cop approached the vehicle to the time two of them stuffed her into one of the sheriff's units for transport to the jail. If you find Laurie's questions, or attitude, unusual, keep in mind that she did absolutely nothing that the Constitution did not empower her to do. She had, like you have, a constitutionally protected right to be put at ease when dealing with a police officer. The ruling Sergeant, Joseph Heartsner, gained later fame by taking beer and fireworks from the evidence room of the sheriff's office, and having a BIG party down at the county building, including the good sergeant getting drunk, exploding fireworks and pissing all over the building. Tracy allowed Heartsner to stay with the department until he retired. Santa Cruz Sheriff Mark Tracy had and has a bizarre appreciation for bad cops like none other, time and again ignoring or forgiving ("exonerating") some of the most offensive, and even illegal, behavior ever exhibited by a peace officer — depending on who the victim was. Laurie, on the other hand, had to endure a trial on trumped up charges. Although she was found "not guilty" of the charges brought against her (including "resisting arrest"), and received a small (relative to the damage they did) settlement from the County; Laurie's life had been derailed. In effect, ruined. She may never completely put the impressions left by this incident behind her. As for me, I was unable to protect her from what happened on that night, as I have thus far been unable to make Tracy pay a price for his part in all of it. Even in spite of the fact that Laurie and I are no longer together (what woman could possibly stay with a man unable to protect her?), I remain dedicated to see to it the Tracy and his criminal conspirators are brought to some sort of justice — that Tracy has more to look forward to than his pension and retirement for the lives he has ruined with his corruption. Tracy and his cronies belong in jail. He may have gotten me off the air at KSCO radio, but he's got a long way to go to get me off his back. quig |