Life during wartime...vol. XXIII

Courtland Milloy

"We hear you've been asking curious questions," U.S. Park Police officer Michael Ramirez said as he and fellow officer Karl Spilde approached me from behind a blossomless cherry tree. "Why are you doing that?"

Both officers carried 9mm semiautomatic pistols, Mace and batons. Perhaps because I had just left the Jefferson Memorial, where I'd read a few lines about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and "all men are created equal," I felt bold enough to pose a question of my own: "Why are you asking me that?"

What I really wanted to know was why my questions about the box had made me suspect. Or was it that an African American -- whom someone may have mistaken for a Middle Easterner -- was asking them?

The only way to get to the bottom of this, I thought, was to ask more questions.

"Let me see your ID," Spilde said.

"Why?" I asked.

Wrong response.

"Call for backup," Spilde eventually told Ramirez as he seized my notebook and pen and began to search me. Was I being arrested, I asked before turning over my driver's license.

Eight officers responded to the call for backup. One told me that, legally, I was not being arrested, just subject to "investigative detention."

Said Sgt. R.J. Steinheimer, "There have been reports of suspicious activity regarding you."

"By whom?" I asked.

"Can't tell you that," he replied.

[snip]

Even knowing I'd never get a straight answer, I pointedly asked whether I had been detained because I was African American or whether I looked Middle Eastern. The officers just smiled wryly. A Park Police detective would later say that "a tourist" had reported me to police. As soon as I heard that, I knew which one it was. I recalled that as I began photographing the metal box, a woman pulled out her cell phone and began keeping a not-so-discreet eye on me.

Now we know how Peggy Noonan spent her weekend.