Back on April 25, 2005, a man named Gregory Despres (see amazingly descriptive photo at left) arrived at the U.S.–Canadian border crossing in Calais, Maine, with a sword, a knife, a hatchet, brass knuckles, and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. Agents fingerprinted him, confiscated his weapons, and let him into the United States. The next day, the decapitated bodies of his wife and another person were found at his home in New Brunswick.
Despres was eventually arrested in Massachusetts wearing a sweatshirt with red and brown stains. The same day he crossed the border, he was due in Canadian court for assault and for threatening to kill the son-in-law of the victim found in his house.
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said they could not arrest Despres on the day of his crossing because he was a naturalized U.S. citizen and was not wanted for any crimes at the time. He said agents did everything they could to check for warrants on the man, and said, “Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up.”
The spokesman further conceded that it “sounds stupid” that a man carrying what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be kept out of the country.
Good grief. I have to think there’s room for an intelligent judgment call on the part of the officers of the U.S. Customs Service, Border Patrol, INS, and anyone else who’s letting people into and out of our country. Anyone remember that we’re at war? Anyone remember 9/11? If we can’t keep a guy carrying a bunch of weapons, one of them with blood on it, from simply walking through a border crossing into our country, how are we going to keep a sophisticated terror cell from sneaking in with far more capable weapons?
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contends that profiling of airline passengers and people entering our country on the basis of race, ethnicity, or any other factor is a violation of our rights and potentially demeaning. This thought process is flawed at best, if you ask me. I don’t want to rehash the old chain e-mail about how most of the people who’ve attacked our country in the past 20 years have been radical Islamic males between age 17 and 40, but for crying out loud, it’s true. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely abhor true discrimination, but sometimes common sense must prevail.
A few years ago (post 9/11), a Captain with whom I was flying tossed a man off our plane prior to departure. The man was acting very, very suspiciously. First, he sneaked into First Class and sat down in an empty seat. Then, he was observed to be intensely praying while looking at photos of his family he’d spread out on the tray table. Next, he asked the Flight Attendant exactly what time we'd be flying over Chicago. Several times, he leaned out into the aisle and stared intently into the cockpit. When confronted about sneaking into First Class, he refused to move and gave the Flight Attendants same very threatening looks. We elected to have him removed, and we called for the airport Security coordinator to do it. Then all hell broke loose. You see, the man was Middle-Eastern looking. We had to sternly and repeatedly assert that we were throwing him off solely because of his actions, and not his apparent ethnicity, in order to get the security person to remove the man. If the suspicious person had been a white male, I guarantee that no questions would have been asked--he’d be gone. But because the world is now so worried about offending Middle Easterners, we have to go through a very stringent set of guidelines to prevent the slightest appearance of--gasp--profiling. Several times, we were actually encouraged to reconsider our decision.
Does all this seem ludicrous to you? It does to me, too. If a guy shows up at one of our border crossings with bloody weapons, or acts like a lunatic or a potential terrorist on one of our airplanes, is there really a problem with simply detaining him for a while and doing some further research on him? I don’t think we’d be giving up any of our civil liberties to accomplish this. Call me simplistic. Call me a right-wing A-Hole. Call me whatever you want. Just know that if you board my airplane and start acting squirrely, you definitely won’t be flying with me.
Especially not if you’re carrying a bloody chain saw.
