I suspect that the
fake gun is what bothered the South Portland police and not the Bin Laden
costume.
Richard
SOUTH PORTLAND - Tom Connolly's political activism is eccentric, sometimes
even goofy, including his penchant for dancing around in a George W. Bush mask
on the Casco Bay Bridge.
But his donning of an Osama bin Laden costume, complete with plastic
assault rifle, and waving a TABOR-related sign along Interstate 295 went too
far, police said of Tuesday's Halloween political prank.
"This redefines the word 'stupid,'" said South
Portland Police Chief Ed Googins, whose officers arrested Connolly at gunpoint
on a misdemeanor charge of criminal threatening. "Whether it was a political
ploy or not, we had officers responding to something they felt was a serious
threat to public safety," Googins said.
Police say Connolly is lucky he wasn't shot by the officers who converged
on the hill at the Westbrook Street overpass around 9 a.m.
Connolly, a prominent Portland defense lawyer and Democratic gubernatorial
candidate in 1998, was freed on $500 bail pending a future court date. When the
49-year-old Scarborough resident was released Tuesday afternoon from the
Cumberland County Jail, he apologized for causing the police officers anxiety
but not for dressing up to get his message across -- in this case, that passing
a referendum to cap government spending would be bad for the state.
Connolly said wearing the costume -- which included ammunition belts and
fake dynamite -- was an act of "guerrilla theater" of the type he's engaged in
for years. He did not anticipate that anyone would think the plastic gun was
real.
Tuesday's incident began when South Portland police received a call that a
man wearing a robe, holding a gun and carrying an "I love the Taliban" sign was
standing next to the highway. Three South Portland officers responded, as did a
supervisor. Two state troopers were summoned in case the highway had to be shut
down.
Connolly, who was initially wearing a mask with the olive-green jacket worn
in a familiar bin Laden photo, was not recognized by the officers until
later.
Police ordered Connolly to drop the toy gun, and at first he did not
comply, they said. After he finally dropped the gun, he walked toward officers
and dropped what were later determined to be plastic hand grenades, police said.
Googins said his officers, who had their guns drawn, had to treat the incident
seriously even though it was Halloween.
...
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