Chalk case not first Bandit bust

Which bust was stupider? My recent sidewalk chalk citation or my university library arrest 17 years ago? I can't decide which is sillier.

Here's a fact we can savor like a good shit: I was convicted of the Occupy-related sidewalk chalk "crime" based on the facts of the case, but I received the lightest punishment possible. I only have to pay $29 in court costs, with no additional fine. What does this suggest? Unless I misread the court's intent, it says to me that I've established that using sidewalk chalk doesn't even rise to the level of real punishment and isn't worth the city's effort to prosecute. Most remarkably, I accomplished this precedent by acting as my own attorney against the army of professional legal eagles mustered by the city of Cincinnati. The legal precedent is much more important than my finances.

But this wasn't my first bust. These days, it seems rare to meet young adults who haven't had frequent law enforcement contact. But I came of age in the olden days - before the later waves of criminalizing everything. For my previous police citation, we have to go back to August 1995.

One day when I was 22, I was arrested for third-degree "trespassing" for using the Steely Dan Library at NKU. According to campus graybeards, the libe was open only to students of that particular institution. Actually, I was using the library because I planned on enrolling again that day, and because I wanted to look at the local employment guide - which was stored at that library, for that was the only official federal book repository for the entire congressional district. Plus, I remember seeing high school kids with Brossart jackets at that library, so I know it's a lie when NKU said the libe is open only to NKU students.

It was immediately clear that I was singled out because of my political views - which were well-known by the campus community. It is a fact that I wouldn't have been arrested if I was conservative.

I was jailed until roughly midnight - which was illegal because Kentucky law does not allow one to be detained for third-degree trespassing. At the arraignment, I blinked: Before I could plead not guilty, the judge told me I could instead choose "diversion" and the entire case would be completely expunged from my record. I accepted.

"Diversion" made a hassle of the next several months, as I was forced to make repeated treks to the Newport courthouse just to prove I was staying out of trouble. I could have been at school or work, but this dashed the whole fall semester. Plus, about 15 years later, I saw that the case wasn't expunged.

I should have insisted on pleading not guilty and let the case go to trial. These days, I would. But in 1995, I had yet to learn a valuable lesson: Either fight back or lose. I was taught in my youth never to fight back. Good citizenship meant total compliance.

Caving wasn't worth it. If I'd been convicted, the maximum punishment would have been only a $250 fine. What jury in their right mind would have fined me that much?

Win or lose, the case proved one thing: America was a police state. We lived under an oppressive system. Constitutional republics do not single out people for their political views to be arrested for using public resources.

That wasn't my first bust though. The first was a generally forgotten incident in 1992 when I was a high school senior. At the time, I attended what amounted to an alternative class, which was an absolute joke. One afternoon, the school called the Covington police because I refused to go to in-school suspension for something I didn't do. The cops arrived, tackled me, arrested me without telling me what I was charged with, and drove me to the psych ward at St. Elizabeth Hospital. The hospital laughed in their faces and sent me home.

This raid was a warning of the looming expansion of the fascist command state. But what was I supposed to do? Sue them?

With all these police run-ins, it's hard to decide which ranks as the most outrageous of all. Meanwhile, Wall Street roams free.