I was happy to learn that the guy arrested on Halloween dressed as Osama bin Laden and waving a gun around was an attorney, which brings this story within my jurisdiction.
Apparently, a number of drivers called police in South Portland, Maine, to tell them that a man in "Middle Eastern garb" and a bin Laden mask was standing along the interstate highway, carrying what looked like dynamite and waving a gun at traffic. Police rushed to the scene, where they found bin Laden still holding the gun. According to a police spokesman, they "ordered him to drop the weapon several times and he eventually complied." The gun and the dynamite turned out to be fake.
So did the bin Laden, who turned out to be Thomas Connolly, a 49-year-old lawyer from Scarborough, Maine. Connolly said he had been trying to protest a planned change in local tax rules, although there was no indication from this story that he had any kind of a sign, anti-planned-change-in-local-tax-rules or otherwise. "I didn't expect to be arrested," Connolly said. Well, the real bin Laden hasn't been arrested. Why should this guy worry about it? "Obviously," Connolly continued, "I touched a post-9/11 nerve." You think?
There are several ways to go with this one:
- People apparently being worried that Osama bin Laden might have invaded Maine for a planned operation to blow up I-295, thus cutting Ligonia off from Oakdale and bringing first Maine, then America, to their respective metaphorical knees;
- Police rushing to the scene, with guns drawn, based on a report of a man in "Middle Eastern garb" and a bin Laden mask, on Halloween;
- A lawyer dressed as a terrorist carrying a gun who only "eventually" complies with police orders to drop it;
- A lawyer dressed as a terrorist carrying a gun, and dynamite, and waving the gun at traffic, who "didn't expect to be arrested"; or how about
- the fact that Connolly was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1998?
It's too hard to choose between the above, so I'll leave it to you. There's also the further fact that Connolly, after not becoming governor in 1998, had time in 2000 to get involved in electoral politics, which he did just before the election by releasing information about George W. Bush's 1976 drunk-driving conviction. Apparently, Connolly believed that if a guy can't operate a car safely, or run a baseball team or an oil company, he shouldn't be put in charge of a nuclear superpower. Of course, now we all know how ridiculous that kind of argument really was.
Connolly was charged with "criminal threatening" -- and personally I don't think it should be illegal to threaten criminals, but I don't want to touch any post-9/11 nerves -- and was released on bail.
Link: Reuters via My Way News
