The Fourth of July landed on a Friday this year. Myself and good friend and fellow aviation enthusiast Mario Craig decided to go take some photographs at local airports, as we rarely get a day off on a weekday. Our first stop was Howard Beach to watch the Concorde depart form JFK on Runway 31L. Then Mario, a Long Island resident, finally took me to see the L.I. airports. The first would be Islip's MacArthur Airport.
We pulled up close to the fence in a parking lot off of Taxiway Alpha at the end of Runway 24. As my quote from the September issue of Airline Review on this incident attests, "We had been standing there no more than five minutes when we were approached by a police officer, which quickly grew to half a dozen...then the detectives showed up. We were escorted un-handcuffed to the police office inside the terminal and questioned for over three hours."
I was asked multiple times about my "relationship" with Mario. Of all the questions the detective asked, he went back to this one at least five times, telling me that if I am involved with him sexually, I had better tell him now, so I don't get in trouble if they find out "the truth" later on when the FBI arrives. Even though I'm straight, I don't see where the relevance of sexual orientation comes in, and why it would need to come up so often. This is police work?
I was also asked why I liked planes, as though I was crazy. When I was asked what I had planned that evening, they replied to my answer with "Yeah, that's what you were going to do," implying that I wouldn't be going home that night, and be sleeping in a jail cell. At one point I was left alone in the room for 45 minutes, and I was so shocked that this petty incident had gone this far, I feared what else was to come. I wondered if they would say "Phil, what's your favorite plane, because that's what you'll be taking to Guantanamo."
After over three hours of grilling, Mario and I were released, but not without some of our materials being confiscated (to be returned a week later), and having personal literature read to themselves, and to be asked irrelevant questions about that personal material that apparently entertained them.
I was detained against my will without being read my rights and without any crime, or suspicion of a crime, being noted or present. I left smiling ignorantly, feeling like a free man, feeling I averted jail even though I hadn't broken a law.
Bookmarks