
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 21, 1994                   TAG: 9408120001
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TIM POLAND
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A HOLIDAY NARRATIVE

ON THE evening of July 1, the start of a long holiday weekend celebrating the nation's democracy, my wife and I were returning to our home in Radford from dinner at Doe Run Lodge on the Blue Ridge Parkway. At dinner we had shared an excessive amount of seafood and one-half of a carafe of wine. As is usually the case with us, my wife drove home, since my old eyes don't do very well at night anymore. As we approached Radford on the final leg of the trip home, we encountered the police state in all of its authoritarian glory.

Along Virginia 177, between Interstate 81 and Radford, the combined police forces of the area had gathered, luxuriating in their force, technology and the new .8 blood-alcohol-level law that went into effect that day. I counted at least 15 law-enforcement vehicles - yes, I counted them - both state police and county sheriff's, conducting a massive roadblock, waving their brand new "alcohol-sniffing" devices in the face of each motorist, engaged in a wholesale search for drunken drivers. This unwarranted intrusion was disturbing, humiliating and, in light of the holiday, most undemocratic.

My wife, apparently because of the alleged lingering residue of the single glass of wine she had consumed with dinner two hours before, was hauled from the car and forced to recite the alphabet, count backwards, take a Breathalyzer test (which clearly revealed her blood-alcohol level to be far below the legal limit), and perform the heel-to-toe maneuver across the uneven, graveled incline along the side of the road.

She stumbled a bit. Of course she did. The Flying Wallendas would stumble a bit walking heel- to-toe across that surface. Yet, there she was, with three law officers scrutinizing her, forced to perform this demeaning act. And let me assure you that my 5-foot-2-inch, 100-pound wife surely did not present the image of a formidable foe of the state as she trod the gravel incline in her little black pumps.

After being debased in this fashion, it was clear to the officers that my wife was not, in fact, intoxicated, and we were released from custody. We drove on another quarter mile and turned left onto Rock Road, where we were promptly stopped again, this time by a lone state trooper. On this occasion, we apparently were mistaken for "escapees" from the roadblock and were released immediately.

At this point, we had so absorbed the assumption of criminal guilt emanating from the police that we inched the car the last mile home in a state of terror that yet another law-enforcement official would pounce upon us from the surrounding woods and simply shoot us and be done with it. It was a lovely evening.

Now, you might say that if we were not guilty of anything, there should be no problem. Or you might say that the police were simply trying to protect us from the very real danger of drunken drivers. If that is what you see in my story, I would suggest that you look again, for I see something very different.

I see a large, authoritarian force, armed and immune to any challenge to their actions and without the justification of probable cause, engaged in a large-scale act of intimidation, not protection, of the citizenry. (If my wife had complained that she was being unjustifiably detained, as she was, she would have been taken to jail, no questions asked.)

I see government agencies drunk with the license afforded them by the new law and their new technological detection toys to even more efficiently keep people under surveillance and control.

I see a law-enforcement system concerned only with punishment, not prevention and protection.

I see, by the institution of new degrees of illegality, the creation of a new criminal class - dangerous hooligans like my wife and I, who brazenly dare to have a glass of wine with dinner - a new criminal class to exploit for revenue and upon whom to demonstrate how our state is now "tough" on crime, which is what is necessary to justify the means and existence of this truly undemocratic police state we witnessed at work on Virginia 177 that night.

My wife and I had planned to further celebrate the holiday weekend by having dinner at our favorite Roanoke restaurant the following Saturday night, where we probably would have had another glass of wine to accompany our dinner. However, we decided to stay at home instead, realizing that our dinner would automatically transform us into dangerous criminals in the eyes of the folks awaiting our return along Virginia 177.

And this, I suggest, is the end result. The objective of the police state that we so easily condemn in other, less "democratic" countries as been achieved - a populace so cowed and intimidated by arbitrary laws and their enforcement that people are afraid to leave their houses.

I guess you could say the law is a success; my wife and I spent the holiday at home. But the price is too high. The ends do not justify the means. Take another look.

Tim Poland is an associate professor of English at Radford University.

by CNB