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Opting for order and control over justice

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Staff

By Maria Rowan

Throughout March and April, the Carrboro Commune, best described as a loose affiliation of people who like gardening and dislike capitalism, gardened and threw tea parties at the site of Garden Everywhere, but without Vincent Gonzalez. Gonzalez was arrested duringa the initial Saturday morning Guerilla Gardening event and trespassed from this central intersection of town. At the time, he was drawing chalk vines with a paint roller while crossing Weaver Street. The charge was impeding traffic.

May Day brought Gonzalez’ court date. To prosecute this misdemeanor offense, the assistant district attorney subpoenaed the police chief, Carolyn Hutchinson, who testified that she hadn’t testified in court in over a decade. This high drama included three other police officers of the Carrboro Police Department and 20 minutes of the many hours of police surveillance video of the event.

Paradoxically, the footage and other photographs showed Gonzalez was following regulations and walking with the light when arrested. During the hour-long trial, Hutchinson insisted that her “impression” that Gonzalez was breaking the law was more important than whether he was.

Regarding the arrest, Hutchinson had stated to the press, “It sends a very strong message to the rest of the participants that unlawful behavior will be dealt with legally and strongly.” Gonzalez’ public defender called this a deliberate attempt to create a “chilling effect” on dissent. After all, how often are people arrested for crossing the street incorrectly on Saturday mornings in Carrboro?

The CPD seems less concerned with whether behavior is unlawful or lawful and more concerned with surveillance, intimidation and deterrence. A few weeks earlier no less than five officers cornered Gonzalez and another friend chalking the sidewalk and pressed for their identification even though chalking the sidewalk is not against the law. On Monday, March 19, a public meeting of people interested in Garden Everywhere was followed by two police cars while walking from the Greensboro and Weaver Street intersection toward the Town Commons.

There are more and more laws to prevent populist protests. There are acts – for instance, trespassing – that carry heavier legal penalties as an act of dissent than an act of malice. Any misdemeanor can become a felony by adding the word conspiracy.

Carrboro is a small progressive community that considers itself exceptional and tolerant, but we still operate in the context of systems we do not command. While we pat ourselves on the back for offering building occupiers vegan ice cream, we are drowning in economic disparity and the accompanying gentrification that drives workers and longtime residents out of their homes, out of town and, in some cases, into shelters and under bushes.

We are immobilized in the face of a state which privileges commerce over community and denies us even miniscule wishes such as, demonstrably, a pedestrian right-of-way at Weaver and Greensboro streets. Currently, we are challenged by the inherent conflict between those who challenge these systems and those we pay and arm to enforce these systems.

People have difficulty accepting that the police in Carrboro are employed in the same manner as police in Davis, New York and abroad. The threat of arrest keeps people from speaking and acting in defiance of a status quo destructive to individuals, communities and environments. Hutchinson’s court and press statements express an obsession with order and control that eclipses concerns about justice. Police officers and certainly police chiefs are individuals with moral agency and they make choices. No one is holding a gun to the head of the local police and forcing them to engage in harassment, surveillance and unlawful arrests. That’s their choice. Whether we condone this is ours.

Maria Rowan lives and gardens in Carrboro, where she freely associates with a variety of people.

3 thoughts on “Opting for order and control over justice”

  1. Geoff Gilson says:
    May 19, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    I love that Maria misses two important points in her ramble criticizing those we in the Carrboro community entrust with maintaining Law and Order:

    1) The gardening activities of Carrboro Commune were preceded by three incidents of breaking and entering, engaged in by some of the same folks loosely affiliated with Carrboro Commune.

    It’s a bit disingenuous to pass off their antics as throwing tea parties. And to act all surprised when our local constabulary behaves a tad nervously.

    2) The Carrboro Police Department is under the direction of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen – folks elected by our community. When we criticize them, we are essentially taking issue with the community.

    But then again, Maria does. She was quoted elsewhere recently as saying that she found Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro (of which I remain a supporter) “a little too middle-of-the-road” for her. She preferred being involved in Carrboro Commune because it emphasized challenging existing social structures.

    And therein I suspect lies the tale behind the above opinion. Maria’s continuing quest to seek justification for her loosely-affiliated friends to challenge the existing social structures of community in which they live. And to be left alone by the Police when they do so.

    For myself, I prefer to engage with the folks with whom I live. It is more communal. And ultimately, much more likely to be rewarding. After all, as Maria herself points out, it’s not as if Carrboro is some bastion of the hard right.

  2. Vincent Gonzalez says:
    June 3, 2012 at 11:04 pm

    I am surprised both that Mr. Gilson thinks his support of Occupy Chapel Hill is a newsworthy event, and that he calls Maria Rowan by her first name though it is obvious from his commentary that they are not friends.

  3. James Wilson says:
    June 19, 2012 at 4:58 am

    It’s true, Vince. But I don’t think Mr. Gilson is concerned with that–only with maintaining a state of opposition to Carrboro Commune, likely for reasons less to do with ideology then to do with personal peeves toward certain people.

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