The courthouse saga continues

On Wednesday, August 19, having utterly lost all patience with waiting for the courtesy of a response from Arizona U.S. Marshal David Gonzales regarding my formal complaint about being rousted, unlawfully detained and threatened with arrest by two of his employees for doing nothing more than engaging in lawful behavior on the sidewalk outside the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Building on April 6, 2009, I decided to call Marshal Gonzales once more (I had previously left a voice mail on his direct line that went unreturned) and speak to him personally about the status of the inquiry.

The attendant "Pete" who answered the phone asked me to hold while he checked to see if the Marshal was available to take my call. He came back and asked me to hold while he connected us, but I was subsequently transferred to some other minion's voicemail.

I called right back and explained to Pete that I had been expecting to speak with the Marshal, not get shuttled once again to someone else's mailbox. He dithered a bit, then consulted with (and brought on the line with us) another (very friendly and helpful) female employee, who subsequently asked me if I would instead be willing to speak with the head of Judicial Security, one Jennifer Harkins.

Are you kidding? Would I ever! As readers may recall, I tried mightily on multiple occasions to politely get ahold of the elusive Ms. Harkins, only to be completely (and rudely) ignored by her. Truthfully, I was starting to doubt her very existence.

Sure, I replied to Pete and the other employee. Seeing as how Marshal Gonzales is apparently unavailable to converse with a citizen about a complaint, I'll chat with Ms. Harkins, if for nothing else than to prove that she is in fact an actual person. I was transferred to her extension, and wonder of all wonders, she actually picked it up. Here's our conversation:



Oh, and lest I be accused of some sort of creative editing, here's the recording of the entire second phone conversation I had with the agency's employees today. It's approximately 6:30 in length:



After this amazing call ended, I began composing this post, and then after further reflection decided to give Marshal Gonzales one more try at personally explaining his and his employees' actions before I went public with this update. I called back once more, and miraculously was put right through to him:



I decided to hold off publishing this update for a few days in order to give Marshal Gonzales a fair chance to follow through on his promise to send me a formal response, even though he had already not returned one phone message left for him and I was beginning to suspect that I was being "slow-played".

On Tuesday, August 25, I received the following letter (please click on it for a bigger image; the original was slightly faded, possibly due to a lack of ink in the printer used to generate it):





First of all, sincere thanks have to be given to the Marshal for actually fulfilling his promise to me, which is a refreshing change from the very unprofessional attitudes of some of his employees.

As to his response (which was obviously hastily thrown together the day before, in my opinion, as shown by the date on the letter), I must respectfully disagree with his conclusions:

1. "you came to the Federal Court House with a video camera"

I did not come to the courthouse, nor was I anywhere near the entrance, as the video plainly shows. I was on the public sidewalk adjacent to the building. In fact, at no time whatsoever during the incident was I on courthouse property.

2. "We take these threats [to blow up a court house] seriously."

As you should, and I do as well, believe it or not. However, I fail to see how a law-abiding citizen engaging in legal behavior would be perceived as a bomb threat. In fact, I take offense to that particular labeling of my activities that day.

3. "You were not detained in any way"

I was told "not yet" by the officers in answer to my question "Am I free to go?". That constitutes "detained" in anyone's book, I'd wager.

4. "Court Security Officers having a conversation with you on the sidewalk does not constitute grounds for a formal complaint."

I would hardly characterize my being threatened with arrest if I continued my lawful behavior a "conversation". By the way, notice how the marshal finally does admit in this sentence that I was indeed on the sidewalk, and not on courthouse property as he earlier infers.

It is quite obvious that I have reached a dead end with Marshal Gonzales in my attempt to reach a satisfactory resolution to the incident that happened to me on April 6, 2009. I will now file a civil rights complaint with the local U.S. Attorney, as well as contact my local Congressman for assistance. These next steps may very well turn out to be exercises in futility as well, but at least I will know that I did everything I could to prevent other law-abiding citizens from being similarly harassed (and having their civil rights trampled in the process) in the future.