Did the South Portland Maine police overreact or not?

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

I suspect that the fake gun is what bothered the South Portland police and
not the Bin Laden costume.
 
Richard
 
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/061101connollyshel.html
 
SOUTH PORTLAND - Tom Connolly's political activism is eccentric, sometimes
even goofy, including his penchant for dancing around in a George W. Bush
mask on the Casco Bay Bridge.
But his donning of an Osama bin Laden costume, complete with plastic assault
rifle, and waving a TABOR-related sign along Interstate 295 went too far,
police said of Tuesday's Halloween political prank.
 
"This redefines the word 'stupid,'" said South Portland Police Chief Ed
Googins, whose officers arrested Connolly at gunpoint on a misdemeanor
charge of criminal threatening. "Whether it was a political ploy or not, we
had officers responding to something they felt was a serious threat to
public safety," Googins said.
 
Police say Connolly is lucky he wasn't shot by the officers who converged on
the hill at the Westbrook Street overpass around 9 a.m.
 
Connolly, a prominent Portland defense lawyer and Democratic gubernatorial
candidate in 1998, was freed on $500 bail pending a future court date. When
the 49-year-old Scarborough resident was released Tuesday afternoon from the
Cumberland County Jail, he apologized for causing the police officers
anxiety but not for dressing up to get his message across -- in this case,
that passing a referendum to cap government spending would be bad for the
state.
 
Connolly said wearing the costume -- which included ammunition belts and
fake dynamite -- was an act of "guerrilla theater" of the type he's engaged
in for years. He did not anticipate that anyone would think the plastic gun
was real.
 
Tuesday's incident began when South Portland police received a call that a
man wearing a robe, holding a gun and carrying an "I love the Taliban" sign
was standing next to the highway. Three South Portland officers responded,
as did a supervisor. Two state troopers were summoned in case the highway
had to be shut down.
 
Connolly, who was initially wearing a mask with the olive-green jacket worn
in a familiar bin Laden photo, was not recognized by the officers until
later.
 
Police ordered Connolly to drop the toy gun, and at first he did not comply,
they said. After he finally dropped the gun, he walked toward officers and
dropped what were later determined to be plastic hand grenades, police said.
Googins said his officers, who had their guns drawn, had to treat the
incident seriously even though it was Halloween.
 
...

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