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Homecoming Marred By Police HarassmentSEASIDE, AZ, June 2009 – What was to have been Professor Jeremiah Hargrove’s long anticipated return from an international lecture tour turned ugly when local police, responding to a report of an attempted break-in, repeatedly struck the 78-year-old expert on Constitutional Law, forcing him to the floor, and handcuffing him before dragging him from his own home and into a waiting squad car.“I was searching in my carry-on for my passport when the officer grabbed my hand,” said the disgruntled Hargrove at his Tuesday-morning arraignment. “When I tried to free myself from the officer’s restraint, he punched me in the stomach and screamed at me to tell him my name.”The incident started innocently enough. Professor Hargrove arrived at his home on Beachfront Drive and let himself into the house in which he has lived for twenty-five years. Because the front door sticks, he had to force it open with his shoulder. This is apparently what Hargrove’s neighbor, Alitta Noazie, saw when she called the police to report a break in in progress at her neighbor’s home.When the officer stormed into his home – the front door was still open when Oates arrived – Hargrove says he reached for his passport in order to identify himself and prove that he was in his own home. “But the officer, who refused to identify himself, started yelling and hitting, and I never had a chance to show him my I.D. I was assaulted in my own home by the very person charged with protecting me in that home.”Seaside Police Sergeant Donald Oates insists he followed appropriate protocols for responding to a report of a home invasion. The matter is under investigation by the Seaside Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division. Professor Hargrove has magnanimously decided not to press criminal or civil charges against Sergeant Oates or the Seaside Police Department. “What good will it do anyway?” he lamented. “We all know that lawyers and judges always side with the cops.”Officer Assaulted While Investigating Home InvasionSEASIDE, AZ, 2 June 2009 – While responding to a routine complaint Monday afternoon, Seaside Police Sergeant Donald Oates was shocked to find himself verbally and physically assaulted by the man whose home and property he’d been called to protect.“Sure it was a misunderstanding,” Oates said in a telephone interview, “but we had received a legitimate concern, and we had an obligation to check it out.”The “legitimate concern” was a telephone call at 1:37 Monday afternoon from Beachfront Drive resident Alitta Noazie reporting that someone was “breaking down” her next-door-neighbor’s front door. “I knew he was out of town,” Noazie said, “and I don’t want this to become the kind of neighborhood where people don’t look out for each other.”Sergeant Oates, a twenty-three-year veteran of the department, arrived to find the front door of 11234 Beachfront Drive wide open and what he described as a “mean, surly-looking man pawing through a bunch of bags on the floor in the hallway.” According to Oates’s official report, when he asked the man to identify himself and state his reason for being in the house, the intruder – who turned out to be the home’s owner, Professor Jeremiah Hargrove – ignored the request and continued “pawing” through the bags. “All he had to do was tell me his name,” Oates insisted. “Instead, he demanded to know my name and badge number, and he kept messing with his bags.” Oates’s report asserts that, when he placed his hand on the intruder’s shoulder in order to attract his attention, Hargrove stood up and made a move as if to strike the officer. To protect himself, Oates reports that he held the man at arm’s length and again requested that he identify himself.“But he moved again toward the bag, so I cuffed him and escorted him to my car. It wasn’t until his arraignment yesterday that I found out who he was.”Once it was established that no home invasion had taken place, all charges against Professor Hargrove were dropped. He has elected not to press charges against either the arresting officer or the Seaside Police Department. The incident is being investigated by the Seaside Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, but it is clear that Sergeant Oates followed approved procedures in the incident. ................
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