Posted by Larry Hoover on June 2, 2005, at 18:47:23
In reply to Re: A rant from a Canadian to America...re: Chicago, posted by rainbowbrite on June 2, 2005, at 18:24:34
> just curious...have you ever been to the US? I have never ever heard of something like this :-0 I dont have time to read the article now, but wow thats scary if this is really going on. I'm thinking it was just isolated cases.
Okay, I'll tell you a story about crossing into the U.S.
I drive truck (or did, until I broke my arm 17 months ago). Anyways, I was entering at Detroit, and I was presenting my import documents to the Customs and Immigration officer, and he asks for my identification. I hand him my driver's license, and his face goes quite serious. His hand goes to the handle of his pistol, and he tells me to pull up my shirt. A little stunned, I say "Huh?", and he tells me louder, to pull up my shirt. As if on cue, four other officers move into a semi-circle around me. I still don't know what I'm being asked to do, when the guy asks me to show him "my ink". He wants to see my "tatts". Well, I don't have any (and it took me a minute to figure out what he wanted), and as I'm sputtering in shock, one of the other guys just about pulls my shirt up over my head.
Turns out there's some Chicago gangster named Larry Hoover, and this guy is telling me I exactly meet the description of this dude, a cop killer (with a reward for apprehension).
They run my ID in the computer, though, and it checks out, so they end up letting me go.
I go home later, and hit Google, and there *is* such a guy. Only thing is, he's black (I'm a redhead). And he's in Joliet State Prison (near Chicago).
I've been crossing the border for over twenty years, hundreds of times, and never had a problem before.
The very next time I enter at Detroit, another guy starts doing this "alert" thing. I calmly tell the guy that I checked it out on Google, and it's a black man by that name......Wrong! It is not proper to correct a man with a gun. Off I go to a little room with 2-way mirrors, to sit and stew for a couple of hours, after they strip-searched me and left with my ID.
When the guy came back to let me go, all he said was, "Don't go anywhere, ever, without your photo ID. Not to the motel pool, nowhere."
Now, what do you think that was all about? I haven't tried to get on a plane since then. I'm afraid to.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:506404
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050525/msgs/507043.html