In the dark, it looks like beer…
The NSA collects meta-data on everyone… The IRS cracks down on Tea Party 501(c)4 applications… The DOJ subpoenas Associated Press phone records and spies on Fox News reporter James Rosen… The abuse-of-power scandals in Washington, D.C., grows so long that we become almost inured.
That sort of thing could never happen in Virginia, could it?
A 20-year-old University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly spent a day and a night in the Albemarle-Charlottesville poky for the offense of walking to her car with a pack of bottled water from a Harris-Teeter. She was approached by a group of state plain-cloths Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who mistook the sparkling water for a 12-pack of beer. One drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee in her car, grazing two agents with her SUV.
Agents charged Daly with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police, reports the Daily Progress. The felonies carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines per offense.
Perhaps I’m feeling over-sensitive these days to abuses of power by the leviathan state. Daly’s case wasn’t political, so it doesn’t qualify as a big brother offense. But it does seem excessive.
— JAB
