If people tapping their foot in a restroom is good enough to bust them, I think the police is getting a bit too out of hand.

I agree 100% of what this article wrote!

Hank

-- Modified on 9/2/2007 8:08:40 AM

he peeked in the next stall and he plead guity................so if OJ said yes i did it and the jury aquitted him   then he didn't do it.who knows best what he attempted obviously he did   he cannot say he  didn't speak English so he didn't understand the charge

Some might say " 'are' the police", but in any case, soliciting sex in public restrooms sounds pretty off-limits to me. If the police prevent me from walking in on a guy butt-blasting another guy in public restroom, I encourage them to keep up the good work.

Do you like the photo cameras being installed at every major intersection in your town. What ever happened to being confronted by your accuser in court? Now it's a photo of your cars license plate and an ASSUMPTION that you were driving.

Any government and it's police must be kept on a very short leash. The current administration has been chewing feverishly on that leash for years; now the dog is free enough too eat its own.

Look at the history of police and race and you'll see that the idea that cops are out of hand is nothing new in some communities.

I am not sure what part of town you live in, however  I have never heard of such a thing as tapping a foot to be considered soliciting.

Next thing you know, the police will arrest him for indecent exposure...does he FORGET, he is in a RESTROOM and people drop their pants to PEE?

Even if a SUBTLE thing as this is a CRIME worthy of arrest, I don't see a difference between the Taliban and the state of Michigan!

Hank


-- Modified on 9/2/2007 9:50:59 AM

Well, there are many differences between Michigan and the Taliban (he was arrested in Minnesota), too many to list, if fact, and far too many real differences to dignify the comparison any longer.

In any case, he peered in through the crack in the door to watch the cop in the stall. Then he went through a well-known (apparently) routine to initiate sex in a public restroom. None of this was innocent, nor was it merely accidentally tapping into somebody else. Ridding public restrooms of perverts is very good thing for cops to do, if you ask this citizen's opinion.

Bob:

I think you spend way too much time in the restroom and the pee smell is beginning to affect your brains!

Hank

Pee smells affecting his brain or not, Bob's facts are pretty straight (pun intended).  This airport restroom is a well-known cruising location (according to the very best TER-like public restroom review sites).  Sen Craig left the terminal area he had flown into and was going to fly out of again (Northwest transfer) to use a restroom in the main terminal which means he had to go through security to re-enter.  How many of us do that when we only have less than two hours between flights?  The behaviors - foot-tapping, bumping the guy's foot in the next stall and running your hand under the stall palm up) - exhibited are very much like we might do in a massage parlor to let the RA know we're there for the happy ending.
If you read the transcript of the interview done after the arrest, you would get a pretty clear idea that there was something going on besides foot-tapping.  Hey, if I was arrested in a Men's room for solicitation and, in fact, hadn't done anything wrong, I would be fucking outraged.  Given that this is a U.S Senator, one would have expected a less-docile confrontation.

This type of thing with cops is by no means nothing new. This incident was just highly publicized, but questionable stuff like this happens everyday. There are many good cops out there, but many that have a god complex too because they have a badge.  

Not that I'm in support of a public restroom turning into a bathhouse, but I think this guy go raked over the coals big time.  Even if he was trolling for a random gay hookup, is that illegal? Guys hit on women all day long looking to get in their pants, since when is that a crime? I tap my foot in the shitter all the time, take me to jail I guess.

If he was actually in the act of having sex, that would certainly be a criminal activity. But tapping your foot and lowering your hand isn't a criminal activity regardless of the motive for it.

will feel right at home.

implications of a guilty plea.  

Yeah, lots of HS droputs and ADD boys plead to make things go away, but they get held responsible anyway because there's nothing more that can be done to make them understand.

But a SENATOR claiming that he didn't understand the implications of a plea to public lewdness?  Sorry, I can't buy that one.

Being in the hobby, we already know that chump arrest and entrapment are standard vice squad procedure. The fact is, though, Senators are pretty powerful people; I mean, look what Edward Kennedy was able to get himself out of.  Craig could have fought it better than anybody in the hobby might have. He didn't have to plead guilty. He could have gotten a lawyer-- a very good one. If he's not guilty, he's stupid. He should have known better.

But if you were to consider what the officer said as true, look at the next public stall you're in.  Sitting on the toilet, how much do you have to stretch to get your foot under the barrier? It's pretty damn far away. Most men's room stalls are designed to make that confusion difficult.

What's really amazing to me: Sen. David Vitter admits that he had seen providers, as identified by Deborah Palfrey's phone records. He comes clean, his friends in the GOP give him a standing ovation. But they throw Craig overboard.

Looks like if you're Republican and you're gonna walk on the wild side, you better walk the hetero walk.

He folded too quickly. I doubt he wants his private life to be revealed further with such a public attitude against gays.

You had better be in a state with a Democrat governor who will not appoint a Republican replacement.  if you are easily replaced by another Republican, your out!