Be afraid, be very afraid
County police flex the military metaphor
Albemarle County Police Sergeant Peter Mainzer’s eyes lit up as he gazed on the black weapons issued to the department’s SWAT team––the .40-caliber submachine gun, the heavy bullet-proof vests, gas masks purchased with a Federal Homeland Defense grant.
“Most of our operations are to assist JADE [the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force] in the War on Drugs, which is part of the War on Terror,” said Mainzer, showing off long, missile-shaped .233-caliber bullets stacked in a metal clip like hornets in a nest.
Terrorism was an implicit theme of the Albemarle County Police Department’s National Night Out, a police-equipment expo held Tuesday, August 5, at Fashion Square Mall. As County Police continue to complain that they are underfunded and understaffed, the Night Out seemed designed to show people that Albemarle County is a dangerous place, and police need more money to serve and protect. That’s because in addition to guarding people against car crashes, muggers and kidnappers, County police now see themselves as frontline soldiers in the War on Terror.
Since September 11, 2001, County law enforcement offices (like others around the nation) have draped themselves in red, white and blue. If you visit Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, for example, you pass by a door sporting a “God Bless America” poster. Across the hall from Camblos, Albemarle Sheriff and former FBI agent Ed Robb pledges that if re-elected in November, he will use his deputies to feed “domestic surveillance” to the Federal government.
“I think it’s very important to the people of Albemarle County,” says Robb. “With UVA and our historical sites, there is a threat.”
It is the local drug units, however, that most closely align themselves with military action and patriotic sentiment. The JADE office in City Hall is festooned with 9-11 imagery, such as a picture of Osama Bin Laden in crosshairs, which abuts a poster of marijuana plants that declares, “It’s not medicine. It’s an illegal drug!”
On August 5, pot seemed more like a means for shop-class experimentation, however, as police displayed bongs made of PVC pipe, plastic soda bottles and a track and field baton, which reportedly were seized from County middle schools. Asked to clarify Sergeant Mainzer’s comment that the Drug War is part of the War on Terror, Albemarle Police Captain Crystal Limerick, who organized the Night Out, said, “Criminals are criminals, whether they’re a terrorist or a drug dealer or a burglar.
“Someone could rob a house to buy drugs, and the money could go to terrorists,” Limerick continued (although evidence doesn’t seem yet to have connected Nelson County weed with Al Qaeda explosives).
Not that a few missing links would stop the Albemarle Police from striking first and asking questions later, judging by the force’s history. In 2001, for instance, local attorney Deborah Wyatt, the architect of several law suits against the County police [“Walking a thin blue line,” April 24, 2001], told C-VILLE: “Based on the kind of calls I’ve got, it seems officers are encouraged to approach the civilian population as enemies in a war, even in a traffic stop.”
In an example from last summer, Albemarle Detective K.W. Robinson was convicted of committing assault and battery while interrogating a suspect. And early this month it was reported that Albemarle Officer Karl Mansoor settled a lawsuit in which he claimed County police officials violated his free-speech rights by ordering Mansoor not to criticize the County.
Limerick says the County Police Department “is a much better agency now than when those things occurred.” Indeed, Police Captain Douglas Rhodes, named in several of the lawsuits as the man responsible for the department’s aggressive training, left the force more than a year ago.
The department’s new motto, emblazoned on the side of its new Emergency Response Vehicle, an RV-style trailer full of computers and communication equipment on display at the Night Out, is “Protecting Your Future…Today.” On the County police website, the motto joins the image of an American flag and a “9-11” logo.
Despite changes in the police department’s leadership, Albemarle County apparently remains determined to win political points by wrapping its law enforcement agencies in the American flag. The National Night Out ended earlier than planned, as a bruise-colored thunderhead moved in from the northwest, but not before the event revealed the County philosophy that reducing crime is largely a matter of wielding bigger guns.––John Borgmeyer
Band on the run
Skyline Awake reflects on their recent tour
Blurring the boundaries between hardcore and straight rock ’n’ roll, Skyline Awake loaded up the van in July for their first-ever tour, playing 24 East Coast shows in a month. Taking just enough time to visit their families and shower off the grime of the road, bassist Brad Perry, guitarists Brendan Murphy and Jason Butler, and drummer Jon Kuthy then sat down with C-VILLE music writer Matthew Hirst to talk about their month on the road. An edited transcript of that interview follows.
Matthew Hirst: So, how was the tour? Are you up for hitting the road again?
Brendan Murphy: Everybody’s gotten to a point with the band where we have to decide to take that and run with it and next time play twice as many shows. It was definitely a stepping stone. Just actually doing it is…positive for us as a band. If we choose to do it again, it will be that much better.
Brad Perry: Since I did most of the booking on our end, I learned a lot of things. Certainly I think one of the main lessons is that I’m only going to go through other bands that I know are good in other towns.
Now that we have met a lot of good bands from all over, we can go through them to get the show instead of calling up a random venue to get the show, because they’re not going to do us any favors.
Did you run into any problems getting from show to show?
Perry: People were really nice. We lucked out. We played a place in Connecticut and there were really no kids, because there was some fireworks show going on down the street. The guy still gave us enough money to get to the next place. He was definitely paying out of his own pocket. And there were other places that happened. In Columbus, Ohio, we played for another band on a Monday night and the guy said, “I’ll guarantee you’ll get enough money to get to the next place you’re playing.”
Jason Butler: We didn’t really have to deal with any sketchiness at all in terms of venues or promoters. The one show we played in New York was a matinee, and all these kids showed up, all the bands showed up, but the owners of the club never showed up. So, some kid said, “Let’s have the show in my backyard.” We went to the kid’s house, and he had a tennis court and swimming pool in the backyard. His parents were there, and the show happened right there.
Are you now more serious about making music your lives?
Perry: Definitely. It would be fun to do this for a living.
Murphy: I think with a little time after the tour to wind down, it will all make sense. We haven’t talked about it as a band yet, because we haven’t all been together except tonight since we got back. Probably, being out for a month has made us all think about where we want to go next. This will either take us there or make us think twice, but for me at least, this was a positive.
Butler: I would like to take some time to write some new material, to be able to come out in two months with a whole new set of stuff no one’s ever heard before.
The running man
40-something Chicken Run champ goes for four
By most standards, Burkhard Spiekerman is not your typical racer. The 45-year-old from Tuevingen, Germany, says he’s never had a running-related injury. He doesn’t train very hard, and never stretches, and he eschews the relative comfort of flat, measured surfaces like the UVA track in favor of eight miles of hilly agony on Ridge Road, a popular running spot near White Hall. He logs in as many as 30 miles per week on the County’s gravel roads, and for Spiekerman, therein lies the key to what he hopes will be his fourth consecutive victory at the 21st annual Chicken Run, to be held August 16 in North Garden.
“I think that makes the difference,” Spiekerman says, “because I like hills.”
The Chicken Run fits Spiekerman perfectly. The victor for the past three years, he has broken 30 minutes on the five-mile course each time. Though Spiekerman makes the race seem like a cakewalk, the steep ascent in the first mile of the up-and-back race on Red Hill School Road may look foreboding to newcomers at the starting line. “There are two bad climbs,” Spiekerman notes with understatement. But after facing that same hill on the way back, runners meet with the smell of barbecued chicken from the North Garden Volunteer Fire Department guiding them to the finish line.
The Chicken Run, which last year fielded 115 racers, has become a cult classic, says Ragged Mountain Running Shop owner Mark Lorenzoni, who started the tradition 20 years ago to help NGVFD’s fundraising efforts. Its location, about 15 miles outside of Charlottesville, gives the race a certain character, he says. “It’s never gotten huge, but stayed a certain size. There’s a certain core of people that do it every year.”
Spiekerman is part of the tight knit, if growing, Charlottesville running culture that centers on Ragged Mountain Running Shop and the Charlottesville Track Club, which is also co-sponsoring the Chicken Run. Not that everyone who frequents the store or the Track Club events is a super athlete. In fact, they have something in common with Spiekerman, chronologically at least. What people might not realize, Lorenzoni says, “is the average customer is 40 years old and runs 10 to 15 miles a week.” Competitive runners are in a smaller “elite,” as Lorenzoni says, adding that “anybody that chooses to get up at 6 in the morning and put on their running shoes, to me, is serious.”
Spiekerman, who runs with the Western Albemarle High School team on some of their longer runs, finds his main competition in teenagers and people in their 20s. Still, he downplays the usual competitive element of racing, stressing other issues more typical of 40-somethings.
“It gets harder and harder. I think they should have categories of ‘single with job’ or ‘married with children,’” says the Martha Jefferson anesthesiologist and father of two, “because of the time you have to train.”—Ben Sellers