Canadian Chainsaw Massacre
It's a shame to see the apparent deterioration in vigilance of the once alert agents of the US Border Patrol in Calais, Maine. When I lived up there back in the early 70s, nothing got by them. Why, the production manager at the local paper mill got busted smuggling in a car-trunk full of undeclared lobsters. Bringing them into the country wasn't illegal, mind you, but not declaring them was, so Customs confiscated the whole lot. (I'm sure the reports of a big steamer pot being fired up behind the Customs House were just a vicious rumor.) Believe you me, we were damned careful to declare our two quarts of Nova Scotia strawberries, or four loaves of bread (the Canadian bread was better than anything we could get on the US side), or whatever, each time we crossed the border; we didn't want to take the chance of being deported, or whatever they do to people caught bringing suspicious groceries into the country.
The Border Patrol was also routinely involved in high-speed car chases to help apprehend some drunk who had eluded the Mounties by sprinting across the border. (I'm not sure how far the BP could go before having to pass the chase off to the county sheriff, the Maine State Troopers, and/or the Indian Police on the reservation just up Rte 1.) And this was long before the war or terror.
Now, however, things seem to be a tad more lax, judging by this AP news story.
Fortunately the police in Massachusetts were more decisive when they found the guy wandering down the highway in a sweatshirt with red-brown stains on it. He's now charged with a double murder (one involving a decapitation) that was discovered in New Brunswick the day after our vigilant Border Patrol couldn't find any reason to detain him.On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States....
[A Customs spokesman] conceded it "sounds stupid" that a man wielding what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be detained. But he added: "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chain saw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint."
I'll bet if the paper mill production manager had had a melted-butter-stained lobster bib and nutcracker on him, they'd have managed to detain him. I mean, you just can't be too careful with anyone toting suspicious shellfish.
4 comments:
Do I assume from this that he didn't look a bit middle Eastern? With a name like that I sorta doubt it but you know how sneaky those foreigners can be?
The title is a link to the article, and it's got a picture of the guy... no, I don't think he looks middle Eastern. I'm not sure what I'd say he does look like, other than creepy. The article also says he's Canadian-born; from his last name I'd be fairly sure he's French-Canadian.
I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but that guy's a freak. I wondered what the hell kind of haircut that was til I realized it was probably a mohawk that he had to flatten down for the police picture.
Actually the guy had dual-citizenship... and all the weapons he declared so they couldn't hold him on that. In fact, the confiscated all the weapons - including the chainsaw with what looked like dried blood on it. Now, because the border agents can't legally hold a citizen for no reason (because you don't know if the blood on the chainsaw is moose blood or human blood) they had to let him go in a few hours. As for the Mass police... it was the border guards who found out his old address in Mass - and contacted them.
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