---Oh, oh, oh!
IN WHICH KATHY UNLEASHES HER FLAMING SWORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS UPON THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE GREAT STATE OF MINNESOTA!
``I've got problems with it,'' he said. ``I have a concern as to how
do I reconcile these injuries with an incident in the bar. ... They had
two tickets issued to them 10 hours later for misdemeanors. No bail. No
bond. No nothing.''
So, it seems that according to Mike Hatch, the only people who
shouldn't have to sit in jail for hours on end, waiting for a judge to
show up to arraign them are his daughters.
They, of course, should be let go the minute they're arrested, because
they're sweet little things who couldn't possibly have done any damage
to either the police officers or themselves---not to mention the cop
car one of them kicked out the window of. You have absolutely NO idea
how it works, do you, Hatch? None whatsoever. You're the head honcho.
The chief legal officer of the State of Minnesota and you have NO CLUE
as to how the system works in actuality, do you? I'm sure if either you
or Amy Klobuchar ever had your asses thrown into the clink, you'd be
completely surprised at how long it takes to charge someone.
Particularly overnight. When the judges are safe and secure in their
beds and have no intention of dealing with two girls who are DRUNK off
their asses, whose father happens to be the AG of Minnesota and who
would undoubtedly sue the City of Chicago for arraigning them while
they were in a "diminished capacity," let alone the average bum who
swills Night Train and has wound up in the pokey as well.
Let me see if I can refresh your memory on this, eh? This is something
you should have learned in law school.
1. You people--you know, the legal people---have FORTY-EIGHT HOURS to
charge someone. This means while the prosecutors are running around,
deciding first if the crime occurred in their jursidiction, and second,
if they're going to charge someone with a crime, the alleged criminal
can---AND WILL---cool their heels in numerous jails for two whole
frigging days---from the time of arrest, mind you, which might actually
be HOURS later from the time they were actually picked up--- before you
and your beloved prosecutors ever get around to setting bail. 2. Your
daughters were DRUNK. Drunk, you hear. As in "stinking." The Chicago
Police, given your daughters' behavior (kicking, biting, strugging and
then kicking out a cop car window) were completely justified in letting
them sober up before they talked to them. Again---it has to do with
"diminshed capacity." Your daughters, being the clever little
priveleged things they are, probably invoked their 5th Amendment rights
as well. They had no inclination to talk to your daughters while they
were drunk. They knew you'd come after them if they did. 3. The
credibility of the arresting officers. This is the Chicago Police
Department, after all. Take your lumps with some pride, would you,
Hatch? They don't get their knickers in a twist over just anything. It
takes serious stuff to get them riled. Once, I walked with a hundred
thousand other people down Washington Avenue after the Taste of
Chicago, and all they did was lean on their cop cars and shoot the shit
with their fellow officers. They're the most laid back cops you'll ever
meet. Stupid at times, yes--- but laid back most of the time. If your
daughters were causing fits that a Chicago bouncer (again, laid back,
but serious) would call in the cops, well, chances are they deserved to
get thrown out and then arrested. 4. Collecting of evidence. You should
be pleased your daughters didn't wind up in the emergency room right
away. The ER staff would have taken a blood test and would have
determined just how intoxicated they were. Then the city would have had
evidence to back up a charge of "public drunkeness." (And if one of
them has a broken wrist---never mind that she probably earned it---they
would have caught it by now.)
Get a clue, would you? RECOGNIZE the fact they got off lightly. Most
cops would have beaten them up (is the Minneapolis Police Department
ringing a bell?) for damaging City property. You should know: it
happens all the time---extra bruise here, extra bump there---and none
of the injuries are any different than those they'd already sustained
when they resisted arrest. The cops could have also made sure they got
stuffed into the worst cell possible, whilst holding up the process for
as long as they could get away with. You should be happy you didn't
have to become familiar with a Chicago bail-bondsman. And there's no
serious financial loss involved getting your girls out of the pokey.
You didn't have to pay a dime to get them out of jail. I'm sure your
wife would have LOVED a trip to the bail-bonds office in the middle of
the night, in downtown Chicago. As far as the actual charges---they
were issued tickets for misdemeanors. Christ. That can be wiped from a
record without a sweat being broken. Help them get over this; help them
put it behind them; make damn sure it doesn't happen again. But if you
get up behind the podium one more time and say "you have a problem with
it," I'm coming over to St. Paul and I'm going to sit in your office
and whine, and whine and whine until you listen to what I have to say
and THEN I will unleash a wet trout and SMACK you with it.