This is the Finest Nerd Czarina, and I hate the news. Earlier this week, 66-year-old Liz DeCou and 27-year-old Jesse Ingber joined a group of 35 volunteers attempting to bring some comfort to immigrant children who had been separated from their families and were now living in a Baptist Child and Family Services holding facility. The group had tried numerous times to schedule a donation drop-off with Baptist Child and Family Services, but their calls were never returned. They decided just to show up with the donations, instead. The police were not about to let them in, of course, so as other volunteers sang lullabies in Spanish outside, DeCou and Ingber attempted to hand-deliver the baskets of toys and books to the children.
DeCou asked why they would not be allowed to see the children, and thereafter was arrested and held for most of the night. She and Ingber are being charged with trespassing. The kicker is that DeCou’s father, at the age of 13, escaped Nazi Germany and became a US refugee, himself. I’m sure he would be thrilled to see his daughter get arrested for trying to be helpful to other child refugees!
I’m sure there are many out there who will point out that trespassing is against the law, and some may argue that the arrests were justified on that ground alone. In my opinion, “trespassing” is just an excuse. Of course, it’s wrong to end up on someone else’s property when they don’t want you there, but I think it’s another matter when it’s a group of volunteers with teddy bears. I don’t think there was any hidden political agenda here; just a few dozen people who want to do a good thing for young folks who are having a very rough and emotionally distressing time.
But hey, arresting do-gooders is much easier than putting actual criminals in jail and making our streets safer, isn’t it?
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