Scarsdale naturalist, cuffed at gunpoint, sues
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060116/NEWS02/601160305/1018
To look at Harry Zirlin, you wouldn't peg him for a guy
who's been questioned more than a hundred times for
suspicious activity by law enforcement officials.
A slender, unassuming lawyer in his mid-50s from Scarsdale,
Zirlin comes across as a remarkably unthreatening man.
But there is something about a stranger wearing a backpack
who prowls the odd corners of the United States day and night
in his spare time, hunting insects, that repeatedly arouses
the suspicion of police officers, border guards and game wardens.
Zirlin's standard equipment usually includes knives, nets,
flashlights and jars filled with exotic chemicals to kill
and preserve tiny creatures.
"It's not just me; it happens all the time to all kinds of
naturalists," said Zirlin, co-author of two National Audubon
Society field guides. "Bird watchers, people who study the
nighttime habits of arachnids, amphibious creatures and so on;
it happens to a lot of us all the time."
But only once in his 45 years as a collector from Alaska to
Key West and most states in between has a police officer ordered
him to the ground at gunpoint and handcuffed him.
That incident took place in his hometown of Scarsdale in
December 2002 and sparked a legal odyssey that cost Zirlin
more than $30,000 and ended last month in a federal appeals court.
The undisputed facts in the case
On Saturday, Dec. 21, 2002, Zirlin was using a knife to pry off
tree bark and collect beetles in the woods behind a municipal
sanitation yard near Heathcoate Road.
A woman approached a village employee at the yard and told him
she had seen a man with a knife; she thought he might be suicidal.
The employee called police, who arrived quickly, approached Zirlin
with guns drawn, ordered him to lie face down on the ground, and
cuffed his hands behind his back. At that point, the knife was in
his backpack, not his hand. He explained who he was, and the whole
encounter lasted about two or three minutes.
"What was really unusual about this was that the police officers'
versions of what happened that day matched exactly with Mr. Zirlin's
version," Scarsdale Police Chief John Brogan said. "Usually, when
you have any kind of a problem like this, you wind up with two
divergent reports of what happened, but in this case they
matched exactly."
For the most part Zirlin agrees, but he remains convinced that the
officers did not have probable cause to point loaded weapons at him.
Zirlin contends that the woman who notified the sanitation worker
fabricated the concern that he might be suicidal.
The police dispatcher told officers the suspect was a "male,
possibly Hispanic" — Zirlin is white — possibly because the
woman reporting the incident was "Spanish."
The following Monday he complained to the village attorney and
then commenced a campaign of letter writing and public speaking
that resulted in the filing of a federal lawsuit nearly a year later.
At first, he said, all he wanted was some acknowledgment that
the officers had gone a little too far and some assurance that
the police chief would review the incident and advise department
members that pointing guns at unarmed citizens was inadvisable.
"It wasn't so much about me as about the next guy who might
get shot accidentally," Zirlin said.
Instead, what he got was a letter from the chief saying his men
had acted appropriately for his own safety and theirs, a view the
chief maintains today.
"They were operating on the set of facts that were given to them,"
Brogan said. "In a situation like that, I would strongly suggest
to any officer to use the utmost of caution."
The case went to trial in February before U.S. District Judge
Charles Brieant, who told the eight-member jury they had three
essential elements to determine: Was an arrest made? If so,
was the detention for an unreasonable amount of time, and was
excessive force used?
The jury ruled against Zirlin on Feb. 10, and on Dec. 29 the
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his legal challenge
to two of Brieant's rulings.
Brian MacNamara, an associate professor of law at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, said the jury rendered the correct verdict.
"In cases like this, it often comes to departmental guidelines,
but, for the most part, police officers are permitted to draw
their weapons if they have an articulable reason to fear for
their own safety," he said.
Zirlin is stoic about the outcome of his case, but he remains
convinced that his life was jeopardized by a group of police officers
who could have simply asked him to put his backpack down and
produce some identification.
"I've read a lot of court cases and media accounts about how
innocent people wind up getting shot by police officers,
and you'll take my word for it that none of them had anything
to do with beetle collectors," Zirlin said. "A lot of it has
to do with misinformation from people who don't know what
they're talking about, who tell police things, and then the
police accept it and then view a situation through the eyes
of a person who didn't know what they were talking about."
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RIP Alpizar and Menezes.
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