Cristy, I can talk to you off-list about this...I don't think talking to Susan would help, since she wasn't there...All I can say is this...Francine pretty much spelled it out in her note on the TICA members list...this really had not much to do with HC's, although they were asked for after the fact as were rabies certs...
The papers are spinning this and sounds like others are as well...I know why the papers are spinning it, I don't know why others are...
No, no one other than the newspapers and the RI DEM are saying it was about HCs. You misunderstood me. I KNOW this was not about HCs. I made that very clear during the TICAmembers list discussion, remember? I would not have been talking about the pass through law under the "wild life" section if I had been under the misconception that they really were after HCs and rabies documents.
No.
Just now I was saying that THEY -- the RI DEM -- claimed that they were only after HCs and rabies docs. I did not say I believed them. I said they made that claim.
But if they wanted everyone to believe that is all they were after, then their behavior was completely inappropriate. That's what I was saying. You don't conduct a RAID if you are just checking HCs and rabies docs. You conduct yourself like a public health professional, show IDs, show courtesy, and treat people like they are good citizens having a good time at a public event -- which is what they are.
Either it was a raid and they were out of line for conducting a raid at a legal, public event without a warrant -- or it was not a raid, and they were acting completely unprofessionally and like thugs.
That is what I was saying.