Hassled by the Man

I know that the above title is silly, but it describes how I feel in a fairly accurate way. Lately, my view of the way the police around here operate has become a bit soured, and since venting usually helps me to feel a little better, I'm venting now.

Recently, my husband and I were visited by a local detective claiming that my husband was seen by a woman at a nearby golf course stealing practice mats (whatever those are). Apparently, when N went to the course to practice about three weeks ago, said woman called the police and related to them that he looked like someone she saw leaving the scene of a crime that was committed at the course (or something like that-I have not been privy to the top secret elements of the case). While they apparently did not approach my husband that day at the course, they did see fit to visit our home a short while later, thus ruining my afternoon and leading me to wonder how practice mats could pose such a big deal as to waste so much of the taxpayers' money. I understand that leads must be followed, etc., but the way this detective was going on and on one might have been lead to believe the things were undercoated in gold. Once I managed to obtain enough information from the officer to understand exactly what he was telling me, I realized that my husband was with me, our daughter, and his cousins from Germany on the day in question. The whole day. I related the details of the day to the detective, but his desire is that we produce some sort of receipts for the places we visited. To date, I have yet to recover any receipts-quite vexing as my husband usually leaves receipts for anything and everything all over the house. In spite of my searching, however, I have come up dry and frustrated and wondering what is going to transpire next. Obviously, this woman did not see my husband steal anything, nor did she see him at the golf course on the day the real perpetrator lifted the apparently coveted practice mats from the country club. Rather, she saw somebody who looks similar to my husband, driving a truck that looks similar to his. The truck my husband drives is one of the more popular models; there are many grey trucks on the road of this particular model and make. I have actually seen such a truck being driven by a man who looks similar to my husband driving around town, but I declined relating this to the cop as it sounds a bit too convenient, even if it is true.

This incident has left me wondering how many other people have been wrongly accused and even arrested for acts they did not commit, simply because someone was sure they saw them at some particular scene. It is extremely frightening to me that a person could be harassed in this way simply on the word of a person who obviously is not sure what or who she saw. The fact (as related to me by the officer) is that they don't have anyone else to bother, so they are running wild with a bad lead. It doesn't matter that I have a time stamped photograph of my husband someplace else on the afternoon of the day in question, or that I can account for him being with me for every hour of that day, nor does it matter that these mysterious practice mats were not located anywhere on our property. I'm lead to wonder if I'm going to need to do my own detective work, perusing pawn shops to find out if anyone has pawned the things and, if so, whether video cameras will reveal the actual thief. I also wonder who's out there catching the real bad guys, and how many other people are in the midst of being knee deep in a sand trap not of their own making due to the bad reporting of some overzealous employee.

And Tiger thought he had problems.