Judith Flint: Heroine or Jerk?
Ubiquitous
up to authority, at least the way the Associated Press describes it in
a dispatch from Randolph, Vt.:
Children's librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for
the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds
on "Love That Dog" when police showed up.
They weren't kidding around: Five state police detectives
wanted to seize Kimball Public Library's public access
computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old
girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.
Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation
that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against
the rights of police on official business. . . .
Investigators did obtain a warrant about eight hours later,
but the June 26 standoff in the 105-year-old, red brick
library on Main Street frustrated police and had fellow
librarians cheering Flint.
"What I observed when I came in were a bunch of very tall men
encircling a very small woman," said the library's director,
Amy Grasmick, who held fast to the need for a warrant after
coming to the rescue of the 4-foot-10 Flint. . . .
The missing girl, Brooke Bennett, turned up dead a week later. Her uncle
Michael Jacques, a convicted sex offender, has been charged with
kidnapping her. "Authorities say Jacques had gotten into her MySpace
account and altered postings to make investigators believe she had run
off with someone she met online," the AP reports.
The cops were in the library that day "chasing a lead that she had used
the computers there to arrange a rendezvous":
"The lead detective said to me that they need to take
the public computers and I said 'OK, show me your warrant
and that will be that,'" said Flint, 56. "He did say he
didn't need any paper. I said 'You do.' He said 'I'm just
trying to save a 12-year-old girl,' and I told him 'Show
me the paper.' "
A Vermont law that requires librarians to demand court orders in such cases had not yet gone into
effect, so Flint was acting on her own discretion in demanding a warrant. The cops yielded and
obtained a warrant eight hours later.
Grasmick, and by extension the AP, depicts the police as bullies picking
on "a very small women." To our mind her smallness is not just a matter
of physical stature. Presented with an opportunity to help a little girl
in danger, she officiously responded: "Show me the paper."
Far from bullying her, the cops--although they were bigger and more
numerous than she--deferred to her, slowing the investigation by crucial
hours in order to comply with her demand. You can describe their
treatment of her as impressively chivalrous or as excessively obeisant.
In either case, it was far from domineering.
Flint, of course, would claim that she was standing up for a principle--for,
in the AP's words, "the privacy rights of library patrons." Have you noticed,
though, how the people who assert this principle are never patrons but always
librarians? We'd say this is really a case of status envy. Librarians want
their "profession" to be treated with the same respect society affords the
practice of medicine or law. (We should note that journalists are vulnerable
to the same criticism, as evidenced by this item on proposed shield laws [1].)
Here is a case in which police searching for a missing girl were forced to
waste precious time because a bureaucrat, acting on her own authority, said "Show
me the paper" instead of "How can I help?" Judith Flint is no heroine.
[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121441385547103895.html?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
z
> Here is a case in which police searching for a missing girl were forced to
> waste precious time because a bureaucrat, acting on her own authority, said "Show
> me the paper" instead of "How can I help?" Judith Flint is no heroine.
but the police were on a wild goose chase.
z
"the sooner you just lie down and let us beat the crap out of you, the
sooner we'll figure out that you had nothing to do with the case and
the sooner we'll get back on the trail of the actual criminal. or
would you rather obstruct justice by trying to protect your head?"