Authoritarians can’t see when they’re acting like fools
We stopped through coastal Fairhope, AL on the way home from Netroots-New Orleans last summer to check out the fantasy castles and the hermit house (and to have some right fine coffee at the Kind Cafe; and they mean kind). Fairhope is known as an arts community, but it’s still Alabama. So yesterday, a friend and I had just shared frustrations over Democrats being stuck in policies, framings, and campaign practices from decades past when this story from Fairhope popped up in The Intercept.
At Fairhope’s recent No Kings rally, a grandmother showed up in a 7-foot-tall inflatable penis costume she’d bought at a Halloween costume store. Renea Gamble, 62, an ASL interpreter, was arrested by officer Andrew Babb, a corporal with the Fairhope Police. The arrest is captured on his body cam:
Talking to a colleague over his two-way radio after the encounter, Babb described what happened. Gamble was dressed “like a freakin’ weiner,” he says on the tape, so he ordered her to remove the costume. She refused, invoking her First Amendment rights.
“I said, ‘That’s not freedom of speech,’” Babb continues. “‘This is a family town and being dressed like that is not going to be tolerated.’”
Gamble asks Babb twice if she is being detained. He ignores her and continues his scolding.
“If I’m not being detained, I’m gonna go ahead and leave,” Gamble says. Babb tackles and handcuffs her, etc., etc. Video captures police trying to stuff a handcuffed , 7-foot inflatable penis into a squad car. Virality ensued.
Gamble was jailed briefly for “disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, then released on a $500 bond.”
Now, that’s the sort of charge against a grandmother that might simply be dropped to avoid further embarrassment. But this is Alabama.
Instead, the city of Fairhope doubled down. Rather than dropping the case, the city attorney slapped Gamble with additional charges earlier this year: disturbing the peace and giving a false name to law enforcement. Her trial, first set to take place months ago, has been delayed multiple times. It is now set for April 15.
Let’s go back to people not recognizing how times have changed. One might think that in the age of cell phones and body cameras, that a police officer, indignant or not, might stop and think twice about creating a stooge scene of arresting a costumed grandmother in his upscale tourist town. You know, and avoid making himself and his department the butt of jokes on TikTok or on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” But no.
The Intercept adds:
A progressive Fairhope-based political cartoonist held a caption contest for his rendering of the arrest. In December, a Mobile-based talk radio station held a listener poll to choose its annual Alabamian of the Year, with “Inflatable Fairhope Protest Penis” receiving the most votes.
Lord help us:
At a time when Trump and his allies have escalated attacks on dissent — prosecuting protesters as terrorists and punishing free speech — Gamble’s misdemeanor charges in small-town Alabama seem relatively minor. A conviction would most likely to result in a fine and a suspended sentence, according to her lawyer, David Gespass, a veteran civil rights attorney who has spent decades representing people abused by police — and who called the whole thing “absurd.”
Nonetheless, Gespass did not expect the prosecution to get this far. “One would have thought at some point somebody would have decided to dismiss the case,” he said.
And save Fairhope, nicknamed “Mayberry on the Bay,” further embarrassment and national ridicule. But authoritarians gonna authoritarian.
Meanwhile, the claim that the Fairhope Police Department is the arbiter of family values has been met with a wave of scorn and derision. Babb, a K-9 officer who regularly represents the police force at community events, brought a flood of criticism to the department’s social media accounts after Gamble’s arrest.
Welcome to the 21st century, Officer Babb.
