



                    ONE QUESTION TOO MANY

                             by

                          Joe Doe


INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST TERRI LONDON WANTS AN "INSIDE LOOK" 
AT HOW THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE FUNCTIONS.  BUT THEN SHE ASKS ONE 
QUESTION TOO MANY....



Terri London sat in the parking lot of the Sheriff's Office, 
reviewing her notes.  She was a tough reporter, but she knew that 
this assignment was different.  And she was determined to get an 
"inside look" at the Sheriff's Department.  So she read over her 
questions one more time:

Q: As you know, Sheriff, racial profiling is very controversial.  
While the record shows that you search Oriental, Caucasian, 
African-American, and Hispanic women in equal numbers, the record 
also shows that you only search women.  Furthermore, you always 
search attractive women between the ages of 18 and 45.  You have 
been quoted as saying this is your "target criminal population" 
for drug smuggling.  Why is this group searched while others are 
ignored?

Q: Most of the women were detained for routine traffic stops or 
the violation of arcane or archaic ordinances.  Yet 100% were 
strip searched and cavity searched.  Is a cavity search ALWAYS 
needed?

Q: Given the large number of searches you perform, shouldn't your 
department invest in hiring a female deputy to conduct them?

Q: Is it true that you conduct a large number of the searches 
personally...or watch while the searches are being performed?

Q: The women are routinely frisked before the search.  A number of 
them have complained about being "groped" by you or your deputies 
during this procedure.  Since each of these women was given a body 
cavity search, was the "pat down search" necessary?

Q: Several of the women I talked to reported that you and your 
staff smiled lewdly at them or made derogatory sexual remarks, such 
as referring to their "titties," "honey-pots," or "tight little 
asses."  They also report that you made a big show of snapping on 
the rubber glove and applying lubricant prior to the search.  Is 
this treatment necessary?

Q: The strip search area is visible from both the office and the 
men's cellblock.  There is also a large picture window that is 
adjacent to the street.  Although there is a shower bar, there is 
no shower curtain.  The net effect is that anyone in the station 
house can watch the entire admission procedure. 

A number of the women complained that people passing by on the 
street stopped to watch though the front window as they were 
stripped, showered, and deloused.  The examination table actually 
faces the street, so that, when the women put their feet in the 
stirrups, "their juicy gashes" (as you call them) are facing the 
pedestrian onlookers.  How much would a set of curtains cost? 
           
Q: You use a speculum during your searches, and you've have been 
quoted as saying that "it isn't a real search unless you get an 
inside look," and "I want to see pink!"  Is that an accurate quote, 
Sheriff? 

Q: The strip search area is filled with video cameras.  In 
addition, the women are made to pose for their mug shots in the 
nude.  A few of them have complained that you forced them to 
assume a large variety of poses during this procedure, almost like 
a pictorial, and that the pictures were later published in sleazy 
adult magazines.  What happens to the arrest photos and videos when 
the women are released?

Q: A number of the women complained that they were slapped hard 
on their bare buttocks during the search procedure, and that you 
routinely punctuated your commands to "spread 'em" or "bend over" 
with hard slaps to the naked fannies of these women.  You have also 
been known to "tan" female prisoners across their naked buttocks 
with a belt when they "sassed" you.  These are proud and liberated 
adult women.  Are spankings really the only way to maintain order?

Q: In a number of cases, the women were ordered to their knees to 
perform oral sex, and, when they refused, you turned them over 
your knee and spanked them until they complied.  Is this criminal 
assault, or, as you have claimed, "just teaching some snooty 
bitches a lesson"?

Q: I've been told that when a female is particularly attractive 
and accomplished, you arrange to send her to the "prison farm."   
Besides picking cotton, the women are also forced to work as 
prostitutes at truck stops along the interstate.  They are forced 
to cater to the large population of truckers, hobos, farmhands, 
and illegal immigrants in the area, sometimes servicing dozens of 
men nightly.  How do you respond to these charges?

Q: Women sent to the prison farm claim that you denied them their 
phone call when you arrested them, and that they were denied phone 
and mailing privileges at the farm.  They also claimed that you 
denied them the chance to have a lawyer or a trial, and that you 
sent them to the prison farm by signing a "sentencing form."  Is 
this legal?

Q: I'd like to talk to you about a few specific cases.  FBI agent 
Susan March said she wasn't surprised when you made her surrender 
her gun and badge before entering the cellblock.  But, after 
locking her things in a drawer your deputies forced her submit to 
a full cavity search.  Then they showered and deloused her in full 
view of the criminals she was there to interrogate.  The day 
before, her male partner hadn't even been frisked when he visited, 
and he was allowed to keep his gun and badge.  Why was Susan strip 
searched?

Q: In what your department referred to as "a regrettable case of 
mistaken identity," State Supreme Court Judge Janice Fields was 
strip searched and transferred to the woman's prison farm when she 
became separated from her VIP tour group here at the jail.  Judge 
Fields is one of the most accomplished and respected jurists in 
our state.  Why did she have to spend a week working on a chain 
gang dressed in just a t-shirt, sneakers, and denim shorts before 
her true identify was determined?  Are the rumors that you forced 
her to work evenings at various truck stops really true?

Q: Principal Wendy Johnson recently brought three of her high 
school students down to the jail when she caught them spying on 
their female gym teachers in the locker room.  The boys were 18 
years old, and she asked you to charge them.  Instead, you arrested 
HER for "interfering in police business" and then strip searched 
her while the grinning boys watched.  Was it necessary to issue the 
boys rubber gloves, and let them help with her search?

Q: Recently lawyer Denise Smith claims that she visited the jail 
in order to give one of her clients a bottle of prescription 
medication.  Her visit was less than 2 days after Miss Smith had 
successfully represented your wife in her recent divorce action 
against you.

Although the judge had authorized Miss Smith to give her client 
that medication, she claims that you arrested her for drug 
smuggling.  She says that, after stripping her butt-naked, you 
made her do the "titty bounce," ordering her to jump up and down 
repeatedly to make sure nothing was concealed under her breasts.  
Then you made her do squats and "the frog walk" for almost 10 
minutes in order to "loosen any concealed objects." 

She was forced to spend the night handcuffed naked in a cell 
with several drunken hobos you had picked up out by the train 
tracks.  After a full night of what you referred to as "sucking 
and fucking," you marched Miss Smith through the court house 
stark naked with her hands still cuffed behind her back.  She says 
you paraded her slowly and brazenly in front of all of her friends 
and colleagues.  You marched her to the judge's chambers on the 
fourth floor, claiming that you needed to "verify her story."  
Wouldn't a phone call have been sufficient?

Q: Sara Watkins, President of New Possibilities Software, claims 
that you strip searched her after she came down to post bail for 
a friend.  Professor Cindy Blake claims that she was arrested and 
strip searched when she complained that her neighbor's stereo was 
too loud.  A local CPA claims that you strip searched her after 
she called to report that her purse had been snatched.  What do 
you say to your critics when they charge that, in this town, 
pretty young professional women are afraid to report crimes, 
because they know that they will be arrested and strip searched 
while the perpetrators are let off scot-free?

Terri got out of her car and started toward the jail's front door.  
She was wealthy and successful, and it showed.  In her expensive 
charcoal gray business suit with its fashionably short skirt, she 
looked every bit the professional career woman, but somehow she 
knew that wouldn't impress the Sheriff very much.

The Sheriff had refused her numerous interview requests, and he was 
openly contemptuous of her journalistic credentials.  He wasn’t 
impressed with her Master's degrees, her national reputation, 
or her Pulitzer Prize, either.  It was only after she sent him a 
photograph of herself that he agreed to a meeting.  He adamantly 
refused a phone interview, insisting that Terri meet him at his 
office so that she would be "under his jurisdiction." 

Terri stopped to check her reflection in the large picture window 
next to the front door of the Sheriff's Office.  Through the glass 
window she could see the steel exam table.  The polished metal 
stirrups gleamed under the bright lights, almost daring her to 
come in.  Next to the exam table was the brilliantly illuminated 
concrete shower area.

"How humiliating!" she thought.  These proud, wealthy, and educated 
young women having their dignity stripped away from them because 
the Sheriff wouldn’t spend $3 for a cheap plastic curtain! 

It was terrible to stand there in front of that window.  But, 
though she would never admit it to anyone, somehow it was also 
strangely...exciting.

Terri pressed her nose against the glass to get a better look.  On 
the table she saw a shoddy black plastic carton with a white tag 
on the front.  She squinted, trying to read the writing on the tag.  
As her eyes adjusted, she was just barely able to make it out:

			LONDON, TERRI
			5875-4844-8789

She was confused.  Why was HER name on the carton?  She had 
requested documentation from the sheriff; maybe he had gathered 
together some research materials and put them in the carton so it 
would be easier for her to carry. 

Looking at the carton more closely, she saw it was totally empty.  
If it was going to be used to give her something, then why was it 
empty?

Terri suddenly remembered something Justice Fields had told her, 
and she looked up the passage in her notes:

	Since they were sending me to the prison farm, they made 
	me put everything...and I mean everything...in the crate: 
	clothes (including bra and panties), jewelry, money,  
	identification...everything.  They even took my contact 
	lenses, telling me that I wouldn't need to be literate in 
	what they jokingly referred to as "my busy new career at 
	the truck stop."  The guard told me that the crate was 
	going to be shipped to a storage locker since I "wouldn't 
	need anything anymore."  It was a cheap plastic crate.  
	It was black and had a small white tag with my name and 
	prisoner number printed on the front.  When they took the 
	crate, I cried, because it was like they took my whole 
	life away.

Terri felt her throat go dry and her pulse quicken.  It HAD to be 
a mistake!  After all, she was a respected journalist, and she 
was there for an interview.

She looked at the table again, hoping for a clue.  Next to the 
carton was a small cardboard box with the label, "ACME PLASTIC 
GLOVES, ULTRA-SHEER, 200 PAIR." 

Terri shivered as she thought about what the sheriff used those 
gloves for. 

She looked again, straining her eyes to read the label on the small 
jar next to the gloves.  She swallowed hard.  It was lubricant. 

On the floor next to the shower, there was a large green canister 
with chemical warning labels on it.  And it wasn't a fire 
extinguisher.  A short hose ran from the top of the tank to some 
device that looked like a powerful spray gun with an adjustable 
nozzle.  Terri looked it over carefully. 

She was mortified when she suddenly realized what the tank 
contained. 

It was the delousing fluid. 

She had been thinking about this place for weeks, but the reality 
was worse than she had imagined.  At the Sheriff’s insistence, she 
had brought every scrap of evidence she had gathered along with 
her and had not told anyone about the interview.  Unfortunately, 
if anything happened, no one would know where she was.  Terri was 
usually a very confident woman, even cocky, but looking at the 
shiny steel stirrups and the ominously empty carton with her name 
on it was chilling.

She glanced at her watch and then regarded the picture window 
again.  Her timing couldn’t have been worse.  The local newspaper 
had mentioned that there was a game tonight, which meant the 
varsity football team would be getting out of school early.  She 
knew that, in a few minutes, the horny 18-year-olds would be 
crowding around this window, hoping to catch a free show, hoping 
to see some unlucky young woman stripped naked and forced to put 
her dainty feet up into those cold, steel stirrups.

Terri stared fearfully at the cheap black carton with her name and 
number already shamefully plastered across the front.  They had 
left it carelessly displayed in the front window as if it were a 
trifling matter, a small part of just another routine processing 
procedure.  Then she looked back at the humiliating stirrups.

She glanced nervously at the shiny brass doorknob on the front 
door.  She thought of the hundreds of pretty young professional 
women just like her who had opened that door and walked into the 
humiliations that waited on the other side.  Once you went through 
that door, there was no going back.

Were her questions good enough to get the full story?  Would she 
really find out what was happening to the pretty young professional 
women in this town?  What was the true story behind the "work 
details" at the prison farm?

Terri looked at the portentously empty milk crate with her name on 
it.  It was clear that the Sheriff was willing to give her the 
whole story, if she were brave enough to rise to the challenge. 
            
Taking out her pen, she very nervously wrote down her last two 
questions:

Q: Sheriff, one of the tail-lights on my car is burned out.  Do 
you know of any service stations in the area where I might get it 
fixed? 

She paused and took a deep breath.  Then she wrote down her final 
question. 

Q: Do you know whether I've violated any laws by driving around 
your town all day with a broken tail-light, Sheriff?

Terri put her hand on the doorknob and turned it.  She was 
confident that this final question would get her the "inside 
look" that she so wanted. 

The only problem was that the Sheriff was going to get an "inside 
look" as well.

Terri cringed as she heard the school bell ring in the distance. 

_____________________

NOTE: FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY, SEE "TEASING TERRI," BY JOE DOE.


Edited by C. Lakewood



