Ken Krayeske took a photograph recently of a public figure in a public street. Newsworthy? You wouldn't think. But it got him arrested—for breach of peace and interfering with an officer. (http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/01/your_antiterror_1.ph...)
As a known "political activist," Krayeske was considered a threat to Hartford Governor M. Jodi Rell, who was photographed in a grey coat and blue mittens. According to police, before taking the picture, Krayeske had "approached" her; eyewitnesses deny any such action, claiming he merely photographed her. (http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-ctthreat0106.artjan06,0,6152580....)
A writer, publisher, and active Green Party member, Krayeske had been pushing recently to have his party's candidate, Cliff Thornton, debate Rell and Democratic challenger Mayor John DeStefano in a public forum. The debates, however, were closed, private affairs. Citing safety concerns, Thornton agreed not to a stage protest at their location, but invited candidates to debate him in a seperate forum, at a University. The Green Party purchased air time during the televised debate to highlight the exclusion. Krayeske is listed as the contact person for public inquiries into this matter. (http://www.votethornton.com/pages/press_details.php?id=29)
Krayeske also admitted to directly questioning Rell about her refusal to debate Thornton, and chiding her on message boards.
But questions remain as to who could consider this a threat to the governor. The answer comes in the form of an organization called the Connecticut Intelligence Center, a "regional intelligence center that works with local and state entities, bordering agencies, and federal agencies. In practice, it functions as a clearing house to ensure that all criminal and terrorism-related information is gathered, analyzed, and shared efficiently with law enforcement and homeland security entities and officials. It also tries to identify emerging threats or crime trends."
(Read more here: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2005/rpt/2005-R-0765.htm)
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"The Line Between," Krayeske's account of a trip to the Syrian border, appeared in PP74. (http://www.ppmerchtable.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code...) He has just completed a piece on independent youth-led publications for PP78.
It has become a strange tragedy within the local/county and state entity levels of law enforcement when weird tactics have to be implemented both for the use of grant money and also to legitimize useless departments within an organization. It alos is an unfortunite was of the overall Connecticut taxpayer to facilitate the cost of the srrest with jail time included whe it could have been spent more effectively on crimes that are more of a logical threst to the immediate public. Though cops are under pressure from public 9/11 hype and still remain.....cops, it must also be showcased that administrators themselves are also to be blamed more than the arresting officer for even coming up with the idea in the first place.
Whatever happened to quality?