Sen. Susan Collins is safe back home in Maine from both marauding chalk bearers who would write messages for her in front of her house politely asking her to represent them, and from journalists trying to figure out why in the world she would call the cops on those people.
She also seems utterly unembarrassed by the fact that her constituents are a) forced to attempt to communicate with her by writing chalked messages outside her home because she won’t actually meet with them, and b) that she would actually call the cops on said constituents. I mean, seriously, - they said “please” in their messages about how she should fulfill her long-standing promises to protect abortion rights.
“Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess,” Mainers wrote in a chalk message outside Collins’ Bangor home Maine. Over that, she called the cops. Not only is Collins unembarrassed by fact, she actually came up with a statement lauding the Bangor police for protecting her. Against chalk. “We are grateful to the Bangor police officers and the City public works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home.” Chalk.
“The message was not overtly threatening,” a police spokesman said.
Russel Neiss with Muckrock was curious about what prompted Collins to actually call 911 over chalk, so he filed a Maine Freedom of Access Act information request, asking for the 911 recording. The response is as ridiculous as that 911 call must have been.
In the process, we learn that while Collins did call police, she didn’t use the emergency 911 line. So there’s that.
“Since the ‘phone call’ related to this matter did not go to a ‘public safety answering point’ aka 911 call center, we can neither provide a copy, or written transcript of it. Doing so would constitute an ‘unwarranted’ invasion of personal privacy, Title 16 Sec 804-3,” Sergeant Wade Betters, Public Information Officer for Bangor Police Department, informed Neiss.
No, I don’t understand the use of quotation marks there, either.
That really makes you want to hear the call though, right? I mean, if the Bangor Police Department is working so hard to protect her “personal privacy” it’s got to be embarrassing. Or it would be if it wasn’t Collins. She’s clearly not capable of experiencing that reaction.