By now, many of you may have read the story about the ununiformed ATF agents (on campus as part of a “Project Safe Neighborhoods” seminar) who chased down a University of Georgia Student dressed as a ninja, tackled him, and handcuffed him. Took them awhile to believe him, but eventually they confirmed that the kid was dressed as he was because he’d just come from a church-sponsored “Pirates vs. Ninjas” party. He kid had done nothing wrong, other than “look suspicious.” And you might have heard the wonderful explanation from one of the ATF agents:

“Seeing someone with something across the face, from a federal standpoint — that’s not right,” McLemore said, explaining why agents believed something to be amiss.

Apparently it’s now a federal crime to have “something across the face.”

In any case, even if you’ve already read about the case, you should really take a look at the photo.

Jesus. Imagine what might have happened if the kid had a joint in his pocket.

I like the comment from the MetaFilter thread on this story: “First, they came for the ninjas. And I did not speak up, because I was not a ninja.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 10:16 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.