Meanwhile, the islands' most important industry, tourism, seems to be doing OK. No ferry has been delayed as a result of the checkpoint, says Joy Goldenberg, a spokesperson for Washington State Ferries. And it's likely none will be. The checkpoint sits perhaps a couple hundred yards up the ferry dock in Anacortes. Giuliano says that if traffic ever backs up onto the actual ferry, his officers have a standing order to open it up and sweep everyone through.
Six weeks after the meeting on San Juan, Giuliano shows up for a similarly angry gathering at the Eastsound Fire Station on Orcas. Again the San Juan County Council has invited him to explain the checkpoint and answer questions, and again the meeting room is packed. Natalie White is in attendance.
James krall / Journal of the San Juan Islands
No prohibitions:
Giuliano facing the San Juan County Council in March.
Details
Related Content
More About
A little after 2 p.m., Giuliano walks in. He's 63, but looks 10 years younger. He's been on the border since 1973, and faces mandatory retirement in two years. When that happens, he'll "probably sit in the audience and harass whoever takes his place," he jokes afterwards. Right now, he's sitting at a table between the county council and the attendees, ready to answer questions. The mood today is ugly, to say the least: A man in the back of the room, Jeff Felder, a local emergency medical technician, snorts at Giuliano's answers until it's his turn to talk. From the back of the room, he engages Giuliano in a broad, booming voice:
"Do I intimidate you, sir?" Felder demands. "Do I intimidate you?" He takes a few steps closer despite meek protests from council chair Howard Rosenfeld. "How dare you!" Felder screams. He goes on to describe how he and his daughter were stopped at the checkpoint and how the agent pulled a baton on him, despite (and here he yells) his Fourth Amendment rights. Giuliano doesn't move, doesn't flinch. His toe begins tapping, and by the time Felder is done it's beating rapid-fire against the floor. His answer, however, is stoic: He reviewed the tapes, he says calmly, and he's sure that if Felder were to complain about his treatment, it would...well, it would come out the way it's supposed to. Felder yells some more about Fourth Amendment rights, and when he's done, many people clap and cheer for him.
Another man has listed his name as John Doe, "exercising his right to not identify himself at a public meeting," he explained. When it's his turn to talk, he wordlessly hands Giuliano a written message with two questions, which Giuliano reads aloud. The first one asks if he, John Doe, looks Hispanic. Giuliano says he doesn't. The second question asks what happens if this confrontation happened at a checkpoint. The agents would probably run as many checks as they could, Giuliano says, and if everything seemed on the up-and-up, he'd be waved through.
The questions continue for three hours, but Giuliano never shows frustration or anger. Some people are polite. Some aren't. Natalie White tells Giuliano the checkpoint is stupid, prompting cheers. A lawyer argues the constitutionality of checkpoints, a woman complains that she has been treated discourteously, and a representative of the local ferry committee asks Giuliano if he'd be willing to work to find alternatives when traffic builds up during the summer. (He is.) Others accuse the Border Patrol of racial profiling. The questions are very similar to those asked at the Friday Harbor meeting nearly two months before. So are the answers.
After the meeting, the Border Patrol is checking passengers in Anacortes.
"How are you today?" the agent asks.
"Great, yourself?" I say.
"Good, are you a U.S. citizen?"
"Yup."
"Have a nice day."
jfroehling@seattleweekly.com
