Man arrested for $2 bills, terrorists blamed
Posted on April 8, 2005
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 50 views |
Mike Bolesta got pissed off at Best Buy and decided to protest by paying for installation fees with American two-dollar bills. They’re apparently rare but legal tender. Then he got arrested:
PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta’s place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher’s car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta’s idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.
For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.
Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.
Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he’s handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.
What really gets me is this quote thrown in at the end of the article:
For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, “It’s a sign that we’re all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.”
That’s right: to the Baltimore police a guy paying a service fee in a Best Buy rationally sparks the same degree of fear and paranoia as a terrorist attack.
Uh huh.
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