An American Lion

Baltimore County Police Helicopter Foxtrot (by cooder70 on Flickr)

One of the earliest commenters on my site was someone professing to know the woman whose fiance proposed marriage to her by staging a dangerous, ill-advised, and costly stunt to propose to her. The young man, a relative of mildly powerful Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, and a politician in his own right, took twenty days to finally reimburse the city of Baltimore for the cost of using the officers and their helicopter, pictured above, to stage a fake drug raid in Baltimore Harbor.

Now, finally, over three and a half months since the August 7 incident, a Baltimore police sergeant is being charged:

Baltimore City police say a sergeant who authorized the use of the department’s marine unit as part of a Maryland lawmaker’s marriage proposal has been charged with misconduct.

On Aug. 7, police boarded a boat Delegate Jon Cardin and his fiancee were on with friends in the Inner Harbor and pretended to search for contraband until Cardin popped the question. A police helicopter flew overhead.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Friday that an internal investigation into the event found that the sergeant, who was not identified, “improperly exercised his discretion” in the incident. He said the matter must go to a police trial board.

Cardin reimbursed police $300 for the incident, gave $1,000 to the department’s mounted unit and has repeatedly apologized.

Ah, the privileges of youth and love. Power and money can get you out of anything in a filthy state like Maryland. Nothing will happen, except for the same slap on the wrist that young Cardin received. Thirteen hundred dollars is what to a wealthy political family? How about community service, probation, a night in the pokey, and a ten thousand dollar fine for wasting the efforts of so many law enforcement personnel? You can get into more trouble by calling 911 to ask for a cheeseburger than you can for scaring the living crap out of your fiance with angry drug cops.

I have repeatedly told the children that, since Father is no longer living in Northern Virginia at Seizure World, we’re leaving. I don’t care what it takes—we’re leaving Maryland and we’re not coming back. It’s like living in a toilet, only with more screaming idiots, corruption, bad stores, stumbling drunks and less blue water.