DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711210023

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty 

                                            LENGTH:   82 lines

CRIME IS DOWN AND THAT'S BAD NEWS FOR THE REST OF USWHAT USED TO BE JUST LITTLE QUIRKS ARE GOING TO LOOK A LOT MORE LIKE DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR TO BORED LAW-ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS.

It's a fact, crime has dropped in Virginia - almost everywhere else, too. This is good news, right? Not so fast. Even a dip in crime can have some drawbacks.

If we don't get some real crime soon, any one of us could wind up being tossed in the pokey for, well, marching too slowly in a parade.

You think I'm kidding?

Talk to the director of the Lancaster High School Marching Band, Robert Spiers. He wound up in handcuffs during the Oct. 11 WarsawFest Parade in Warsaw, Va. Seems the local sheriff was angered because the Marching Red Devils were dragging their collective feet on the parade route.

Speed it up, the sheriff ordered.

When the band director argued that the band was marching as fast as it could, the local sheriff handcuffed the band director and put him on the sidewalk.

``Now you just sit there and let everyone look at you,'' Sheriff Gene E. Sydnor told him.

Last week Spiers filed a $1.35 million suit against the Richmond County sheriff charging him with false arrest since no charges were ever filed against the slowpoke band or its director.

For a man facing imminent bankruptcy as a result of the lawsuit, Sheriff Sydnor remains curiously unrepentant.

Sydnor told a local newspaper that he was justified in cuffing Spiers because the shuffling Red Devils were causing a break in the parade that would allow cars to cut through and endanger the marchers.

``Many groups in this and prior parades have been asked to pick up the pace and all have complied,'' the sheriff said. ``I regret that my actions have offended some people, but considering the situation and the safety aspects, the incident was handled in a responsible manner.''

I suppose Sheriff Sydnor would also think the cops in Roanoke were just protecting the law-abiding citizens of the city last week when they busted a 21-year-old man for ``table-sitting.''

Seems Josh Kelley and his friends were hanging out in the city market area of Roanoke when the police spotted him blatantly engaging in a lawless activity: sitting on one of the outdoor concrete tables.

``I wasn't aware that it was against the law to sit on a table,'' Kelley said after he was arrested.

Sure, that's what they all say.

Seems Roanoke City Council, like it's police department, has precious little to do. So, back in September, council passed an ordinance outlawing sitting on tables at the market - a law that makes about as much sense as the Virginia Beach ordinance prohibiting pizza being sold by the slice along Atlantic Avenue. As Mr. Kelley argued, who knew?

Ignorance of the law, no matter how inane, is no excuse. Kelley was fined $35.

And there's more in the category of low crimes and misdemeanors in the commonwealth.

In Harrisonburg this week a woman was charged with animal cruelty and ordered to pay a $250 veterinary bill after she rescued an orphaned fawn from the side of the road and pierced its ears.

This is definitely weird. Few of us see an orphaned animal by the side of the road and wonder how it would look with a nice pair or pearl studs. An overaccessorized fawn raises all sorts of questions about the person who rescued it. What's next, nose rings, a tattoo ``Born to be Wild?''

But the fact that law enforcement officers spent time on the fawn case, and even filed charges, is odder.

In a country where people routinely pierce the ear lobes of infant girls it seems strange that piercing the ears of animals can land you in court.

``I thought it would be pretty,'' Bettie Phillips told the police after they found the bejeweled fawn in the back of her Ford Explorer.

The animal cruelty charges were eventually dropped.

What lessons can we draw from the fate of these slow-marching, table-sitting, ear-piercing desperadoes? Well, if the real criminals go away, what used to be just our little quirks are going to look a lot more like dangerous behavior to bored law-enforcement officers.

In a society where a slow-stepping marching band can end up on the wrong side of the law, anything is possible. Crime is down and that's bad news for the rest of us MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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