Overlake school, a private school in Bellevue, was the first school to volunteer with me in 1991. 12 students arrived to help hand out lunches…These were students from a very privileged school and I really did not know what to expect from them but they were amazing. We started handing out food and the police showed up. There was a youngish officer that was very full of himself. He dogged my heals, yelled at me, and was very rude. I tried to ignore him and not engage with him. The students were thrilled. The officer told me I had to stop, yelled at me to give him my identification, and told me that what I was doing was not legal. I was not a respecter of persons back then, nor did I care too much about respectful engagement. I might have told him to kiss my ass…He detained me for an hour until the sergeant on duty came down to Occidental.
The sergeant was a big man; ex marine. I thought I was going to be arrested and was a bit nervous. I looked up and up at him and told him that I was NOT handing out food in the park. He looked baffled for a moment and asked me what I meant. I told him that I was on the sidewalk outside of the park but that I had not gone into the park. It became apparent that he had no idea why he had been called down to the street. The sergeant looked at the young cop and asked him what “the hell” he thought he was doing. The young officer replied that he was detaining me because I was encouraging people to loiter and that I didn’t give them a place to wash their hands before I gave them a lunch. The sergeant looked at the young cop as if he was going to throttle him…He left in disgust throwing a look over his shoulder that said “ wait till you get back to the station”…
The young cop just could not give it up though. He didn’t like me…I may have been a bit flippant to him… He told me I was a bad role model for young people; encouraging civil disobedience… And he wasn’t fond of the population that was being served… He found out who I was, where I was from, and found out that I did music for the archdiocese of Seattle. He took a trip to the church in Bothell where I provided music and had a meeting with the priest. The priest was Armondo Guzman. He told Armondo that I was a public nuisance and a menace. He told Armondo that he should tell me to stop doing what I was doing. Armondo asked him what I was doing that was so disturbing. He told Armodo that I was feeding people and bringing them necessities. Armondo asked in disbelief, “you want me to tell her to stop feeding the hungry?”
I started putting anti bacterial hand wipes in the lunch sacks. Whenever I saw the young officer I smiled and waved at him and asked him if he wanted a lunch…