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It's a hard job being a U.S. Park Service
policeman working the Liberty Bell beat.
Authorities have to watch out for terrorists
and purse-snatchers alike. And yesterday there was a
new enemy - a 3-year-old European boy with a weak bladder.
A U.S. park ranger named Brent Mahle
confronted Barbara Wells - an American now living with
her husband in the Czech Republic - yesterday around
5 p.m. as she watched her child urinate near a wall
close to a flower bed.
"He tells me he has to go pee-pee,"
Wells said, recalling her son's struggle to hold it
in after an afternoon of sightseeing. "I was afraid
he would wet his pants."
 Then
the ranger walked up to Wells, who is in her 40s, demanding
to know the tot's name. She identified her son, and
the ranger gave her a $75 ticket for "disposing
of human waste [urinating] in a developed area."
The policeman identified himself on Wells' citation
as Park Ranger Brent Mahle.
The U.S. Park Service police could not
be reached for comment, but Ranger Mahle said, "Ain't
no little foreigner kid peeing inside my jurisdiction,
man! That just ain't right at all."
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Cole,
62, watched the ranger scold Wells from his ninth-floor
office window and said he thought the officer had blown
things out of proportion.
"It was beyond the pale,"
said Cole, who rushed downstairs to console Wells after
watching her ordeal. "People in public service
should be using better judgment. I was really surprised
when I saw Ranger Mahle strap a diaper on her head and
then duct-tape it securely. As funny as it was, that
was uncalled for. Sure we laughed, and put Brent higher
up on our betting board for "most humorous arrest"
but he was already high on our betting board as it was."
 Cole
explained that Ranger Mahle recently arrested Philadelphia
Eagles' Quarterback Donovan McNabb for taking a shit
on Mayor John F. Streets' dog after a hard night at
the downtown bars. Streets' dog is still in therapy
trying to recover from the incident, and McNabb swears
he is going to deliver paybacks to Ranger Mahle over
the arrest.
The U.S. Park Service issued a cryptic
statement from Ranger Mahle that said: "McNabb
can shit anywhere he feels like, but when it lands on
a dog, it is personal, man, so watch your back."
After the recent urination incident,
Cole said that one of his colleagues had offered to
pay the $75 fine but that Wells had wanted to take care
of it herself before Ranger Mahle took matters into
his own hands.
Yesterday was already a bad day for
Wells. She was rushing to Center City from the Jersey
Shore, trying to reach the Liberty Bell before it closed.
Her son was crabby after his afternoon nap, and once
his bladder began to expand, she said, the whining got
more intense. And then he started crapping on her leather
seats in her vehicle, which sent her to hysterics.
She tried to go back inside the Liberty
Bell Center, but the no-re-entry sign stopped her. The
only other outlet, she said, was the wall...and Ranger
Brent Mahle.
"I was trying to be discreet,"
Wells said. " I am not stupid."
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| Park
Ranger Brent Mahle, back in his civilian days. |
Ranger Mahle disagreed, saying, "No,
she really was stupid."
Wells said she hopes to revisit Philadelphia
before her family's summer vacation in the States ends.
And one run-in with a park ranger won't stop her.
"We want to spend more time here,"
said Wells, who will visit relatives in Lancaster County
next. "This is my country."
Ranger Mahle reiterated that it may
be her country, but "Her little crumb-cruncher
better not ever have any ideas of pissing on it ever
again, or there will be serious trouble."
Asked if he was just kidding, Ranger
Mahle said, "No, I am not kidding. That little
tyke is going down if he ever wizzes on this park property
ever again."
The U.S. Park Service commented that
"Ranger Mahle has always been a rogue agent, but
he really does speak for all of us. We all feel that
way, yes. He just has the nuts to actually say it."
Some of this story was true, but
Brent literally DARED me to embellish it, so I did.
May civilian lawsuits fly against me and the U.S. Park
Service... |
