9 year old arrested with squirt gun part of crime wave

For four hot hours recently, Healdsburg, Calif., was a safer, drier place. Carin Lieberman, squirt gun assailant, was behind bars. The citizenry could also breathe easier in Thonotosassa, Fla., when Tammy Toloff, 9-yearold pebble thrower, was hauled away in handcuffs. Crime? You want to hear about crime? In Cobb County, Ga., Rebecca Anding was thrown right into the clink on Easter Sunday after she was caught in the act of picking tulips for her grandmother's grave. But folks have come to expect the worst in Cobb County, which is also home to Linda Judson, who allegedly FAILED TO RETURN TWO VIDEOTAPES! You can bet they put her behind bars. Then there's Reba Martineau, the 88-year-old resident of Rochester, N.H., who took a kickball from children when it landed in her yard on April 12. She refuses to give it back. Her court hearing is Friday, and she could be jailed if she refuses to pay a fine. What's going on here? Isn't this a nation awash in drugs and violence, serial killers and Leona Helmsley? In short, don't police have anything better to do? Well, maybe, some law enforcement officials say. On the other hand, a crime is a crime, isn't it? "You get criticized if you do something and you get criticized if you don't," complained Police Chief David G. Walchak of Concord, N.H., speaking as a vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "The tendency," he added, "is to err on the side of caution." In California, prosecutor Peter Bumerts defends the decision to run in Carin Lieberman, who was jailed for four hours on July 6 for squirting two people. She pleaded innocent Monday to two counts of battery. "They were minding their own business," Bumerts said of the complainants. To which defense attorney Chris Andrean responds: "Come on, it was a joke and not a crime." What are we to think? Sociologist Jack Levin, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, sees something big happening here. "I see this as a very large trend," said Levin. "I think definitely we are attempting to re-institute control that we see as missing in our lives. ... It's why people are wearing ties again ... why the death penalty has been re-established ... why patriotism is again popular." Why Carin Lieberman was busted for assault with a loaded squirt gun. " I think the pendulum of change had swung too far in the direction of permissiveness," Levin said.