Unmasking the silliness of enforcing state's laws

OFF/BEAT GLIDEWELL E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published January 11, 2002

Okay brother cons, gather around the table in the day room here and I'll tell you about how I wound up here.

I was on the lam from Citrus County, see. They had me cold on a slow-burger-connected assault rap and I was looking at like a fine or something, so I decided to get out of there and then, BAM! Minding my own business in Pasco County I find myself busted on a charge of wearing a hat with intent to look silly. But I'm getting out of here, see, I have potential. Once I escape I'll be into jaywalking, overtime parking and tearing the tags off of couch cushions. Just watch me, man! You're going to be hearing more about me.

I dunno, kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know the streets are safe.

While the Inverness burger wars work themselves out (my sources tell me that satellite technology and a spot on Cops are in the works), Pasco County now has its own day in the high-crime sun: the case of the ski mask (maybe) unbandit.

For those new to the controversy, Pasco sheriff's deputies say Ron Mattix looked suspicious because he was driving along, with his fiancee and her 11-year-old son in the car, wearing a ski mask shortly after a robbery alarm went off at a nearby grocery store.

Mattix says he was wearing a knit cap with its sides rolled up, that it wasn't a ski mask because it had no eyeholes and that the tinted windows in his car would have made it impossible for a deputy to see whether he was masked.

If the deputies are telling the truth, they had reason to stop Mattix with their guns drawn and put him and his family through the ordeal of handcuffing Mattix and forcing his fiancee and her son to sit for an extended period with their palms pressed to the roof of Mattix's car.

Wearing a mask or hood that obscures the face is against the law in Florida. That law was passed in the 1950s as a tool to use against the Ku Klux Klan, which proves, at least, that the Constitution can be used against the extreme right as well as by it.

I've always doubted whether those laws would really stand up under serious challenge. I don't think you can lock someone up for covering his face while doing something legal, like marching, just because he is ashamed of his politics and those of his fellow bigots.

And wearing a hood or mask during illegal activity presupposes the commission of another crime anyhow, so why bother with a mask bust?

A real ski mask, in Florida, is a pretty good case, however, for either suspicion of criminal activity or very, very serious wimpdom.

As a Florida native, I have seen the state at its coldest. The only time I have ever worn a ski mask (no, I don't ski and that's another long story) was while making parachute jumps in subfreezing temperatures in North Carolina.

But knit caps, the kind Mattix said he was wearing, are another story. The late Will McLean, a famous Florida folksinger and songwriter, wore a black knit cap as his trademark, and some of his friends, such as former Seminole tribe chairman James Billie and Dennis Devine, still wear them occasionally as a tribute. Devine never gets in any trouble and none of Billie's recent problems have been hat-related.

In fact, the Kid Who Wants My Job frequently wears one to work on cold days, and other than tempting me with high-cholesterol treats and sneaking up behind me and popping paper bags, he really isn't what I would call a criminal.

In the Mattix incident, nobody was arrested and, luckily, nobody got hurt -- and we will probably never know for sure who is telling the truth about Mattix's choice of headwear.

Both Mattix and the deputies agree that Mattix swore at them, probably not the brightest thing to do if cops have you (they say not) at gunpoint, and one of the deputies did apologize, Mattix says.

So far Hernando County has evaded most of the recent law enforcement silliness, but I have very good sources who say there are some seriously overdue library books there. And where one finds overdue books, one is almost always sure to find grass-walking, folding, spindling, stapling, mutilating and failure to recycle.

I'll keep you posted.

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