Mayor calls for backup as citizen seethes

PINELLAS PARK -- For 76-year-old Theresa Vistein, the day that began as a jaunt with friends ultimately turned into a brouhaha that had the mayor summoning the city's police to face off against sheriff's deputies.

"I wanted a Pinellas Park unit there to find out what was going on," Mayor Bill Mischler said. "They're my constituents. I'm there."

As for Vistein, she's awaiting her day in court. She wants to be vindicated of a charge that she was driving on the wrong side of the road.

"This was the first ticket I ever got," she said. "I know I don't deserve it."

The events are a bit confused, but all parties seem to agree about a few facts: It happened about breakfast time March 13. Vistein was driving three other women in her Chrysler van south on 49th Street N. She turned right onto 82nd Avenue. A school bus was stopped on 82nd near the intersection.

Vistein says she signaled to turn left into the Parkside Cafe. She saw a car coming toward her and waited for the driver to pass before completing her turn. But instead of continuing east on 82nd, the other driver pulled toward the center of 82nd at her van.

"When we saw him getting out of the car and his arms flying every which way, we got scared," she said. The man, who was dressed in everyday street clothes, came up to her window and pounded on it, she said.

"He just hit that window so hard," Vistein said.

So Vistein pulled into the restaurant parking lot and went inside because she feared for her safety. The man followed her, she said, "screaming" at her and asking if she'd seen the stopped school bus with its signs out.

Vistein said she told the man, "I saw the bus, but I didn't see its stop signs out." The man demanded to see her driver's license, so she asked, "Who are you?"

The man told her he was a sheriff's deputy and pointed to a "little badge on his belt." The man was Pinellas County sheriff's Deputy Bruce Rahrer, a detective who works in plain clothes and drives an unmarked car.

He demanded she go outside with him and show her license and registration. The deputy, she said, at first told her he would not ticket her, then changed his mind after other deputies and Pinellas Park police officers arrived.

Rahrer's story is this, according to sheriff's spokesman Greg Tita: He was driving east on 82nd when he saw Vistein coming straight at him. "He, of course, got out of the way," Tita said.

He got out of his car and went over to Vistein's van, with his badge in plain sight on his belt. When Vistein refused to roll down her windows, Rahrer banged on them and yelled at her so she could hear him through the glass.

"He couldn't get her to roll the window down," Tita said. "Then she drove away . . . almost causing a head-on collision" and ignoring the stopped school bus, which had its stop bars out.

Rahrer said he followed her into the restaurant and demanded to see her driver's license -- three times.

"She would show him her driver's license and put it away," Tita said. Finally, Rahrer got her back outside and gave her a written citation for driving on the wrong side of the road and a verbal warning about the stopped school bus. The deputy did not ticket her for that because he felt she might have been trying to get into the parking lot as a matter of safety, Tita said.

Tita said one witness said Vistein was "mean and nasty" to Rahrer.

"Evidently, the mayor was at the same restaurant," Tita said. "He called backup and so did we."

Mischler said he first heard someone say a man was outside giving a woman a hard time. Witnesses told him the man had started pounding on her window and was screaming at the women. It appeared to be a case of road rage, he said.

"When I see everybody saying this guy was totally in the wrong," Mischler said, it was time to call for help. He also asked the man to identify himself, which Rahrer did. Mischler asked if he'd stay until Pinellas Park officers got there to investigate.

"Everybody said the same thing. That's why I wanted a Pinellas Park unit there to find out what was going on," Mischler said.

He added that the women in Vistein's van were "scared to death. It scared the life out of them and they're all elderly people."

In the end, five law enforcement officials were at the scene: two from Pinellas Park and three, including Rahrer, from the Sheriff's Office.

Calling for backup was a normal way to make Vistein feel safer, Tita said. Plainclothes deputies understand that sometimes people do not realize that someone not in uniform is an on-duty cop and it takes calling a marked car to make people feel safe.

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