Journalist Enters Closed Public Park, Finds Self in Federal Court, Ends Up Scrubbing Toilets

Here’s a story to really make you question where
“criminal” and “justice” fit into the criminal justice system. Zach
Bowman is an editor at RoadandTrack.com, an automotive magazine.
Last October, he decided to ride a motorcycle in the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, which was closed due to the federal
government shutdown. This year, he almost went to jail for it.

Bowman makes light of the situation in an Esquire
article last week, but he chronicles an uncomfortable instance of
law enforcement going overboard on victimless crime to make an
example of someone. He
writes:

Rangers don’t take kindly to publicly mocking the government
shutdown by riding
a motorcycle through a closed national park. That’s especially
true when you write a piece about it. I’d netted three citations
for my efforts, including traveling the wrong way on a one-way
road, ignoring a public closure, and operating a motor vehicle off
of designated trails.

He wasn’t putting any lives at risk, since not even the rangers
were there. They only found out about Bowman’s stunt after he
published his article about it. Two weeks passed before the
citations came in the mail:

Combined, these were good for up to 18 months of incarceration
or $15,000 in fines. To make matters more endearing, the offenses
occurred on federal land, which meant each was a genuine
misdemeanor, the kind that go in the box under “HAVE YOU EVER BEEN
CONVICTED OF A MISDEMEANOR” on job applications and unpleasant
conversations with in-laws.

His lawyer worked a deal by which he did community service. “I
swapped 40 hours of my life, plus 10 hours of commuting, for two
perfect hours in a park I’ve loved all my life.” Those 40 hours
were spent scrubbing park bathrooms, among other dirty jobs.

Bowman figures that “everyone should have to deep clean a public
toilet at least once, just to get a first-hand feel for how
horrible humanity is as a species.”

It’s great that he documented the shitty experience, but I think
he missed the point (and a great metaphor for dealing with
government); No one “should have to” do manual labor just because
lawmakers couldn’t agree on a budget and a few park rangers
couldn’t take a joke.

Bowman’s an entertaining writer nonetheless. Read his full
account
here, and his other writing here.