Hi Everyone,

It looks like the rainy season here in San Francisco is winding to a close. The weather finally cleared up long enough for me to get out there again, YIPPEE!

I had my first encounter with the police while picketing today. What a way to start the 97 picketing season!

Let me explain what happened. This is kind of cute.

Some guy came up to me and started to ask me a few questions about why I was out there picketing. After a minute or two he turns the tables on me and starts doing a real PR job on me about how great Scientology is. This guy appears to be totally convinced about the "workability" of the tech. He tries to convince me that engrams are the only thing that is holding me back in life and that Scientology auditing can clear me of them. He tried to convince me how much more able all "clears" are. He also tried to convince me that doing to TR's (training routines) would make me so much more able to handle life. It was all the same PR stuff that I fell for when I first got sucked in. I WASN'T convinced. I've already gone down path and found it leads nowhere. To me Scientology "tech" is all Hubbard's useless crap.

After about fifteen minutes of this PR campaign he suddenly says, "Hey, let me go inside and get a book. I want to show you something that will prove that with the tech you can have anything you want in life."

He then walks into the Org. About 5 minutes later I see him getting "escorted" out of the building by a staff member. Both of them kind of argue for about 5 minutes right outside the front door. The staff member then goes back inside. This guy then stays at the front door trying to get some of them to come back outside to talk to him again. I see this other staff member (the one who works at the front desk) call someone on the phone.

This guy then gets a bit agitated and starts saying things to me like "This tech works on everyone 100% of the time when applied correctly. These guys just don't know what their doing. If I was running this Org I would make sure that everyone got standard tech and that everyone was making constant, steady case gain." (Where have I heard THAT song and dance before)? Eventually this guy wanders off, still in his agitated state.

I continue my picket a bit amused by this whole thing thinking, "Well there goes another good example of what the tech does to someone." A few minutes later I turn around and see this police officer get out of his car and walk directly up to me. He says, "Sir, can I talk to you for a few minutes". I respond with, "Sure, that's why I'm out here." He then says, "Can you put down your picket sign?" I comply with his request.

At this point the staff member (the one who made the phone call) comes out and says to the officer, "This is NOT the guy. This guy here has a constitutional right to be doing what he's doing". The officer then says, "I got a report of a white male with long hair, plaid shirt, holding a green picket sign shouting obscenities." The PHYSICAL description sure fit me perfectly, no wonder he approached me. It happened that me and this other guy looked very much alike. The staff member then goes on to describe the other guy in more detail and says that HE was the one that was shouting he obscenities.

The officer asks the staff member, "Was this guy a picketer or was he just a goof ball?" The staff member responded, "He was just a goof ball". The officer then turns to me and apologizes for the mistaken identity and any inconvenience it might have caused me. Both he and I remained amiable the whole time so I smiled and said, "No problem at all." We then all spent a minute determining which direction the guy went. The officer then left to see if he could find him.

Apparently this nut had gone inside and tried to act like a Scientologist making demands on them and when he didn't get what he wanted he started shouting obscenities. I sure wish I could have been in there to see what REALLY happened.

I guess my method of picketing is the right one if I even have Scientology staff members backing me up. Perhaps I know a thing or two about picketing.

Wayne Whitney ( a concerned citizen )