[News] Downtown Yorkie Walking Man Harassed by Cops
 

Nothing worse than police officers that DON'T KNOW the law!
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RALEIGH -- James H. McLawhorn knew he had the right to walk his dog on the Fayetteville Street Mall. But some Raleigh police didn't.

McLawhorn persuaded the City Council two years ago to strike a law banning dog-walking on the downtown pedestrian mall.

But, McLawhorn says, in the past two weeks, two police officers have stopped him as he walked his tiny Yorkshire terrier and insisted he was a dog-walking scofflaw.

In the latest incident, on Tuesday, McLawhorn said an officer even threatened to arrest him after the two disagreed.

McLawhorn said the officer eventually told him that if he saw him with his dog on the mall again and hadn't clarified the law, he would give him a ticket.

McLawhorn, who lives with his dog, Abby, in the Sir Walter Apartments on the mall, easily persuaded the council to change the law in 2002. A previous council approved the law in the 1970s to keep the downtown pedestrian mall pristine. But by 2002, one council member admitted that even he sometimes walked his own dog there. The council quickly repealed the ordinance.

Jim Sughrue, Raleigh police spokesman, said new laws are noted in e-mail messages to officers, who also are updated at occasional training sessions. A new e-mail message has been sent reminding officers of the change and notifying those who didn't know about it.

But McLawhorn is angry that he was stopped at all.

"Something needs to be done about keeping the law enforcement informed as to what the new laws are," he said.

He isn't taking any chances. He now carries a copy of the law in his wallet.

http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1...-8099354c.html