If you've read more than one news source today, you've probably already learned that Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct in connection with an incident that took place in June in a mens room of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Here is Roll Call's account of the report by the plain clothes officer who was investigating complaints of lewd conduct in the restroom.

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

First there is such a problem with sexual conduct in the men's room that they had to send in a plain clothes officer and that had been numerous arrests. I'm sorry but a public men's bathroom is probably the last place on the planet where I would want to engage in any sort of lewd conduct. Most of the time it takes an act of courage to use them for their intended purpose and you just hope you can finish before you pass out from holding your breath. Whoever came up with the saying that men are pigs did so after visiting a public men's bathroom.

The cop was sitting in the stall for 13 minutes before the incident with Craig began. Pardon the pun, but what a shitty job that is. Can you imagine your job being to sit on a crapper in a public bathroom waiting for guys to hit on you? To be sure there must be people who do this because they want guys to hit on them from the next stall - but to have to do that to earn a living. Tell me that isn't going to end up on the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs show.

Then we get to the part where Craig was nervously fidgeting outside the stall and stealing occasional at the officer inside. OK so the gross meter just climbed a couple of notches. Unfortunately the report doesn't indicate how long Craig had been in the bathroom before he started checking out the officer in the stall. Was Craig already in the men's room looking for action when the officer took his seat? Did Craig know that they guy had been in there long enough that he could reasonably think he was interested in more than using the facilities?

Then Craig took a seat in the next stall and put his rolling suitcase against the door. The cop assumed this was to help obscure any lewd activity. Of course it could just be that he had been asked thirty times over the course of his trip if his luggage had been in his possession at all times so he had to bring it into the the stall, and unless he was in the handicapped stall, space is at a premium. Or maybe the latch was broken.

Then Craig started tapping his foot. Apparently this is some of signal that he wanted to get a little action. I must have lead a sheltered life because I wouldn't have known what the toe tapping meant. I do know that if I ever find myself in a stall of a public restroom I will not be wearing my iPod.

Then Craig let his foot touch the officer's foot. Now that's really crossing the line. Seriously that's crossing the line between his stall and the cops. But I have to tell you, unless the gap between the floor and the stall wall is unusually high, without going into some serious contortions Craig's foot wasn't too far into the other stall before making contact. Did the cop move his foot? Did he intentionally place his foot close to the wall? Did he lead Craig on?

I suspect there's a lot more to the report than has been reported, because I don't see how anything Craig is reported to have done is criminal. A less than half decent lawyer could easily offer a different and altogether innocent explanation for every action Craig took. Heck I've offered several possible explanations for Craig's behavior and the extent of my legal experience is watching Sam Waterston on Law and Order re-runs. And yet Craig took a plea deal. So far all I can see that he is guilty of is asking the guy in the next stall if he wanted to have sex. Questionable judgement, and extremely unsanitary, but criminal?

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 03:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment