“We are Buzzy,” chant demonstrators gathered in Derby Line Saturday afternoon to protest what they say is harassment by police assigned to protect the U.S. border. To make their point, many of the 200 people who marched to the Haskell library carried face masks depicting Village Trustee Roland “Buzzy” Roy, whose arrest in February galvanized the community. Photos by Joseph Gresser
DERBY LINE — Just before 2 p.m. Saturday people began gathering in front of the Derby Line Village Hall near a historical marker that proclaimed: “Derby Line demonstrates the good will between Canada & the United States with its International Rotary Club and Haskell Library and Opera House built astride the boundary line.” At its height the crowd numbered about 200 people who assembled to protest what one sign called “a police state, not a secure state.”
It was a quiet group of protesters that came together. The village, too, was quiet with none of the out-of-town police officers who have recently patrolled the area under Operation Stone Garden in sight.
The demonstration began with a tribute in song to Village Trustee Roland “Buzzy” Roy. Daria MonDesire sang “Buzzy wuzzn’t doin’ nuthin’, was he?” a rousing number that recounted how Mr. Roy was accosted on February 6 by a State Trooper after he crossed back into the U.S. on Church Street, with a pizza (“a greasy pizza” in Ms. MonDesire’s song).
The trooper told Mr. Roy that he could no longer legally cross from Canada on the street that passes the Haskell library, even if he intended to report to the Route 5 port of entry. Allowed by the trooper to go on his way, Mr. Roy reported to U.S. authorities and then retraced his steps across the border and back.
This time he was stopped, warned, and released by a Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy and Newport Police Chief J. Paul Duquette. When Mr. Roy
Demonstrators take a lap around the Derby Line green before heading off to the Haskell library to hear speeches and protest border restrictions that many said were imposed without notice.
made a third trip he was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, handcuffed, and held for three hours. He was told on his release that he must pay a fine of $500 for illegal border crossing.
Ms. MonDesire’s song related the story of Mr. Roy’s arrest, ending with the refrain: “Give up your freedom for security — Buzzy wouldn’t do it, what a man was he.”
After Ms. MonDesire’s song the demonstrators set off behind doctors Brent Tatum and Ron Holland, who carried, respectively, the U.S. and Canadian flags.
There was general good humor as the crowd took a preliminary circle around the village green. Local lawyer Sue Davis looked at Representative Duncan Kilmartin, who wore a bright pink sign reading “Free Buzzy—Free The Border.”
“It’s interesting when you come to something that has Duncan Kilmartin and Robert Castle on the same side.” Ms. Davis said, referring to a Holland resident whose is a member of the Progressive Party.
“Does it make you uneasy?” Mr. Kilmartin asked.
Daria MonDesire, accompanied by Susan Lynn Johns, sings of Mr. Roy’s deeds before the march. The song’s refrain “Buzzy wuzzn’t doin’ nuthin’ was he?” was enthusiastically taken up by the crowd.
“Do I look uneasy?” Ms. Davis responded, looking quite relaxed as she walked along carrying a sign that said “A police state is not a secure state.”
Mr. Kilmartin said, “I don’t like local and state resources being used to guard the border when the federal government is printing money to do the same thing.”
After their lap around the green, the crowd of demonstrators headed up Caswell Avenue toward the Haskell library.
As the library came into view the crowd saw a group of about a dozen Canadians waiting on the northern side of the line. When the demonstrators arrived, their Canadian neighbors reached across the border for pointedly exaggerated handshakes with the Americans.
Although the organizers of the march remembered to bring along that essential piece of protest equipment, a bullhorn, they apparently failed to provide it with new batteries.
As a result, the speeches delivered on the lawn of Haskell library could be heard only by the few people closest to the speakers.
While Mr. Roy told the crowd that he plans to challenge his arrest “as far as I can,” village residents swapped stories about police stops in recent days.
Mike Place pointed to his house, just across Caswell Avenue from the library. He said he had been stopped four times and given three tickets for turning around in the “Y” at the end of Church Street, an area that seems to be entirely within the U.S. Mr. Place said he uses the turnaround to position himself to go up his driveway, but said police had told him not to do so.
Another Derby Line resident, Lauri Bonneau, said that she had stooped near her car one day to pick up some things that had fallen from her
Mr. Roy speaks to supporters in front of the Haskell library. He promised “to challenge this as far as I can.”
purse. A police officer who saw her disappear and reappear behind her car thought her actions were suspicious and put on his blue lights, Ms. Bonneau said.
“He asked me to get back into my car,” she said. “I asked him to get out of my driveway.”
Village Trustee Perry Hunt told demonstrators, “I believe we’ve got to take back Derby Line.”
Former Haskell library director Kim Prangley recalled that the library was built 100 years ago by Martha Stewart Haskell.
“When she built this the border meant absolutely nothing,” Ms. Prangley said. Over the years Derby Line and Stanstead have shared everything, she continued, but new border enforcement rules are changing that. “It’s ripping apart the community,” she said.
Keith Beadle, chairman of the Derby Line trustees, spoke as the demonstrators drifted away. He suggested that the increased number of stops and arrests of people who blunder across the border might be used to justify a larger law enforcement presence on the border.
Mr. Beadle said that even the tradition of allowing Canadian pedestrians to walk to and from the library without checking in at the border is in danger.
Customs enforcement officers are concerned that they can’t track where people who enter the library go after they leave. He said the library’s back door is in Canada, and recalled an incident that took place when he was a library trustee.
Mr. Beadle said a Canadian contractor was hired to refinish floors in the building. The contractor was reluctant to have to go through customs each day, so Mr. Beadle suggested that he park his truck behind the building and enter through the rear door.
He said that Senator Bernie Sanders has been made aware of the situation in Derby Line. Mr. Beadle said the senator plans to hold a meeting with town residents and a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security.
In a scene reminiscent of sixties protests, Village Trustee Keith Beadle addresses village residents before the march. The iconic bullhorn proved useless when its batteries died early in the afternoon.
News of the demonstration also reached the ears of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was in Stanstead on Friday, March 26, to break ground for a new hockey arena on the campus of Stanstead College.
According to a transcript provided by the Prime Minister’s press staff, Mr. Harper was asked about what the questioner termed intimidation by U.S border police.
“Yes, we’re very concerned about these kinds of things. We have raised them in the past with our American friends. We’ll obviously raise them again.”
Mr. Harper said Canadians and Americans share security concerns, but added, “I think we have to keep making the point to our American friends that it’s essential that our borders be bridges between us and not barriers.”
Later on Saturday afternoon, after the crowd had dispersed, a stroller on Caswell Avenue passed the Haskell as a couple came out of the library’s front door, carrying the books they had just borrowed. Without any fuss they turned the corner at Maple Street and walked back into Canada.
