media.canada.com
A bad trip in NYC

Do these two look like dangerous deviants to you? Or even like someone who would be smoking pot in Central Park?

I don't think so either but that didn't stop Manhattan undercover officers from wrongfully arresting them, beating them up, strip searching them and holding them incommunicado for 24 hours for allegedly consuming cannabis in public. They could never sell this story to Hollywood. No one would believe it could happen in America.

Mr. Dehler, showing photos of his bruised face, said he was given a cursory medical examination by ambulance attendants five hours after his arrest and put into a cell with people smoking crack cocaine.

Ms. Gudz spent the night in a cell with 15 women -- and three mats.

"You don't go to sleep," she said.

Justice was eventually served but how do you compensate these innocent tourists for the injustice they suffered at the hands of our "public protectors?" We often think society has become much too litigious but in this case I hope they file a whopping wrongful arrest suit against the city.

All charges against the couple have been dropped, but the process has left them shaken -- and out $5,000 U.S. in legal fees and travel expenses, an amount equivalent to one-fifth of Mr. Dehler's annual take-home salary.

"I don't drink, I don't smoke, we have an organic garden in the back. We're as clean as they come," said Mr. Dehler. "We met nothing but wonderful people until this incident, and then we thought we were in a bad Hollywood movie."

It gives new meaning to the phrase, "Vacation from Hell."