Get Beaten By Border Guards? Get Convicted of a Felony

WATTS: FELON

Peter Watts, the super-dark scifi writer, is now a felon, because he didn’t lay down on the ground after border guards (Canada-America, not Mexico-America!) punched him in the face repeatedly. (Also because he didn’t lay down on the ground, and asked what the hell was going on, he got pepper-sprayed in the face.) This is a felony because “assault” seems to be classified much the same way as “resist” or “impede.” So if you impede someone’s fist with your face, boom, felony. Sentencing is forthcoming; he faces two years. This is pretty much in every which way a travesty, particularly as it involves a guy who rescues stray cats in his spare time.