I was walking around downtown Mt. Angel, waiting for the library to open. I was still using the library to check out books. What was going on with the monks was more than disturbing, but my primary interest had always been religion, and that hadn't quit. So I was still doing research. The library was closed and I decided to kill some time downtown.
I was walking down the sidewalk when a younger man (late 20s or early 30s) approached me on a bicycle. He talked to me for a short while and then asked me out on a date. I said I was going to the library to check out some books and that I could meet him afterwards. He asked if he should meet me on Abbey grounds and I said sure. We talked for awhile and then he asked for my name. I told him, "Cameo". I noticed his body language as he froze and looked at me closely. But he didn't say anything. So I passed by and went to the Abbey.
I was waiting for him, against the wall, when he drove up, in his police car. No big deal, I already knew he was a police officer (he'd been wearing his uniform on the bike). But he pulled alongside me and said, "I didn't know who you were at first." I didn't know what he was talking about.
"What do you mean?"
He, "Scott", said, "You've been on our board for months."
I didn't know what he was talking about. "What do you mean, your "board"?"
Scott said, "Your name has been on our board. You've been under investigation."
I was shocked. "For WHAT?!"
He said, "The Abbey told us you were mentally unstable and potentially dangerous." (this is another direct quote because one doesn't forget a statement like that).
"I haven't done anything," I said. I hadn't yelled at anyone, I didn't swear, and I didn't even go up to the Abbey for the same months I was under investigation, until finally to get some more books. I had done absolutely nothing wrong. The officer admitted,
"We've never seen you do anything wrong, and we've had you under surveillance."
Then he said why didn't I go with him, and we'd talk some more. I said okay. He wanted me to take my own car and then "secretly" meet him in a parking lot where he said, we wouldn't be noticed. I said okay, so I drove to meet him, and by that time, it was getting dark. He took me with him, or had me follow him first to a convenience store to get some candy and coffee because, he said, he was working that night. Then we drove to a parking lot and parked next to other cars. We just talked out of our windows. I asked him a lot of questions about what was going on. He said people were coming into their station making a lot of reports about being abused as kids, and telling them not to tell anyone and that they didn't want anyone to be charged, but just wanted them to know, to protect others and in case anyone else came forward. He said they'd already had about 7-8 reports like that. Then he asked me to meet him again at a later date, in Mt. Angel and I agreed.
The next time I met him, it was in a building across the street from the police station. I didn't know, at the time, that this building was owned by the police station, even though it wasn't a part of it, or didn't look like it. Scott called it their "storage room". Then it got weird. It was freezing cold in there, and he pulled out a folding metal chair for me. Then he pulled out a metal chair for himself. He gave me a cup of coffee or I had one already, I don't remember. And then he proceeded to question me. He asked what I was doing at the Abbey, and a number of other questions. Then he asked if I'd ever wanted to harm anyone. I looked at him, dumbfounded. I looked him straight in the eye. "I've never hurt anyone in my life, or wanted to. I don't even kill spiders! I get out a glass jar and help them in and then I take them outside." Scott laughed at that, but prior to this, he was hard-hitting. We left. It never occured to me, that I had just been interrogated. For one thing, I didn't know I was on police property. I was told it was an independent storage unit. No one read me my rights either.
And, Scott was telling me he was interested in me and he had first asked me on a date. He told me he was divorced and had kids, and that he had some PTSD or depression from his line of work. I found out later, from someone in town, that this storage unit was part of the police station and it was used during the Mt. Angel Octoberfest, by police, as a station or promotional stand.
After Scott told me I had been slandered by the monks, and that they had asked police to investigate me, I was shocked, alarmed, and angered. More than that, I was curious. I still went to my old church occasionally, and no one ever thought I was "unstable" and the monks had known me over a year and never thought so until I "reported" Br. Ansgar's advances. I had never been harassed before, and even held up under the constant runaround. I realized they had slandered me, and then had been attempting to provoke a reaction out of me which they could claim, to the Mt. Angel police, was "evidence". But they never got it. What they got instead, is me, finding this out, and starting to wonder why they were working so hard against me. Was it because of the dogma research? because of the Native American burial ground? because of the lawyer I'd mentioned, who said I'd been 'exploited'? because of Ansgar's position? or a combination of these things?
I started thinking more and more about whether there was a chapel in the woods, because maybe there WASN'T, and this was what they were trying to conceal, knowing their monk had been trying to take me out into the woods, lying to me about where he was taking me besides.
The Abbey cover up only reinforced to me that something was going on, which they wanted to conceal.
I was also totally shocked that they had attempted to use law enforcement and the justice system against me, knowing I was innocent. I had never heard of such a thing and knew it had to be illegal. They were acting like a medieval Catholic church, using police against me for their own gain and agenda. I knew it was illegal.
I thought, if they are doing this, how many other women have they tried to intimidate and threatened? And if they were trying to cover this up, what ELSE did they cover up? Most people would just shut up and disappear, under the threats and coercion.
I was tired of being a doormat, by that time, and I knew I was a moral and good person, and I felt, "righteously angry". I decided, if they are going to do THIS, what should I do now? I thought about women who are railroaded and cast as mentally ill and in a "fatal attraction" light, and I decided, the American thing to do would be to protest.
If they wanted to shut me up, and were using police unlawfully against me, I was thinking about taking advantage of my civil right to SPEAK UP by protesting peacefully.
I had never done such a thing before, and all my life I'd been submissive to authority and especially religious authority. But they had nullified their right to blind obedience and authority when they crossed the line and chose to smear me and who knows how many other people.
It wasn't a rash decision. I contemplated it for at least a week. I was extremely nervous and thought about the consequences. But I decided it was the right thing to do, on principle. They were not going to bully ME, or any other woman around, ever AGAIN.
So I thought.
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