We hear a lot about police overstepping their bounds of authority in high-profile cases coming out of major metropolitan cities across the country.
But what about the smaller burgs, the places where the militarized, overglorified police persona is just beginning to take hold in the past few years? Small towns and towns that are nothing but holes in the road…like Ina, which wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Big Muddy Correctional Center (prison)?
Yeah, they have their problems too.
We illustrate this little power struggle with an article originating out of Jefferson County (where Ina is located, just north of the Franklin County line) as it involves a Saline County resident. Here now is your noontime Read the Lead, Harrisburg man issued traffic tix in Jefferson County under questionable circumstances:
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Terry Henderson on left, with Bonnie Mahan
JEFFERSON/SALINE COs.—A July 8 incident in Jefferson County involving a Harrisburg man has created a situation wherein the man is stating his rights were violated, and the police are stating that the whole thing has been overblown.
Who will be proven correct, however, may be a matter for a Jefferson County judge to sort out; and Terry Henderson, 58, of Harrisburg, has stated for the record that he intends to follow through with a jury trial to prove that he was not in the wrong.
Blowout on the interstate
At about 6:40 p.m. on that date, Henderson, accompanied by his son Kody, was driving his truck and hauling a trailer south on Interstate 64 just south of the I-57/I-64 split when a tire blew out on the left side of the trailer’s front axle. Unfortunately, he realized that he had everything with him to change the tire except a lug wrench.
He said that knowing the Ina exit was approximately four miles ahead, they decided to limp the truck along and call his girlfriend, Bonnie Rister Mahan, to bring the proper tools for the tire change.
Driving easy with flashers on, they proceeded on to Ina; however, the truck developed problems, and quit running. Over the course of the two miles, and after coming to a stop on the shoulder of the interstate, the truck stopped and started several times until they made it to the truck stop in Ina. There, they gassed up and assessed the situation: the truck stop was extremely busy and congested; they didn’t have the lug wrench yet; and they determined that because the trailer was a tandem axle and drivable with three of the four wheels intact, they believed it was drivable. To save Mahan some time, Henderson told her they would head south on Illinois 37 and meet her somewhere between Ina and Whittington.
Driving cautiously because of the blown tire, Henderson said they were pulling through the little village (which literally only still exists because of its proximity to Big Muddy Correctional Center and the funds that prison brings in to city coffers for infrastructure and a few perks), and, to his detriment, did a slow-and-roll through one of the few stop signs in town, at the intersection with Route 37. As they did so, Henderson said they saw lights flashing; the village’s police officer on duty had seen the whole thing and was stopping Henderson.
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