Lester Watson flew many missions over Europe in the early 1940s. The 87-year-old veteran remembers those experiences as if they happened yesterday… Watson says he told the men he had a back injury and he should be “handcuffed in front,” but was told, “This is the way we do it.”
“I begged him to put a belly chain on me, but they wouldn’t. They put my right hand clean up behind my head. Oh my God! It hurt,” Watson says…. Then when his cherished hat, inscribed with “388 Bomb Group,” in honor of the U.S. Air Force unit Watson had served with, fell to the pavement, he asked the men to pick it up. “We don’t pick up hats…
World War II vet, sheriff and deputies “star” on YouTube
By MARTHA KNIGHT – Era Correspondent
Drymar@gmail.com
SMETHPORT — Lester Watson flew many missions over Europe in the early 1940s. The 87-year-old veteran remembers those experiences as if they happened yesterday.
Watson tried to bail out his daughter-in-law from the McKean County Jail in Smethport on June 26, 2008. Fifteen months later he remembers that like yesterday.
There is a movie of at least one of the missions in which Watson was a tail gunner or operator in a bomber, maybe the one in which his plane went down in the North Sea and Watson received back injuries so severe he could not swim in the frigid water. He was yanked to the surface and from the water by his hair.
There is a video, rapidly going viral on YouTube, showing the startling aftermath of Watson’s “rescue mission” last June. As dramatic as it seems, much like some reality cop shows with footage of bad guys being subdued, the video is scarcely more vivid than his memories.
Watson and his wife of 55 years, Mildred, have daily reminders. She helps him put his shirt on and get his belt threaded and buckled. “He was hurt so badly, he can’t do that.”
In the war? No, both Watsons explain. Then he was struck so hard between his shoulder blades by radio equipment ripped loose and hurled by the impact, he was told he would always have to avoid reaching too far or too high behind his back, lest he jostle unstable vertebrae out of place, possibly causing paralysis.
But with prudent precautions, Watson has been able to hold down civilian jobs, be in the timber business and maintain the family home and three rental houses. He says he has managed not to be re-injured until last June, when he was in some form of altercation with Sheriff Brad Mason and two deputies. He says he did nothing assaultive or aggressive. “I was not resisting arrest —I was resisting pain. There’s a big difference,” Watson says.
As to why he was being arrested, Watson tells a tale of good intentions, an attempt to pay $10,000 bail or bond to get his just-arrested daughter-in-law out of jail, and running athwart a no-cash rule about paying bail at the sheriff’s office.
After his daughter-in-law’s arrest by Kane-based state police that afternoon, over an online sales transaction “misunderstanding,” Watson learned that she had been taken to McKean County Jail.
Quickly he contacted Martin Digel of Hamlin Bank and Trust Company and told him he needed $10,000, and why.
Digel said he would take the money from Watson’s savings account and get it ready, and stay at the bank after closing time if necessary, so Watson could get the money and take it to the jail.
What neither man knew was that the Sheriff’s Department would not accept cash.
When Watson said he was nervous about carrying that much cash “in my shirt pocket,” Digel offered to follow him over to the jail in his own car.
Once at the jail, “When I took the $10,000 to the desk, the officer said, ‘We aren’t going to take that.’ He made it sound like personal decision,’” as Watson tells it.
A discussion followed, with Watson saying “Cash is as good as it is” and the deputy or jail staff person saying it would not be accepted. At some point Sheriff Brad Mason “came out of his office” and verified that the cash would not be accepted. Watson recalled calling Mason a son of a b—-.
Watson left, fuming, planning to take the money and get a money order, or take it to Bradford Magisterial District Judge Dom Cercone, and return with some kind of release order.
Surveillance cameras were rolling. The resulting video, without sound, shows that Watson went across the parking lot toward his van, turned as if he had been hailed, Mason came out of the front door of the jail, Watson came back across the parking lot toward the entry, he and Mason stepped toward each other until they were almost nose to nose. Later it was alleged that Watson head-butted the sheriff.
Other deputies or jail personnel came out and observed the interplay between Mason and Watson, and two participated with Mason in taking Watson into custody.
Watson’s granddaughter was present. The video shows her acting upset and trying to intervene. Watson says the young woman was crying and saying, “Stop! Don’t hurt my grandfather!” or words to that effect. In the video, body language indicates she was made to step away from the ensuing action.
Watson says he put up no fight, no resistance. “Would I? There were three strong, young men who were going to do what they were going to do.”
Watson was told and “assisted” to face the back of the vehicle. It appears that he was patted down. Two of the men seem to be in close proximity to him. He is manacled and turned around, and Mason walks him briskly back to the jail, with his wrists behind his back, holding his left forearm. Watson’s gait is jerky. His hat falls off and is left on the pavement.
Watson says he told the men he had a back injury and he should be “handcuffed in front,” but was told, “This is the way we do it.”
“I begged him to put a belly chain on me, but they wouldn’t. They put my right hand clean up behind my head. Oh my God! It hurt,” Watson says.
Then when his cherished hat, inscribed with “388 Bomb Group,” in honor of the U.S. Air Force unit Watson had served with, fell to the pavement, he asked the men to pick it up.
“We don’t pick up hats,” Watson says he was told.
Once inside, Watson says, he was made to understand that he must sit down. “There’s a chair in the corner. My knees are sore, and I use my hands on a chair to help lower myself down, but with the handcuffs I couldn’t do that. One of the officers took a hold of my shoulder and set me down. It hurt so bad. I laid forward across my legs (doubled up).
“He told me, ‘Straighten up and I’ll loosen them handcuffs.’ They were so tight. He said it was because I was resisting arrest. I was resisting pain.”
Watson says the charges placed against him based on the Sheriff’s and other personnel’s statements included swearing, disorderly conduct and something else “because they said I head bumped the sheriff — but I was standing still.”
Taken before Magisterial District Judge Bill Todd, Watson was arraigned. He was released on his own recognizance.
When Watson was offered a chance to plead to one charge, disorderly conduct, he refused to say he had misbehaved….
Read rest of the story here: Bradford Era
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