You'd better look into this, they were urged. It has all of the makings of
another embarrassing chapter for the City of Wide Streets and Narrow Minds.

"It raised eyebrows," said city councilman and retired assistant Police
Chief Mike Whalen, who encouraged an inquiry by the city's top brass.

What it should raise is a public outrage even though a humiliated Police
Department spent Thursday morning persuading the city prosecutor's office to
drop the charges.

The pacifists, four of them women, were ticketed Tuesday night for violating
the city's graffiti law after they used chalk to sketch "shadows" of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb victims on public sidewalks.

Those harmless chalk outlines could have been erased with a bowl of water.
But since the police were already involved, why not call out the Fire
Department to hose away the drawings? And that's exactly what happened.

Five people peacefully demonstrating for peace were processed by police.
Five people whose cardboard cutouts of bodies and pieces of chalk were
seized as evidence.

"Had we been chalking the names of friends or family members who died in
9/11, I'm quite certain that we would have had no trouble," said one of
those cited, Amy Shinabarger of Mesa, an English teacher.