GoFundMe to ‘buy booze’ for Meridian cop who arrested anti-vax mom in closed playground
Forget vaccines. As Idaho anti-vaxxers will attest, they just don’t cut it.
Sometimes, alcohol is the best medicine.
After seeing a viral video of anti-vaccination activist Sara Walton Brady being arrested in Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park this week, Randell Sweeney figured Meridian Police could use a drink.
So he started a GoFundMe page: “Buy booze for the officer.”
The description is a single sentence: “Anyone can donate a $1 to buy booze for the officers and staff that had to deal with the supreme Karen.”
“It really started out as kind of a joke,” Sweeney said in a phone interview. “I just thought it would be a cool way to give back and say thank you for dealing with the supreme Karen.”
Karen (if you’re not only flattening the curve, but also behind it) is “a mocking slang term for an entitled, obnoxious, middle-aged white woman,” according to Dictionary.com.
Sweeney, 30, floated his idea in a Boise Facebook group, where he’d seen a post about raising money to support Walton Brady’s legal defense. He started his booze fund by kicking in $20. Within four hours, it hit the $200 goal. Shortly after, Sweeney and his wife noticed it had ballooned to $474.
“I was like, ‘Babe, we gotta close this!’ ” Sweeney recalled, laughing. “If I left it open till today, it’d probably be at 2,000 bucks. ... The cops are going to have a good ol’ time.”
In the video livestreamed on Facebook, Walton Brady, 40, dared police to arrest her as they attempted to disperse an organized protest on a closed park playground. Protesters of Gov. Brad Little’s stay-home order had removed caution tape and signs indicating the park’s closure, police said.
“Do it!” Walton Brady taunted, placing her wrists in a cuff position. “Record it!” she instructed a person documenting the confrontation.
“Her kids are here! Her kids are here!” a woman hollers.
Sweeney doesn’t normally go around championing the police, he says. But he was struck by how calmly the arresting officer handled himself, he said, and the demeanor of all of the officers and Meridian park staff.
“I’m a person that believes that cops need to be held to a standard,” Sweeney said. “And that cop toed the line of standards. ... That dude went above and beyond.”
After GoFundMe credits the $474, Sweeney intends to visit a local bakery and purchase a gift card for doughnuts “as a joke,” he says. Then buy a bunch of pizzas, beer and liquor.
(Skrewball whiskey might be fitting, in honor of that particular park gathering.)
Sweeney messaged the Meridian Police Department on Facebook, he says, but didn’t get a response.
“I’ve been told by a lot of people that you can’t give money to the cops,” he explained, “so my plan was to just buy it all and just leave it in front of the police station and leave. Like, ‘You’re taking it!’ ”
It might not have to come to that.
I asked Stephany Galbreaith, public safety information officer, how Meridian Police might handle this situation.
“Many have asked about delivering tokens of appreciation for specific officers,” she wrote in a text message. “Although this can be done, we prefer donations to benefit the whole team. We welcome our community’s support for all of our officers.
“With our lobby being closed, please call dispatch #208-888-6678 to let them know when the delivery will be made and/or that there is a delivery out front of the department. Our officers will make arrangements with the individuals delivering items to pick them up from the front of the department. We appreciate the continued support of our Meridian officers during these uncertain times.”
Get ready for some 15-year-old Scotch whisky and Idaho Pizza Company pies, Sweeney said.
Whatever happens? “I do not plan on keeping one penny of this money,” he said. “I don’t want anything out of it.
“I’m getting a kick out of it all. My wife’s been giving me s--t all day. But I’m just happy to kind of see that our community as a whole was not happy with the situation and wants to support the police. Even people that don’t normally like the police are supporting based on how that played out.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 2:35 PM.