From the South Bend, Indiana, Tribune: http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2002/11/25/local.20021125-sbt-MARS-A1-Toogood_claims.sto (in the interview portion of this article, the newspaper's comments are in italics)

November 25, 2002

Toogood claims she, her group are victims
Public information officer denies police are profiling Irish Travellers.
By LINDA MULLEN
Tribune Staff Writer

---------photo caption----------
Ever since her September arrest after apparently striking her daughter in a parking lot, an incident that was videotaped and broadcast nationwide, Madelyne Toogood thinks police follow her too closely and discriminate against her Irish Travellers culture.
------------------------------------


SOUTH BEND -- Madelyne Toogood, the 26-year-old mother who was videotaped in September apparently striking her child in the back seat of a sport utility vehicle, says police and the media are using racial profiling to harass her.

At least one man agrees that the Irish Travellers' culture has been "criminalized" at Toogood's expense. "They are as law-abiding as any other culture in this nation," said Larry Otway, a New York lawyer who has offered free advice and counseling to Toogood. He says that because of the international publicity over the high-profile case, the entire culture is now "criminalized."

Toogood contacted The Tribune to protest her treatment since her arrest. Heeding Otway's advice, she declined to answer questions about the videotaped incident, in which she faces a felony charge of battery to a child.

Toogood and her husband, John, currently live in an apartment in South Bend. She has regular supervised visitation with her three children at the Fire Home, a community center where parents can see their children under supervision.

Toogood also receives individual counseling, parenting classes and rage counseling. It may be at least six months before she can regain custody, said Michael Gotsch, a lawyer for the Office of Family and Children.

The children now live with Toogood's mother, who has moved to South Bend to care for them.

Question: How are your daughter and your two sons?

Toogood: Martha is confused, very confused. The boys are as well ... confused, and they don't know why their little sister is not at home. It is hard to tell your son that on his birthday, his sister and his mother can't come to his birthday party. It is strange to have to ask permission to have dinner with your child on Thanksgiving. I have to take it day to day, because otherwise there would be no handling it at all.

Q: You told me that people aren't allowed to call black people the "N-word," yet police frequently call you a "gypsy," usually with an obscene adjective. Are you offended to be called a gypsy?

Toogood: "Gypsy" does not offend me, but the way it is used does. (A South Bend police officer) called me a "(expletive) gypsy" and verbally abused me. I must say almost all the police I have dealt with in South Bend treated me with respect, but (this officer) did not, and he used that word as an insult.

Capt. John Williams, public information officer for the South Bend Police Department, said he appreciates Toogood's compliment. "We have had bad apples from within. Is it wrong that he made those statements? Yes. He should have kept those comments to himself. In the position of a police officer, you don't make those comments."

Q: Since the incident at Kohl's, how many times have you allegedly been harassed by police?

Toogood: In Monroe, they said I had a fake name and address, but that's not true. What is the truth is that I gave a post office box (at a mailing service business) as my address (but that business then closed). I was not charged with anything else.

In Lansing, the press said I used false identification; the truth is I was stopped for driving before I had a license. But I did not use a false ID, nor was I charged with that. The only charge was driving without a license.

A while back, I actually switched everything to my married name.

Madelyne's father's last name is Carroll, and her mother's last name is Gorman. Before she was married, her name was Madelyne Carroll Gorman. When she married John Toogood, her name became Madelyne Gorman Toogood.

"It's a matter of tradition, cultural tradition. Last names are not a constant worldwide," Otway said.

But Williams points out that Toogood need not have become a household name at all.

"Had she not done what she did," striking her child, "we never would have known who Madelyne Toogood was," Williams said. "Most of those warrants were filed before she was videotaped. There were several different warrants. Had she not been caught, she could have gone on for a long time."

Q: A clerk at a Shipshewana store accused you and your sister of stealing fabric, but she identified you only after seeing the Kohl's videotape. Have you been told whether that kind of identification will hold up in court?

Toogood: I wouldn't think so. We will see what happens in court. I always thought that for an identification to be made, they have to pick you out of a number of photos and close to the time it happened. She saw us on TV and heard all they had to say about us (in the Kohl's incident). It seems to me that is not an unbiased ID.

Before the clerk saw us on TV, she said it was a Mexican girl who was in her store. I was always blond. I only had dark hair recently. Before that, I have never been took for a Mexican.

Q: Explain to me please, in your own words, your explanation of why you used a mailing service business instead of an actual street address or U.S. postal address.

Toogood: Because I didn't have a home address, and I already had a ticket for not having a license, that was the only way I could get a license without a house. After the fact, I wish I had gotten a U.S. post box, but this post office box was available to me, as a cousin already had the box, so it was easy for me to get my mail there.

Otway explains that in the 17th century in Ireland, it was a capital offense to be a Roma. Irish Travellers are descendants of the Roma. There was no place else to go. The Travellers weren't allowed to stop anywhere for more than 24 hours. They developed a culture and an economy based on nomadic skills, such as contractors, knife sharpeners and skilled horse doctors. Traveling became part of their culture.

Q: Tell me why you think people (police and press, etc.) are picking on you or practicing "racial profiling," which would actually be "cultural profiling," since being an Irish Traveller is a culture?

Toogood: I don't know the reason why. Perhaps they have done it for so long it is habit for them. All other ethnic groups have folks to speak up for them, like the NAACP and such. There are Mexican organizations, Chinese; every group of people who used to be treated like this have folks to speak up for them.

We Travellers never had someone to speak up on our behalf. We just never got anyone to stop it from happening to us. I wouldn't say the police are to blame in my case.

Maybe it was originally because it was an election time: Making points looking like you are doing a lot for law and order. Then it just got blown out of hand. But the chief of police here and other police have been very fair with me. Here in South Bend, the chief of police and such have been very respectful and fair. Other than the one officer, the police have been pretty fair.

So far the judges have been unbiased, pretty fair. (Prosecutor Chris) Toth had his reasons because of the elections, trying to get publicity.

I have been more judged by the press. That may be why other states are now looking for things, like the driver's license (violation), and assuming the worst. After all, I am sure lots of folks have driver's licenses under their maiden names and use post office boxes.

But the press says we are a bunch of criminals. That gets the police in other states looking for things that just aren't there, and judging everything differently for us than they would for other folks.

Williams denies that police are profiling the Irish Travellers, or Toogood. "She's entitled to her opinion," Williams said.

Toth has been out of the country and unavailable for comment, but he has denied that Toogood's case has been handled any differently than any other.

Q: Would you like to make a final statement?

Toogood: They have taken a lot from me this year. It really is not right.

Eventually someone will have to stand up. We Travellers have to demand our rights. No other group in America would be told they don't have a right to their kids.

This story is like a car wreck. Folks stop and want to see, not really wanting to see folks hurt, but they can't help being interested.

Folks find it interesting to see how much trouble I am in, and that I am held out as a dangerous person.

They don't know about us, about Irish Travellers, and they don't want to know about who we really are, because it is a better story to hear we are some dark and secret society. We aren't like that.

We are just like everyone else; this country is made up of lots of kinds of folks. We Travellers are just people who were pushed along for so long that we make our living traveling. It is who we have become and who we are -- that isn't as interesting to folks as being told these stories.