The trooper and Santorum.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: "It Takes a Family" by Rick Santorum

On the evening of August 10, 2005, Hannah Shaffer of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, decided to go to the nearby Barnes & Noble outside of Wilmington, Delaware. She wanted to see Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who was promoting his book, It Takes a Family.

The event was billed as a "book signing and discussion," Shaffer says.

Shaffer, eighteen, thought Santo rum's public appearance might be a good occasion to have a discussion with him about his notorious claim that legalizing gay marriage was akin to legalizing incest and bestiality.

"So I contacted a few of my left-leaning friends, and they said they'd really like to be there because they felt the same way," she says.

When she arrived at 6:00 p.m., some of her friends were already there, along with two other young women she didn't know, Stacey Galperin and Miriam Rocek.

As Shaffer was talking with her friends, Rocek made a joke.

She held up a copy of a book by the gay writer Dan Savage called The Kid, which is about how he and his partner adopted a son. And Rocek said, "It would be funny if we got Santorum to sign this book." (To discredit Santorum, Savage and his readers in 2003 came up with a nasty definition of Santorum that now often appears on Internet searches for Santorum's name.)

A woman nearby was not amused. "You're shameful and disgusting," she said, according to Shaffer.

A state trooper in full uniform, including hat and gun, was in the store, and, according to Shaffer and Galperin, he met with the woman, along with a few others, including one of Santorum's people.

Galperin says she heard the trooper ask, "Do you want me to get rid of them?"

And then the trooper, Delaware State Police Sergeant Mark DiJiacomo, who was on detail as a private security guard, came over to the group of women.

Here is the conversation, as Galperin remembers it:

"You guys have to leave."

"Why?"

"Your business is not wanted here. They don't want you here anymore. If you don't leave, you're going to be arrested. If you can't post bail, you'll go to prison. Those of you who are under eighteen will go to Ferris [the juvenile detention center]. And those of you over eighteen will go either to Gander Hill Prison or the woman's correctional facility. Any questions?"

Shaffer decided to leave with her friends.

Galperin and Rocek decided to stay.

"That's it," he told them, according to Galperin. "You're under arrest. Give me your ID. You're going to prison."

Sergeant DiJiacomo led the two out to his police car.

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