I had the most unbelievable thing happen to me today and I would like to warn anyone about moving, visiting or even driving through Rumford Maine via my experience.

My brother had given me a car and I had arrived in Rumford the day before to pick it up and drive it back to Florida. Upon arrival my brother told me of a clicking noise in the tire and I arranged to leave it with a mechanic prior to heading back to Florida.

The DMV in Mexico Maine were extremely helpful and told me to insure the car and then come by and pick up a special tag that would allow me to take the car one way to Florida.

Which brings us to today, with the car insured we drove it to the mechanic (Jake's Garage) who did an awesome job checking the car out for me and proceeded to take it home (the garage is only about a block away on the same street as the house).

On the way home we saw a car that we may be interested in purchasing and I went into a restaurant named Sam's while my father walked over to the Garage (Auto-Tech) which is located in the same lot as Sam's to ask if they would be interested in selling the car or selling some parts off the car that we would like.

Upon leaving the restaurant we ate our sandwiches in the parking lot looking right at the Sam's restaurant sign a young lady who works at Auto-Tech walked out to us and asked if we needed any help, we told her we were finishing our sandwiches and would be on our way. At which point she started shouting profanities and told us we would leave now, so we left and drove the car to my brothers (less than a half a block) and began to walk to an ice cream parlor where we were to meet my mother.

While walking there two police cars pulled up next to us and asked us for our ID's. Then the officer proceeded to ask us why we were trying to steal the car that was parked at Auto-Tech. We told him that we did not even touch the car and we only asked if they were interested in selling it or parts off of it.

At this point, an officer had ran our licenses and found that we have no criminal history. But this did not stop him from treating us like criminals. Now to this point I would have figured the young lady had a bad day and would have continued to enjoy my stay in Rumford Maine.

However, the police treated us like criminals detaining us for approximately one hour while questioning us and trying to show that we had loopholes in our stories. In addition, they ordered us to sit down on low curbing with my father being over 65 years old and myself overweight and when I tried to ask if we could sit somewhere else or even for time to sit down the officer simply ordered sit down NOW!!! This was after he had ran our Florida licenses and found no criminal background - I mean we were here on Vacation visiting relatives and picking up a car.

When the officer learned that we had driven the car home with no tag he said that it was illegal. I explained to him how I had been to the DMV and we were told to insure the car and get the move tag when were leaving. I told him he could verify this with the mechanic at Jake's right across the street as well as the fact the we had gotten the sandwiches at Sam's less than a half a block down the street.

He told me that I had a problem with my mouth and that I should be happy with my Dad getting a ticket for the no registration and us both receiving no trespassing warnings for Auto-Tech which shares the same parking lot as the Sandwich Restaurant (Sam's).

Having shut up for fear of going to jail, I did not even ask the officer's names or how to file a complaint. However, once I am safely out of Rumford Maine I will file the complaint and never ever return for fear of retribution.

You may think this is harsh, but the officers were not interested in hearing or verifying our side of the story and if I had continued to protest I would have ended up in jail on a trumped up charge of something like police harassment. I have never been to jail, I do not belong in jail, and I do not intend on going to jail.

Having my sister drive me to get dinner as I was afraid of getting pulled over, I found the following kicker that makes this story even worse. Everywhere we stopped the people the people were not shocked about my story, they all told me that is how the police work in this town and to please not blame them.

I would not have been mad if I had been treated with the least bit of courtesy by professional officers who were truly trying to understand both parties. I was not and I will not come back to Rumford Maine again unless this is resolved for fear that they will purposely pull me over and file some sort of charges that I would have little or no chance in defending myself as my word against a police officer's in court probably would not stand.

As for the no registration ticket, I will pay it as my misunderstanding does not make me exempt from the law - but I would have liked the officer to have listened or explained that to me instead of just talking down to me by stating a smart alec remark about how we do things in Florida.

I welcome all questions, responses, and posts in hopes that the Town of Rumford Maine can get their law enforcement to treat visitors with the same respect that they expect from them.