HANDS- ON COP

You know about Larry Craig’s arrest on disorderly conduct charges in a Minneapolis bathroom. But do you know about the cop he tried to solicit?

A 49-year-old traveling salesman allegedly seeking sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom in June noticed a boyish young man with short, sandy hair and an athletic build standing at a urinal. The salesman, peering over the top of his stall, motioned the young man to move to the adjoining commode. Once they were sitting side-by-side, the salesman tapped his left foot. The young man tapped back. The salesman then reached his hand under the stall divider and grabbed the young man’s leg. No response. The salesman peeked over the top of the divider. Staring back at him was Sgt. Dave Karsnia

and his police badge. Rather than humiliate the man with a showy arrest next to the stalls, Karsnia wrote in his police report that he quietly led him away.

Six days later, that polite police officer caught a much bigger fish: Larry Craig, the conservative Republican senator from Idaho. This time, though, the notoriously anti-gay-rights senator shot the smoking gun right into his foot. He quietly pleaded guilty earlier this summer to engaging in disorderly conduct in that same Minneapolis airport restroom on June 11 after he and Karsnia did the tap dance that’s considered a universal signal for a hidden hookup. When Craig got inside, he tapped his foot, brushing it against the officer’s, and waved his hand under the stall divider three times, according to the police report. Karsnia waved his badge back. Later, at the airport police station, Craig flashed his business card to Karsnia, saying: “What do you think about that?”

Later, the senator explained he pleaded guilty to a crime he didn’t commit in hopes of “expeditiously” resolving the matter. His explanation for brushing Karsnia’s foot was more bizarre: “I’m a fairly wide guy,” he told Karsnia in the post-arrest interview. “I had to spread my legs when I lower my pants so they won’t slide. Did I slide them too close to yours?”

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Karsnia is particularly adept at catching cruisers. He has accounted for a dozen arrests. (The gay activist Web site blogactive.com posted Karsnia’s photo last week with the caption: “Well, at least the senator has good taste in men.”) Friends and colleagues paint a picture of a dedicated cop. Next month, Karsnia, 29, is scheduled to marry a fellow St. Mary’s alum with whom he has been living for several months. A humble, hard worker, Karsnia has risen in the ranks quickly.

But Craig managed to raise the mild-mannered cop’s ire. In the interview room shortly after his arrest, Craig refused to acknowledge he was engaging in the Morse code of cruisers. “You solicited me,” Craig told Karsnia, according to a tape of the exchange. “I am not gay. I don’t do these kinds of things.” After disagreeing over the details of the incident, Karsnia snapped: “You’re sitting here lying to a police officer.” When Craig responded, “You saw something that didn’t happen,” Karsnia abruptly ended the interview. “Embarrassing, embarrassing,” Karsnia said with disgust. “No wonder why we’re going down the tubes.” Craig’s career has headed in the same direction.
-KEITH NAUGHTON (Newsweek)