Sitting in jail, he still doesn't have a clue about what F-TA-A stands for, pays little attention to the news and could care less about free trade with Latin America.
But when 26-year-old Greg Hutchins was arrested last month for carrying a concealed weapon in his backpack, what usually would have been a routine case suddenly drew the attention of specially trained detectives, top police brass and even a few local television reporters.
All were anxiously awaiting the arrival of thousands of demonstrators, including a number of "anarchists" police warned would wreak havoc during the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in downtown Miami.
And Hutchins -- with his long blond hair, pale skin, tattoos and multiple piercings -- may have seemed to fit the part.
On the night he was arrested, four days before the events in Miami were set to begin on Nov. 17, Hutchins wore a black T-shirt, navy blue pants and a black skull cap covering long, skinny braids.
He also carried a backpack, containing the few belongings he had packed with him before boarding a Greyhound bus that would take him far enough away from his troubled marriage in Tampa weeks before.
So when Hutchins couldn't give a local address to the officer who stopped him while walking down Ocean Drive on South Beach with a jug of milk, he soon became caught up in the frenzy surrounding the trade talks.
Soon, Hutchins, who police now say had nothing to do with the demonstrations, is still listed by jail officials as the last of the 231 anti-globalization protesters to remain behind bars.
Hutchins said the officer who arrested him asked him why he was in South Florida, if he was going to demonstrate and why he was carrying a gun.
"I don't even know what they're fighting over trading," said Hutchins, who does not vote and cares more about scrounging up enough money to buy cigarettes every day.
Hutchins, who has been arrested and convicted several times in the past, said that before coming to Miami he had bought thee had purchased the gun on the street to protect his family.Hutchins, who has been arrested a number of times
Although Hutchins does not make excuses for illegally having a gun, he thinks he probably would never would have been stopped in the first place had police not targeted him because of his appearance.
"I don't care if I look like that or not," said Hutchins, a former tow truck driver who had begun working as a day laborer and used his daily earnings to pay his motel room each night. "I'm not part of any of that. That's a stereotype."
Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said Hutchins' case shows that police treated protesters and people who might have looked like them as potential terrorists.
"There's a picture that's emerging of overreaction," said Simon, who questioned whether police had sufficient reason to stop and search Hutchin's' backpack.
He said Hutchins may simply be just one of the dozens of people who were illegally searched in the days leading up to the protests.
"I think it's pretty clear the police took it upon themselves to suspend the Constitution for a few days," he said.
The result was a climate of intimidation that likely kept dozens of potential protesters off the streets, said Lisa Fithian, an anti-global-trade activist who organized some of the demonstrations.
Miami Beach police say they were simply doing their job when they stopped and arrested Hutchins.
Not only did police have intelligence that a police officer was going to be shot during the protests, but detectives also had been investigating a string of robberies near where Hutchins was stopped, said Miami Beach Police Detective Bobby Hernandez.
"We questioned him pretty extensively not only to find out about the FTAA but about the robberies," Hernandez said. "It would have been foolish not to ask him about the FTAA."
He Hernandez noted detectives were able to confirm that Hutchins was not involved in either situation.
Hutchins, who remains at the Miami-Dade County Stockade unable to post a $5,000 bond, said detectives questioned him at the jail a second time about his involvement with the FTAA.
They wanted to know why Hutchins, who used to drive trucks in a former truck driver in Tampa, had a map, book and gun in his backpack, he said.
Hutchins said he had no idea what detectives were talking about until he saw news reports about the demonstrations while in jail a few days later.
Although detectives dispelled notions that Hutchins was planning to cause trouble at the protests, his name somehow remained associated with the more than 200 other demonstrators arrested last month, jail officials said.
Protesters were flagged only simply so that law enforcement officials could keep track of demonstrators, jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said.
That does not mean, however, that they will be treated any differently as they go through the justice system, law enforcement officials say.
"If [Hutchins'] got a felony arrest, we consider him a suspected felon," said Ed Griffith, a spokesman with for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. "There's nothing special about how any of these cases are being handled."
Hutchins' mother insists police were profiling her son when they stopped him. But even she won't call him an angel.
At 17, Hutchins was arrested for aggravated assault with a weapon. He's also been charged a number of times for domestic battery and was arrested for marijuana possession three years ago, records show.
But Bea Hutchins said her son had been trying to get his life back in order before his arrest.
He had just gotten a job, was looking for a permanent place to stay and wanted to do something good with his life, said his sister Flo Hutchins.
"He doesn't go out looking for trouble," she said, "it just seems to find him."
Diana Marrero can be reached at dmarrero@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5005.
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