She prefers to park in a secured pedestrian plaza right outside her office on Capitol Square, saying that's safer than her assigned garage a block away. That's what she told Officer Ashley Berryman in March, when she rolled up to the plaza gate in her white Lexus. Berryman told Chase she was not allowed to park there without special permission.
"I suggested that she park in her assigned deck," Berryman wrote later in an incident report first reported by the
Richmond Times-Dispatch. "She stated that she will not park in the deck because she is in fear of her life, and that there is no guard there and that she had been receiving threats. . . . She stated'I'm not going to move unless you let the [expletive] barricades down to let me in.' "
School buses trying to drop off children for a field trip were stuck behind Chase while the episode played out. Fuming over the Senate clerk's prime parking spot, the report said, Chase referred to the clerk as Miss Piggy.
"Do you know who I am?" she demanded, according to Berryman.
Supporters of Chase's Democratic opponent seized on that line, plastering it on T-shirts: " 'Do you know who I am?' — Senator Amanda Chase. Yes, and that's why I'm voting for Amanda Pohl."
In a letter to Capitol Police, Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment (R-James City) apologized on behalf of the Republican caucus, saying its members "share your exasperation."
There was no apology from Chase, who wrote on Facebook that the officer's report looked like it had been penned by "a democrat operative."
She initially denied using profanity, but later told WRVA's John Reid: "
I did drop the f-bomb, but it was not directed at her [the officer]. It was at the gate." She told The Washington Post that she has "no recollection" of calling the clerk Miss Piggy.
