While historians were discussing statelessness, speech codes, and the war in Iraq this past weekend in Atlanta at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, the local constabulary was dealing with a far-weightier threat: jaywalking historians.

According to a lengthy article on the History News Network, the Atlanta police staged a crackdown on a common species of municipal scofflaw, and it was just the visiting historians’ bad luck to be caught in the dragnet.

Most of the historians were only hassled. But one scholar, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, an expert at Tufts University on colonial, environmental, and Spanish history, was “thrown on the ground and handcuffed” after he attempted to cross the street from one hotel to another. According to testimony in a later courtroom appearance, the situation “got out of hand” when Professor Fernández-Armesto, a former don at the University of Oxford, asked the police officer who challenged him for identification since the lawman was not in uniform.

The HNN report includes a three-part videotaped interview with the professor, who was concerned that the incident would affect his chances at a green card.

After eight hours’ incarceration and an awkward appearance in court, where “even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the incident,” officials dropped all charges against Professor Fernández-Armesto.