Here’s another one. Got arrested for trying to shoot a neighbor with a BB gun From across a street.
The neighbor was what could be termed “white trash”, although we were unaware of his reputation when we bought our house.
He essentially harassed everyone surrounding him…blasting loud music at 3am on a week night, that sort of thing
Well, I have bird feeders and use sunflower chips in a couple (goldfinches love them). I would use an old pump BB gun to scare away the squirrels, not to kill.
Another neighbor from across street came over one day asking how the gun worked, accuracy, cost, etc. as he was having similar squirrel problems.
So I proceeded to show him how it worked, how it loaded, etc. This is in my front yard and gun unloaded entire time. Any time it was dry fired, it was pointed at the ground.
Then the cops showed up…four cars and they hop out with guns drawn on me. Seems the asshole neighbor called the police saying I was trying to shoot them, their kids and their dog.
Handcuffed and taken to jail. Got to inprocessing and the cops were acting quite peculiarly…like I was their long lost friend. While I did get photos and printed, they apologized profusely the whole time.
I even got a tour of the courtroom and all. Get released on property bond. But my arresting cop sssid on court day, make sure I had enuf cash in pocket to pay fine if found guilty. That turned out to be an interesting comment
So court day shows up. I’m representing myself…the truth shall set you free and all. My “opponents” did the same…all 13 of them. My wife and myself on one side of the courtroom, and a bunch of screaming monkeys on the other.
Frankly, I was petrified. I’d really never been to court where my $$ and freedom were at stake. My focus was entirely on the judge and clerk.
I was asked about the incident six different ways with the same answers from me. Judge did same for other side, but instead of a single coherent narrative being offered, their story changed…and changed…and changed.
Got so bad their kids were offering details of things that never happened, annd offering commentary quite loudly from the spectator’s benches. Embellishment abounded from those cretins. And they were so loud doing this the judge almost threw them out the courtroom.
We’re now about 30 minutes into this and while I was still laser focused on the judge, his questions, my wife observed the number of police officers there to witness the trial kept increasing. I was frankly oblivious to this.
There were three at first—bailiff, two arresting officers. 30 min later and there were over a dozen cops lining a wall, snickering and trying to hide outright laughter. Do remember judge “admonishing “ them to be quiet.
Understand…my little town of 4500 people could barely field 5 city patrol officers on day shift. Wife told me that by the end, there was a statue, several sheriff deputies in attendance.
Cut to the chase, judge finds me not guilty. And his next breath found the idiots, of whom the grandmother was taking full responsibility, guilty of filing false police reports, harassment of us, and a couple other things.
We stuck around only long enough to hear the screaming from granny at the judge (never a smart idea) that this was a major miscarriage of justice and such.
Judge asked her if she had the $957 fine he was imposing on her. Defiant, she said no. The screaming got louder when the judge said he’d put her on a payment plan via 6 months probation.
We quickly exited…didn’t want the judge see us laughing. My wife Debbie said all the cops were, tho.
Got home and the neighbors already knew what happened…grapevine and all.
Idiots moved out two months later and took a bath on their house. He’ll, I even put in an offer just to dig at them a little more.
Neighborhood got much quieter after that…no drama to speak of, cops would wave at us if drove by and saw us outside.