89-year-old charged with keeping kids' ballBLUE ASH, Ohio (AP) - Police in Ohio say an 89-year-old woman is facing a charge of petty theft because neighborhood children accuse her of refusing to give back their football.
Edna Jester was arrested last week in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.
Police say one child's father complained that Jester kept the youngsters' ball after it landed in her yard. Police Capt. James Schaffer says there has been an ongoing dispute in the neighborhood over kids' balls landing in the woman's yard.
Jester said Monday she has received many calls and didn't have time to discuss the matter any more.
Jester is to appear in court next month. The maximum penalty for a petty theft conviction in Ohio is six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
Source
43 comments:
Ok, so besides being a bit of a messy dispute, how is this a judicial horror story?
It sounds like the police were quite polite and reasonable about things. No mention of a judge getting involved yet.
The judgment started when the police showed up and made the wrong decision. You have to be able to put yourself in another person's shoes to understand why this is a horror story. If you want to try that, go down to the courthouse and confess to doing someone else's crime. Then you'll get it.
Something fell on her property, she took it and refused to give it back. Like it or not that IS theft. The police tried to be understanding and defuse the situation but she became belligerent so they had no choice but to arrest her.
Playing tough with your neighbors and refusing to hand something back is one thing, but once the police are involved you do NOT keep being difficult about it. The ball was not her's, when the police said 'you have to give it back' then she 'has to give it back'. Being old does not make her exempt from the law.
I completely fail to see what 'confessing to someone else's crime' has to do with anything. She broke the law, not them.
It should also be noted that the charges were dropped last week and they are attempting to resolve the conflict via a neighborhood police liaison program.
Note: ". . . there has been an ongoing dispute in the neighborhood over kids' balls landing in the woman's yard."
So the kids and the parents kept up the despised behavior until the old lady was finally arrested. Nice. And you don't see anything wrong with this, particularly because you say the arresting officers were "polite and reasonable," the charges were later dropped, and "a neighborhood police liaison program" is being used "to resolve the conflict."
How about this instead? Stay off her property, don't throw anything into her yard, and stop harrassing this old lady.
From watching an interview with the lady (as opposed to the second hand reporting, which seems to be kinda iffy) it sounds like the dispute was over the kids playing in their own driveway and the ball passing across her view. Her stance has been that they should go play further away from her home.
In fact, from her interview, it sounded like the 'harassment' consisted of 'playing where she could hear/see them' and them refusing to go play somewhere other then their own land.
And no, I don't see anything wrong with her arrest. While a ball landing on your property is annoying, it does NOT give one the legal right to keep it. She keeps claiming that public nuisance laws should be on her side and have stopped the other family but that doesn't seem to have been the case. Which again does not give her the right to take the law into her own hands.
Now, here is the question for you. Would you even care if she wasn't 89? If it was another teen who, when something landed on his yard, decided to keep it because he didn't like the other kids on the block? Is this about law, or is this about heartstrings?
It's about law.
Ok, if it is about law, then what do you think the police have done differently? The police, not the judge, not the prosecutor.
I'm certain the law, you, the police, her neighbors, and every kid in town who wants to toss a ball around all mandate that she should stop whatever she is doing every time a ball lands in her yard, and she should return the ball to the trespassers. I'm positive. And that's what makes this a judicial horror story.
That doesn't answer the question.
A ball landed in her yard. She took the ball inside. When the neighbor requested the ball returned, she refused. Neighbor called the police, police arrive. The police inform her that yes, she does have to return the ball. She refuses.
What should the police have done? A theft was reported to them, the object was in the possession of a non-owner and the woman refused to return the other person's property even when confronted by an officer of the law.
So I ask you again, what should the police have done differently?
You still have not explained how this is a judicial horror story except by siting irrelevant analogies. No one is confessing to someone else's crime, no one is mandating that she get up and retrieve the ball for someone else.
You have to be able to put yourself in another person's shoes to understand why this is a horror story. If you want to try that, go down to the courthouse and confess to doing someone else's crime. Then you'll get it.
Every time someone throws a ball into her yard, she has to stop what she is doing, retrieve the ball and return it to the owner. If she ever refuses to do just that, she will be arrested by polite, reasonable police.
Every time she has to go to court to answer the charges, her growing arrest record will yield ever greater consequences.
If enough balls land in her yard, she will be fined more than she can afford to pay, she will lose her house, and she will die in prison. But at least all of the balls will be returned to the rightful owners, according to law.
One day we might read about a 97-year-old lady wielding a shotgun from her wheelchair, wiping out half the neighborhood as she goes postal. The surviving neighbors will be on the evening news, shaking their heads, explaining that she always seemed such a kind, quiet woman who generally kept to herself.
"It's hard to believe," they'll say. "What could possibly have come over her?"
Then someone will find this judicial horror story, and they'll understand.
Every time someone throws a ball into her yard, she has to stop what she is doing, retrieve the ball and return it to the owner. If she ever refuses to do just that, she will be arrested by polite, reasonable police.
I am not sure you understand the facts of the case then. What you describe is a law that requires her to take an active step to return something.
That is not the case here. The other family was more then capable of retrieving their own ball and she actively got up, got the ball first, took it out of her yard, and placed it in her home. She then refused to return it when asked. She is in trouble for what she decided to do, not a requirement that she had to do something. If she had just finished her dinner then there would be no story.
You are using a law that doesn't exist as a reason for why applying a law that DOES exist is a horror story?
The rest of that is pure slippery slope and could be applied to any broken law. Yes, if she kept breaking a law AND was fined (which she was not), then yes, she could eventually not be able to pay the fines and loose her home. Same as if you kept getting speeding tickets over and over. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the events in question. By your logic, no one should ever be fined (or tried) for anything they do because... it might effect them in some way?
She was a victim of trespass and continues to have her property rights discounted. No one had a right to put a ball or so much as a big toe on her property. Yet she is expected to permit entry or to retrieve the ball herself every time one of her neighbors decides to trespass. If she objects by keeping a ball that she does not want on her property, that she has made perfectly clear she does not want on her property, then she -- not the trespasser -- will be arrested and prosecuted.
If she were a wealthy woman then she could have returned the balls to the owner via Fedex by way of Bangor, Maine, then Toledo, Ohio, then back to Bangor, Los Angeles, Bangor, Buenos Aires, Toledo, Bangor, Madrid, Bangor, Lisbon, Bangor, Dubai, Bangor, Mexico City, Bangor and finally back to her local police station, where they could get their neighborhood police liaison program system involved in the ball return operation before the 89-year-old woman goes postal and wipes out half the neighborhood with her AK-47.
True, it could be argued that she was a victim of trespass (though a pretty transient one) so she has a complaint there. However, when the trespass is just on your land (as opposed to your home) your options are pretty limited concerning what actions you can take, and theft is not one of them.
"I was wronged" is NOT a valid excuse for committing another crime, esp when one commits a DIFFERENT crime in response.
Now, something that differs between the interview and reporting is the frequency of the trespass. The article talks about the ball frequently going in her yard and that being a problem. However in the interview she focused on being irritated that they were playing where she could see/hear them, so she was feeling wronged for something that was not occurring on her land but on THEIR land. In short, she was exacting vengeance for behavior on someone else's property.
Even if the ball was going on to her land frequently, she should have gotten the police involved. If the kids were involved in repeated criminal trespass and were refusing her warning (which is the burden a private citizen has for enforcing such things) then she would have been in the right and the police would have be coming to help her. But instead she took the law into her own hands and ended up on the wrong side of things.
Vigilanteism is one of the worst kinds of judicial horror stories. When private citizens feel that it is their right to make up laws and punishments based off how they feel about a situation then bad things generally happen.
An example. Where I grew up, we had problems with other people's dogs on our land. We had a few options,.. we could call the owner, we could call the police on the owner, we could call animal control and have the dog removed, or we could shoot the dog. Any of those were open to us as landowners suffering a trespass. However, we did NOT have the right to capture and keep the dog for ourselves. It had to be returned or handed to an officer (dead or alive).
If they throw a ball onto her land again, I hope she will mail it to me. For sure, the neighbors are all well aware that they should have no expectation of ever seeing any ball they wing onto her land in the future. Now that she has been arrested because of their repeated trespasses, they won't even need a warning sign to remind them. Burned into their memories forever is the sight of an old woman being led away in handcuffs by men with loaded guns and Tasers. Any ball that I receive will be returned to the local police station via multiple trips to Buenos Aires, Lisbon, and Bangor, not necessarily in that order -- surface transport only, when I get around to it, depending on contributions and my mood (which is deteriorating rapidly).
And now she should have every expectation that she will be arrested for doing so. Well, sorta. Since no one wants to go on record as arresting an old women they will probably just go with the more politically viable option of letting her off. Oh wait, you don't seem to care about THAT judicial corruption.
No wonder you rant about "Judicial Horror Stories".. people who think they are above the law often don't like hearing about the possibility of being held accountable.
Seriously, have you listened to yourself? Why is it you seem to defend the people who are behaving poorly? Why not defend people who are actually innocent of something for a change?
These police acted with every possible restraint, they didn't want to arrest her, they didn't want to bring her in, they didn't want to handcuff her (and they didn't), but no, she had to be a drama queen because her neighbors had the audacity to play in their own driveway.
And have you noticed that not one single story has told the side of the other family? I take it you are not very interested in the side of the people who were sufficiently frustrated with a situation that they had to bring in law enforcement to deal with a belligerent neighbor?
QED
If a football were illegal for an89 year old women to possess then she would be guilty of criminal possession. She didn't steal the football, she found it in her yard -- as if it had dropped out of a passing airplane and landed there. It's no different than picking apples or flowers she finds in her own yard. If there was a fence, then her intent was to inform others that she did not want anyone or their possessions in her yard without her knowledge or permission. She had as much right to confiscate and even keep the ball found on her property as she did in pulling a weed in her grass. She was making an excellent point.
The police officers were obviously ill-equipped to read the situation. They should have issued a ticketed warning to the kids' parents to stop their children from trespassing onto the lady's property. The waylaid ball was the reason they entered her yard on numerous occassions. They were aware that she didn't like the ball in her yard. The solution for them to stop losing their ball into her yard would be to go to the nearest park or schoolyard.
The trespass warning would be recorded as a ticket with the court. Then, with the next violation, Ms. Jesters would be free to call the police for them to take the appropriate action against repeating trespassers.
That's what the police should have done.
Her disparate remarks reflected her state of mind -- which would have at least been concern for her personal safety to which everyone is entitled. Her remarks were legitimate concerns over other parts of her property being destroyed such as plants and windows or the chance of someone being hurt in retrieving the ball by climbing her fence and falling. In the heat of a neighborhood football game, kids can get wild and plow through yards without any regard for those properties. Parents are responsible for the damage done by their children.
Elders understand their property rights better than Generation X and their progeny have respect. Older people should never have to worry about being trampled upon by their youngers. Being older than everyone else does not mean you lose your property rights.
The lack of respect by those kids and their parents appalls me. Trespassing is a simple law that everyone can understand. This case represents an injustice toward a long-time resident by the johnny-come-latelies.
http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=1555&bold
@debbie
Thank you for putting together a well structured argument. I am about to disagree with you but I wanted to note that you at least made sense and stayed on topic.
You also brought up a detail that I am still trying to figure out (since the reports are conflicting) and that is the physical nature of the area that was trespassed..i.e. was it a fully fenced section that they had to climb over or a front yard open to the street. Reports have claimed both. But anyway:
Actually, no, she did not have a right to keep found property. She does have a right to privacy and keeping trespassers out, and the police (if she had bothered to ask them) should have done something about the kids.
However, one crime does not justify another. She had significant rights but keeping the item was not one of them and instead of exercising the options she did have she was belligerent to the people who could have helped her, i.e. the police.
Now, as for knowledge of property rights. I have to disagree with your assessment of young vs old here. I find the older generations tend to THINK they know about property rights but have, in fact, built a lifetime of urban legends and movie plots. More often then not no one has corrected them and thus they believe what they have heard to be true.
Young people suffer from the same initial problem but seem more willing to go look up the actual laws or, and this is the important part, correct their belief when presented with new information. That tends to be the difference between young and old, willingness to change one's notions.
Unfortunately what we seem to have here is someone who believes she has more rights then she does and because she is old she doesn't want to listen to anyone since it is what she has believed for many decades.. and probably learned it off TV shows.
Now, to the agreeing part... it does sound like this other family is being massively disrespectful and needs to get slapped around by a citation themselves. If she has given proper warning (or better yet, if her jurisdiction recognizes them, placed signs) then they should get in trouble for trespass.
Pity no one has stopped to get their side of the story though. In any conflict one finds that any given side tends to slant the story in their favor.
@Mark
QED?
Let's see, so far you've drawn examples of things that did not happen as 'why this is a horror story', you have been in favor of judicial corruption, used pointless imagery attacks (the police were wrong because they carry a gun and tazer?) and you have been in favor of people taking the law into their own hands.
You have not demonstrated anything in your favor. Plenty of logical fallacies but not much actual logic.
Every time you get near your keyboard you make my point for me. You alone can put the horror in this -- and any other -- judicial horror story.
That woman doesn't need the police to protect her rights. She hired them as a convenience to her. And they failed her.
@Mark
Funny, I was thinking something similar about you. I am not sure I want to contemplate what you consider a 'fair' use of law outside 'people should do whatever they think they have the right to do without all those pesky laws'
Police are not a connivence, and they are in charge of protecting rights. One does not have unlimited abilities to do whatever they like to protect their rights. Once one goes beyond well defined limits one MUST hand the enforcement over to the police.
The police did not fail her, she failed them. Instead of working with them to help her she treated them as an enemy to be fought and resisted their attempts to diplomatically resolve the issue.
QED
And I have to ask, are you simply anti-authoritarian or anti-government?
Your arguments tend to sound very colonial (in this case, with the absolute right of landowners to do as they please, which has not been the case for centuries). In this case I'm not trying to be difficult, but I honestly can't figure out what perspective you are coming from.
In many of your past blogs you seem to have a combination of people honestly being run through the ringer of a broken system (I will not claim our system of laws is perfect, it has SERIOUS problems), but plenty of other cases where the person is clearly guilty and their only argument seems to be technicalities (taken to an extreme in some cases) that only apply when viewed in isolation.
I can't figure out what you are actually in favor of, even in specific cases like this. You still have yet to say what the police, who were called in by a citizen with a legitimate legal complaint, should have done differently and why.
You have also not explained why the judicial corruption that let her off the hook is ok when it seems to be an example of politics effecting who the law is applied to and who it isn't.
QED again?
So in other words, you have no argument, you just declare victory? Heh. Amusing ^_^
I can see now why you tried to defend JT. He did that a lot too:
The sky is green!
No it isn't, it's blue.
See! That proves my point!
As a friend remarked this morning, "once the use of force is legalized for other than the protection of liberty, you're f**ked."
Ah, finally found the other side of the story:
Edna Jester was never handcuffed - she screamed at officers and threatened to hurt them and told them they had better handcuff her or else she might beat the crap out of them or run away, and they refused to do so - but she was never cuffed.
Edna was not taken to jail, either. She was driven three minutes in a police car and was helped into a room with a table and comfy chair where she sat for twenty minutes in the Blue Ash police department. She was then brought home and the officer helped her up to her house. He helped her find her key and to open and unlock her door, and he made sure she was safely inside before leaving.
I never called the police. I wasn’t even home. Watch the news, people. My husband was playing ball with my son, not me. He called the police not me. And he only did so because Edna told him to. Oh, so yeah, this isn’t an issue of people not keeping a watchful eye on their poor neglected THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD kids. Oh, and since parents and video cameras were there, I’m pretty sure there was no trespassing, either.
My son DID apologize to Edna - it was the first thing out of his mouth when the ball rolled. My husband asked if he could retrieve it, she said no. No one could ever be charged with trespassing since no one walked even one step on her property. When Edna picked up the ball, my son said, “I’m sorry, Edna.”
My husband came forward and asked for the ball back. Edna said, “No, Paul, I’m sorry, you’ll need to call the police.”
She said this because Officer Bray told her to - it’s been our regular custom. Every time she would call the police because someone stepped into her grass to retrieve a ball, he would come talk with her and keep her company for several hours, and then he’d come talk with my son for a couple of minutes. That was our little agreement. Unfortunately, the sergeant decided he no longer liked that agreement, even though my husband told him that he didn’t want to push the issue because he was afraid of how she might react.
Do some digging…find out about the situation - wow, how stupid you all look today after the dust has settled a bit and everyone clearly can see what’s going on.
So, no ball over the fence. Politeness on the part of the neighbor, and a police force that had been involved for quite some time already and had finally had enough of the old woman's behavior.
"She said this because Officer Bray told her to - it’s been our regular custom. Every time she would call the police because someone stepped into her grass to retrieve a ball, he would come talk with her and keep her company for several hours, and then he’d come talk with my son for a couple of minutes. That was our little agreement. Unfortunately, the sergeant decided he no longer liked that agreement, even though my husband told him that he didn’t want to push the issue because he was afraid of how she might react."
Nice neighbors. Very nice. "Don't push the issue." Just take her away because we want our nuisance ball back. Again.
They keep up the adverse behavior, day after day, trespassing, throwing a ball where it is not wanted, involving the police, taking up time, denying a woman her right to be left alone, without trespassers, without sports equipment rolling into her yard, so that she can enjoy her right to the peaceful use of her property. But no. That can't happen. This old lady has to be harrassed and taken into custody by the police, so that the entire nation can wonder what the hell is wrong with her. I get it. This sounds just exactly the way an 89-year-old woman wants to spend the last days of her life. Real nice.
This is not the 1950's. That sort of behavior does not fly anymore. She deserved what she got.
Since when is a football thrown on your yard considered "illegal." I played all kinds of sports when I was younger. We would hit and throw balls into peoples yards all the time. You went into their yard and retrieved it. You have to know that if you are in a community, there are going to be kids and they are going to want to play sports. You deal with it. What she did was uncalled for. Did the kids ruin anything on her property? Nothing in the story suggests that happened.
Yes, nice considerate neighbors who, if their story is accurate, have gone out of their way to respect her while still carrying on with their own life (which they also have a right too).
She has a right to peace yes, but others also have rights to live their lives. Looking over the various comments form her neighbor it sounds like the neighborhood in general (including her own grand children) take quite a few steps to TRY to make things better for the woman, but her belligerence keeps getting her in trouble. One can only adjust their lives so far before it becomes a burden on THEIR peace and rights.
As for demonizing the woman. Considering most blogs (and all reporting) have focused purely on 'the poor abused elderly lady and the mean icky young neighbors' I don't think the nation is looking down on her. Public sympathy tends to side with the elderly regardless of who is at fault.
@anonymous
The tricky issue here is that while having a ball land in her lawn was not illegal, she had taken the steps legally necessary to declare her land 'no trespassing' so they could not legally get the ball themselves.
At that point the only options of the family were to:
a) Trespass (which apparently they were respectful and did not do)
b) As for the ball back (low drama solution, which they did do)
c) Ask someone with authority to retrieve it (which is what she told them to do)
Apparently there was a community liaison who normally took the role of (c) for them and kept the peace, but he was not on duty that day and the sergeant had had enough of these calls.
Ideally she should probably have a fence or some other boundary (which it sounds like the family is trying to organize an event to help pay for a fence or shrubs or something for the woman) which would help prevent these accidents from happening.
TRESPASS: entry to a person's land or property without permission.
It's not legal. It's a violation of property rights. If you pretend otherwise, you may face objection. You could easily face death, if done correctly.
The reason this is a judicial horror story is that parents and government school teachers don't teach this. We can see here how big the American problem is. Twenty-four million Iraqis have seen how big the American problem is. More than a million were killed as a result of this profound ignorance.
"Nice neighbors. Very nice. 'Don't push the issue.' Just take her away because we want our nuisance ball back. Again."
Maybe you missed the part of the article where they specifically asked the officer NOT to arrest her. You can now continue your arrogant outrage.
"The reason this is a judicial horror story is that parents and government school teachers don't teach this. We can see here how big the American problem is. Twenty-four million Iraqis have seen how big the American problem is. More than a million were killed as a result of this profound ignorance."
Wait, you didn't just compare an old lady getting arrested with THE IRAQ WAR.
Wow...so much idiocy on one blog.
@Mark
And they were not trespassing. Should I say that again? Ok. They were not trespassing. They did not set foot on her land because they were trying to respect her wishes and not do so (even though such uses of trespass laws are generally against community standards)
Even if they were, there are some well defined laws concerning what you can and can't do (both as a trespasser and as a land owner). And yes, there are instances that can get you killed.. though those are pretty strict and I doubt castle doctrine would have applied here. Lethal force requires an immediate threat and is next to impossible to apply legally outside your home, esp in a suburban setting like this.
Again Mark, it's a neighborhood! Kids are going to play and sometimes people are going to have issues such as these. The woman really needs to learn TOLERANCE.
Unless the kids are breaking/destroying/ruining things on her lawn, she should just get over herself.
Sounds to me like Mark just can't acquiesce to defeat. I agree with Nathan 100% even more so with the other side of the story told as well. People do tend to say, ohh poor old lady, those darn kids need to stay inside and play video games or something. They forget old people are just that, old people, and they are just as varied as the young ones. Some are nice, others are codgy over-dramatic bastards, young or old and the law applies to them all.
"Burned into their memories forever is the sight of an old woman being led away in handcuffs by men with loaded guns and Tasers."
I thought it wasn't about the age? That sentence sure begs to differ.
They HAVE to wear guns and not all of them have tasers. When you get pulled over for a speeding ticket they have loaded guns, an unloaded gun wouldn't be very useful, does that make them wrong for doing so?
Reminds me of the beach patrol episode on TruTV where a woman had her 94 year old mother at the beach near a beach volley ball net and some people playing hit the ball out of bounds and it hit her mother. She tried to keep the ball and claimed the ball hurt her mother but when they offered to have EMTs look at her mom she declined and said she's an RN so she knows more than everybody about her mom. In the end its the same vigilante syndrome, omg that ball is so annoying, i'm going to take it away. Well the cops were about to take her to jail so she finally gave it back but you get the idea. Whats annoying is people trying to use their age to get things their way, like it's a permit to do anything you want.
You can share your own property, but you have nothing to say about other people's property. How they manage it is their business, not yours.
Within limits yes, one's own land is their business. But this is bound by community rules and standards. A landowner's rights over their own land are far from absolute, esp in suburbia.
What are the particular community rules and standards in this case ? The rule of children's ballgames over residents since 1949? All property law is the same for everyone for the duration of their lives.
Edna Jester gained the right to possess the ball because she found it on her property. Even though it is an adverse possession, she did not obtain it through theft or fraud.
Apparently, the courts are in agreement that Edna Jester committed no crime by dropping all the charges:
After review of the Edna Jester neighborhood football dispute case, the City Solicitor (Mark Vanderlaan) and City Prosecutor (Mark Arnzen) have decided to drop the charges. The case involved the retention of a football that entered Ms. Jester's yard and which she refused to return to the owner. The neighbors called the Blue Ash Police Department requesting resolution which resulted in citation of Ms. Jester to Mayor's Court. However, the City's legal counsel and prosecutor felt that there was insufficient culpability to warrant prosecution. Though the case has been dismissed, the City will continue to attempt neighborhood mediation through Police the Department's Neighborhood Liaison Program.
http://www.local12.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=dd9aca62-f1b5-4cc8-898d-3b57be06a90c
The police officers would've saved taxpayers a lot of hassle if they had called it correctly in the first place.
Homeowner's associations have strict neighborhood standards. These extract a fee for the legal enforcement of a signed contract with the HOA's Covenant, Codes and Restrictions. Even so, unless one lives in an inner city environment where general lawlessness is the social code in government housing, property law applies across the board in every neighborhood.
Unfortunately, many have fallen into the trap of substituting social expectations for law. If suburbia substitutes these expectations for law, then suburbia will soon be following the inner city social code.
What happened with dear Edna is merely a microcosm of a larger scenario. What is at stake here is a society's respect for the law. One of the many ways people undermine the law is through the education of children -- or more specifically in this case, the lack thereof.
Parents are directly responsible for the behavior of their children. If children mismanage their property to the point that the peace and safety of others is threatened, then the parents are responsible to step in to protect them, which is an elderly woman in this case.
In anincreasingnumber of cases, teachers are walking off the job because of unruly and threatening behavior of children. Edna should not have to leave her home because kids mismanaged their assets.
For the price of the football, the parents can teach their childrena valuable lesson about property law. If they don't, then they've taught them the law of the jungle by default. Parents should not be afraid to teach their children anything. However, it appears that the attitude is one of indulgence toward children,allowing them to trample another person's rights.
The police officers in this case are there to represent the law as an arm of the court. Therefore, the posting is correctly representing a case of Judicial Horror.
"One ofthe most important obligations of government is to protect peaceful citizens from criminal fraud and violence. Public safety and the long-term planning necessary for the development of good jobs and vibrant markets is dependent upon the rule of law and the ability of citizens to trust that contracts will be honored, property will be secure, and violence will be restrained. The prosperity of American citizens is due in large measure to their respect for the rule of law and the police who enforce it."
http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=796
Why is it that some of these comments don't surprise me?
That father who had the nerve to file that complaint is breeding just some more ill mannered, egotistical, and yes, criminally minded subjects to be loosed on this society.
Instead of him teaching his kids to respect their neighbors and instruct those kids to be sure that that ball not land in someone else's yard, because they are not their slaves. THAT is disturbing someone's peace AT BEST. She should file Elder Abuse charges against that PD and the father. For that is what it is, AND that, is a crime.
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