by Jack Lee
Here’s a good one. A park ranger notices fliers for painting services tacked to park property (illegal) and so he investigates and calls the number on the flier as if he were a potential customer. He speaks with the painter and the next day he shows up at the painters home confronts him about the fliers.
As you might expect, the painter gets ticked-off because of the subterfuge used by the ranger and he tells the ranger to get off his property. Now the ranger is ticked and things escalate. The painter is threatened with being tased, the ranger calls for back up and the whole thing goes south in a hurry.
The painter is a diabetic starts having problems and needs insulin, but by now he’s on the ground in hand cuffs, so a neighbor gets it for him and eventually the whole thing winds down into a citation. Talk about a messy arrest and overreacting. The park cop probably thought this was a real big deal because his job to enforce such minor offenses, but to the rest of us it just looks ugly. It smacks of police brutality, excessive force and poor judgment.
A lawsuit will surely follow because the painter was acquitted of any wrong doing and the taxpayers will be held responsible for the over zealous actions of the park ranger.
Lets talk about the dirt bag that got shot after a long dangerous chase and then walked out of the hospital and is still in the breeze. He was not arrested he was not being watched he was not cuffed to the bed and he just walked out. Could it be they actually let him walk so the Chico PD wouldn’t have to pay his hospital bill? Heads need to roll!
Toby the cops almost always release prisoners from custody when they have a big medical bill. The law enforcement agency is simply pushing the bill over to another government pocket to be paid. Kinda silly I grant you that. There should be a better system, but there isn’t.
This guy was not in custody, he should have been. Seems to me if you are a cop and feel the need to put 3 slugs into someone they probably need to be arrested. Why do I have the odd feeling the only person on my side is going to be Q? This is no way to do business. Arrest the guy and when he gets out of prison stick him with the bill or keep him in prison until he has worked it off.
Toby, I’m totally one your side. I have sent a lot of people to the hospital after I arrested them and I was always forced to 849b-one them so the hospital didn’t bill the police dept. It’s wrong, there should be some fix between the government agencies, but so far there isn’t.
Stuff like this didn’t happen as often when people had a healthy respect for public property and authority figures. (sigh)
You didn’t say whether the painter was looking for business legitimately or trying to scam the public. I would think that in today’s economy he could be cut some slack if he looking for work and was willing to accept the correction. There are other places to post flyers in Chico. Park rangers should be helpful too shouldn’t they?
aNOTHER problem that could be solved with Nationalized–non-profit–Medical Care!
Remember, if you are good with the Godlessness known as for-profit health care, you have to accept these little atrocities every now and again as the price.
I see I was wrong (very happy to be), Q and do not agree. Another bullet or better shooting would also have solved this whole thing.
I guess another way of looking at this is Quentin will be happy to pay the bill so hook him up.
Ah yes the profit motive. Well lets see. is it possible to run the world without profits? There are many ways to look at profits. For instance, about half of the population is now benefiting from the other half that pays all of the income tax burden. They get the benefit of the services those taxes provide without contributing a dime. That means they have profited on the backs of the neighbors. You could even think of it as slave labor. It is a tidy little profit…something the person(s) didn’t have to supply for themselves.
Same goes with the so-called not for profit healthcare system Q dreams about. Somebody profits, fool, and somebody else gets to pick up the tab. Sadly under such a system a lot of money that could be used for new equipment, drugs, treatments, or personel will be wasted on useless layers of bureaucracy. Meanwhile most would see their options limited, services will go to hell and some treatments eliminated. There would be little incentive for doctors resulting in shortages in some fields and fewer truly skilled surgeons on the level of a doc Schumway at Stanford back when heart surgery was fairly new.
Quentin you are way off base and all because you can’t stand the thought that someone will make a few bucks as he also provides jobs, treatments, or a choice in products and services.
What a stingy, small minded way to view the world. Amazingly I have never heard anyone with this viewpoint that is willing to work for free. In fact many of them were in the streets of Wisconsin screaming about their rights.
Gotta stop before I start name-calling. Man, does this idiocy grate!
Actually Tina I think he had taped a few fliers to garbage cans or something like that in a national park parking lot and this was up north, not in Chico. He was legit, just a guy looking for work. If the ranger had taken them down it would have taken about 1 minute; then a 30 second phone call to say he can’t post his work wanted fliers on l park property and that should have been it.
I understand the ranger got his britches in a knot, when the painter told him to get off his property,apparently the painter did not appreciate the rangers assertive attitude.
Harriet, so it would seem. Unfortunately the ranger represents the people and whatever his mistakes might have been become deep pockets for a lawsuit against US!!! That make me mad.
You are correct of course Jack, I usually don’t stick up for the “jerks” like the painter, in this case though it seems both the Ranger and the Painter are of the same stripe, both over reacted to a great degree but the Ranger should be better mentally equipped to handle it.