Police In Our Community Display Double Standard

By James Donahue

We had a very drunk young man recently appear in the street in front of our house shortly before 1 a.m., shouting obscenities and demanding that we come out of the house because he wanted to kill us. He is obviously part of a neighborhood youth gang that has taken it upon itself to rid the community of that evil family of "outsiders" who refuse to bow down to Jesus Christ.

We did what anybody would do in a case like that . . . we called the police. The police came, talked to the young man, talked to people in our household, took statements, then everything quieted down. We learned the next day that they sent the young man home even though he was threatening to kill us and was exhibiting public drunkenness . . . two obvious reasons for him to have been handcuffed and carted off to the county slammer.

We caught the whole affair on security video cameras and turned the images over to the police. The videos captured the young man in a state of drunken frenzy, threatening us, and behaving very badly. Other video, not shown to the police, caught the same man driving (drunk) in a car. He was observed brandishing some kind of weapon at the window not long before he returned on foot. When confronted by police, the video captured the young man calling the officers "pigs." He apparently is going to get away with all of what he did and we had to wonder why.

The next day we called the police department to learn what had happened to our would-be killer. To our horror we were told he was still at large and that officers were taking their report to the county prosecutor . . . not that day, but for some reason, on a following day . . . to see if a warrant would be issued.

On the day the decision was expected to be made, we called the prosecutor's office to inquire about the case. We were told that the prosecutor was away for the week, apparently deer hunting, and that we would be dealing with an assistant. The assistant was busy in court all day, but he would be available for an appointment to discuss the case four days later at 11 a.m.

Who, we asked, was going to protect us from this would-be assassin if authorities were going to look the other way? Why were the police so lax on the night of the event, not to arrest him when he was drunk, was overheard calling the police officers "pigs," and had just threatened our lives. We have at least three witnesses and our video footage to prove it?

We are accusing the local police and the county prosecutor of exhibiting a double standard. Lets go back about one month to explain what we are writing about:

There was an incident when Julie, our daughter-in-law, and her friend, Heather, got into a physical exchange while walking together in public. In a moment of tomfoolery Julie shoved and then gave Heather a light slap across the face. The incident was observed by an off-duty Sheriff's deputy from the deck of a pleasure boat in the nearby ship canel. This deputy misunderstood what he was seeing, called the city police and reported two women fighting. The cops showed up within minutes and Julie was carted off to jail on a charge of domestic violence . . . a 10-year felony rap.

Even though the incident occurred outside the home, the police said they put that charge against Julie because they said they could. There is some law that allows police to charge domestic violence if there is physical contact by two people living under the same roof. The incident was blown all out of proportion and we were faced with a very serious problem, created by the police. To fight back, everybody in the household showed up at court the following day to picket the courthouse, give our story to the local media, and then appeal to the court for fairness. Once the judge understood that Julie had been unfairly charged, he reduced the charge to simple assault and sentenced her to the night she had just spent in jail.

That was how we were treated by the police when somebody thought they saw something happen. The police did not see the so-called "domestic violence" but took the word of a deputy who said he saw a fight from a boat in the river, a quarter mile away.

In contrast, the young man who came to our yard was not only drunk, but he was speaking obscenities and threatening our lives. At least two of these crimes were witnessed by the officers who responded to our call. We captured it all on video footage which was turned over to the police. Yet the boy remains at large to this day, and no charges have been issued. When we asked the police why the man was not arrested, they said the case was still under investigation. They also tried to convince us that they couldn't do anything that night because they did not observe his behavior. That was a lie.

On Halloween weekend, we observed another young man, also from our neighborhood, shooting paint balls at the front of our house. One of the balls broke a front window. We called the police, identified the vandal, and are still waiting for action. Even though we have three witnesses and gave the name of the vandal to the officers, neither the police or the prosecutor have taken action. The boy who damaged our house is the son of a professor of sociology at the local university. That apparently gives him status and makes him better than other people in the community.

Is this not a double standard?

Only last week Aaron C. Donahue appeared before the town council with a proposal to help the city save itself from a doomsday scenario we see rolling over our nation like a runaway freight train. We said we had a plan to help the city start its own electric generating system, get itself completely independent of outside energy sources, and economically develop its waterfront in new ways so the area will no longer depend upon tourism.

We warned that the high cost of gasoline, oil and natural gas was not going to go away, and that energy costs would prove to be a disaster for our community within three years. It can no longer depend upon the tourism dollar, from summer, fall and winter vacationers, to sustain itself.

Nobody at that meeting responded. They had blank stares as Aaron spoke. While the media followed us out of the room, we didn't get a single call the next day. In fact the city manager took the next week off to go deer hunting.

Apparently these people would rather tromp in the woods with their guns, shooting innocent animals of the Earth, than lift a finger to save themselves from a disaster that will soon put them out of their jobs, their homes, and into the soup lines.

To view our video and read what Aaron has to say about all this go to Aaron's blog page. Click here.