Guess I'm one of the lonely few here that thinks what you did was downright jerkly. It's not your pool, they're not your kids, they're not your rules, it's not your padlock, You have no authority over the kids, or the pool, or the lock yet you took it upon yourself to to enforce someone else's rule while armed and intimidating some kids. Ya, that's pretty jerkly. It's not your job to protect anyone but yourself against lawsuits. It's not your job to enforce anyone else's rules. You don't have any authority to do so on their property anyway. Are you going to "detain for arrest" the next person you see jaywalking too? What if someone doesn't park in their assigned parking spot? Gonna write 'em a ticket? Gonna pull someone over for not stopping at a stop sign in the grocery store parking lot too?
Howdy Bobarino!
Firstly, we aren't talking about a rule here. We are talking about a breech of the law in my neighborhood. Not a violation of the rules of the community, but a trespass, which I believe is a class 3 misdemeanor hereabouts. Unlike jay walking (which might be nothing more than a traffic infraction), this one is a real problem. As for the comment that it isn't my job to protect anyone but myself, does this imply or suggest that you'd simply stand by as a neighbors home was torched by vandals or somebody was being beaten and do nothing? Is it your position that you'd do nothing to stop a felon stealing your neighbor's car or take any action if you saw a small child wandering around the streets lost and confused? Except of course to call the police and report it after the incident was done and over and tough to track down the perps? Are you telling us that you'd do absolutely nothing proactive aside from dropping a dime unless it directly affected you or your property? Given the glib manner that you combine statutory infractions with traffic violations leads and community rules illustrates a tendency to compare apples to tarantulas! They are such vastly different things. And knowing you aren't willing to defend or protect anything or anyone who isn't you strikes me as alarming.
But let's take your example to another level. So long as we are taking completely different elements and throwing them together in a hodgepodge of illogical combination (misdemeanor/traffic violation/park rules) to come out with an absurd homogonization; let's paraphrase your own statement in a similar manner.
"It's not your pool, they're not your kids, they're not your rules, it's not your padlock, You have no authority over the kids, or the pool, or the lock yet you took it upon yourself to to enforce someone else's rule while armed and intimidating some kids. Ya, that's pretty jerkly."
I could turn that around, bend context, warp definitions to render that statement back with:
"This ain't your state, not your thread, not your forum, and not your community that this took place in! Your opinion holds no weight over my decision, or the thread, or the efforts I took to stop a misdemeanor in progress; yet I took it upon myself to enforce statutory law regarding a trespass while ejecting kids from an area where a specific possibility of drowning or injury was entirely possible, perhaps saving some kids life or limb from hazard. Not to mention the possible injury that can result from climbing a 10 foot chain link fence to gain illegal entry. Your comment that "That's pretty jerkly(?)" is an expression of your opinion with ad hominem insult injected for no worthwhile reason.
See how combining dissimilar elements can work wonders when you strip context out of things?
Now to another of your points, that I wear a gun to make myself some sort of big deal, you don't know me from Adam or what I've done in my life. I have always looked out for my neighbors, long before I ever heard of the OCDO forum. I once did see a parked car in which a man was beating the crap out of a woman. I turned around and came up behind and he drove off, I chased and he made the mistake of turning into a community where I was living, but there was only one way in or out. I asked other residents to stop that particular car if he tried to break. Once he found himself pinned, he ran. I chased him over a high wooden fence and through somebody's back yard. I tackled him once, and the resident of that home came out and I told her to call the cops. While I did that, he got up and tried to run again. I chased him and tackled him a second time. Another homeowner came out of his abode and I told him to call the cops too. I held him until the cops showed up (in force) and took him into custody. When we returned to where he had left his car, the woman wasn't there. She came walking down the street just a wee bit later with something furry in her hand. I thought at first it was a small animal. Blood was streaming down her face. In her hand was large clumps of hair that the man I'd taken down had ripped from her skull.
Turned out he was wanted and a warrant for his arrest was out. He wanted to flee the state. He wanted his girlfriend to cough up money for his escape, and when she didn't have any he believed she was lying and intended to beat the money out of her. He was on his way to my community where his grandmother lived, and intended to get money out of her too. Even if he had to beat it out of her.
I didn't have a gun. I didn't have any authority apart from what every citizen holds to do what is morally and ethically right.
I could, on the other hand, have let it slide and done nothing. Not my gal, not my car, not my property, not my responsibility, and all the other nonsense you've suggested here. And maybe that might have resulted in a double homicide. Except he didn't run into you. He ran into me! He had the misfortune of runing into somebody willing to stand up and do what he could to stop a crime in progress. Maybe he might have had a gun. I didn't know. I certainly didn't. Whether he had a gun or not, I'd still have acted.
That man is now serving time in Canyon City while his grandmother and girlfriend are fine and moving on with their lives. Lives, I might add, that could have ended that day if not for a citizen williing to stand up and stop the thing.
So yeah. Thanks for your opinion, but this ain't your thread, ain't your state, ain't your forum, ain't your community, ain't your illogical mixing of diverse elements, but a focused reaction to a situation that was both a violation of law by statute and a dangerous situation to those in the act. And to the degree that the park might get sued if one of those kids had drown in the pool that night, bankrupting the owners and closing down this park forcing us to move... I was defending my own home too!
Blessings,
M-Taliesin
