Idaho Census Worker Warned Off By Gunfire

[samplegirl]

An Idaho man fired his shotgun today near a census worker who was doing his job delivering census forms.

Fifty-4-year-old Richard L. Powell of St. Maries faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The Benewah County Prosecutor’s office says that on March 3 Powell told the census worker to get off his property and then fired a shotgun into the air.

Powell’s pretrial conference is scheduled for April 26 at the Benewah County Courthouse.

Perhaps Powell was channeling CNN’s Erick Erickson, who made a very controversial comment about what he might do if a census worker came to his house.

Erickson: “I’ll pull out my wife’s shotgun” if they try to arrest me for not filling out the American Community Survey.

http://www.alan.com/

[GrantDem]

1. "The Best Political Team on Television"

CNN must be proud.

[MadMaddie]

2. Good! He should be facing charges

this shit has to stop.

[jmowreader]

3. OMG! I KNOW that fucking guy!

This incident seems completely in character with what I remember of him.

[Ian David]

11. If you have stories, please dish! n/t

[jmowreader]

14. It's been a really long time since I saw him last...

but he was one of the "serious hunters" who drove his pickup to school during deer season with a rifle in the gun rack so he could go right into the woods after the final bell at 3:15. I've pointed this out, but in the 1970s and early 1980s this was pretty common behavior in St. Maries. (I never did it, but a Volkswagen with a rifle in the back seat just doesn't have the same effect. And my mom hates guns.) I think he got a couple while he was still in school, but not sure if ANYONE from school actually killed a deer or elk between 3:30 and last light.

Yeah, I can totally see this guy shooting at a census worker. St Maries is kind of a weird place, though: they used to have a LOT of neo-Nazis from out of area running around there. Oh man, they fucking hated black people. The funny thing about them being there all tied up in their hate, is the only black guy in the entire city of St. Maries is Vernon Baker. Vernon Baker's this guy: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2026&dat=20050304&id=590yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9e8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=6908,3478068. Apparently they respected the hell out of Vernon because he is a Medal of Honor recipient, but they hated every other black person in the world. The good people of St. Maries got together and ran them off.

Let me tell you how fucking insane some of the people there are. St. Maries decided they were going to hitch their star to the tourism industry. This was going to be a Destination for tourists--which is very, very hard for a city with nothing for tourists to do and 36 hotel rooms for them to stay in while they're not doing it to be. I am NOT shitting: the Pines Motel has 28 rooms, and there are eight bed & breakfasts. At least the Milwaukee Road is gone--when that railroad was in business (Potlatch bought all the rolling stock and the track, hired all the people and cleaned up the operation) they had six of those rooms reserved for the derailment crew which was necessary because the Milwaukee derailed at least one train a week.

[Ian David]

16. Oh, wow! Thanks! n/t

[brewens]

4. Just down the road apiece from where this happened.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7560525

[jmowreader]

15. I wasn't aware 70 miles was "apiece"

In Idaho it could be, I guess...

[Submariner]

5. Bush couldn't keep the country safe and he failed the permanent

republican majority crowd big time by losing 2 wars and crashing the world economies. The rethugs are both embarrassed and enraged that they were duped by the Bush junta.

The repubs know the Democrats are salvaging their mess, and that of all things a Black man is successfully leading the effort.

Republican domestic terrorism like this incident may become common.

[Hello_Kitty]

6. He only faces up to 6 months for making violent threats and FIRING HIS GUN??!

I have a friend who is in a wheelchair for life after being hit in the spine with a stray bullet. ANY deliberate firing of a weapon not in self-defense or defense of others should be prosecuted with A LOT MORE than 6 months.

[samplegirl]

7. I agree.

[Bitwit1234]

8. Since Erickson works for CNN and

the person shot at the census worker, if I was the census worker I would take Erickson and CNN to court for conspiracy to murder. CNN is responsible for everything Erickson says in print while working for them.

[sharesunited]

9. Guns cloud judgment. This is well known among us observers of human behavior.

[Major Hogwash]

10. I really like Skinner and his fellow admins and the people of DU . . .

for the most part because I live here in the land of loons and DU is one of the forums I come to read about how the Democrats are going to solve the problems Bush left for Obama to fix.

This nutjob with the shotgun is about half nuts.
I would go ahead and say that he's completely nuts, but in St. Maries, he is more of the norm rather than the extremist.

It's sad to say, but we have pockets of idiots that form villages out here and somehow they get by living in their community, hating anything the federal government does for anybody, hating the Democratic party because Rush told them to, quoting the Bible and Hitler in the same paragraph if not in the same sentence, and now they are consumed with hate for Obama simply because he is black and he is the President of the United States.

I don't know if the Secret Service knows how bad the situation really is out here in I-dee-ho, but they had better double the number of men protecting him so that this country doesn't explode in the event of an attempt on the President's life.

If I could, I would throw myself in the way of any bullet shot at President Obama to prevent a madman from trying to overturn his being elected.
I felt the same way about Bush, there is no need for violence against the President at any time for any reason.
I learned that when JFK was assassinated and this whole country mourned the loss of one of our finest Presidents.

Except for a few sick individuals who celebrated upon learning about JFK's murder.
The United States will always have sick individuals like that living here.
People who live in the past, and want to turn the clock back.

Perhaps that person in St. Maries will lose his right to own a firearm.
That would be the worst punishment a nutjob like him would have to endure.
Census workers shouldn't have to put up with that type of garbage from other people.
What that nutjob did was a criminal act, not the act of a good citizen.

I could go on and on, but as you might have already figured out, St. Maries is teabagger territory, where Sarah P is worshipped, Rush is quoted, and Fox News is their only source for information because they truly believe that the people at Fox News are the only ones willing to tell them the truth about Obama's "socialist agenda".

[Ian David]

13. Sounds like they don't deserve their fair share of federal aid and representation anyway. n/t

[Hawkeye-X]

12. Idaho deserves to lose a congressional seat

and DC should earn it outright. Utah earns nothing.

Hawkeye-X

[CanonRay]

17. I don't think they can, they only have one now.

[Major Hogwash]

19. We have two, but we also have both kinds of country music.

Country and western.

We also have both kinds of Republican representatives out here.
One that admits he is a Republican and then the DINO who always votes with the Republicans, but calls himself a Democrat.

[lame54]

18. I saw this on the Andy Griffith show