Res Ipsa Loquitur

My sis and brother-in-law had had problems with Crazy Dave ever since he first moved in next door several years ago....problems which have steadily escalated. Crazy Dave, it soon became obvious to everyone, was not right in the head....he had a pigeon coop for starters, with which he was obsessed. Keeping pigeons is a little unusual for a rural northcentral Arkansas town. And he would have a hissy fit about every little noise in the neighborhood because he said it upset his pigeons.

This escalated into an inevitable dispute over the property line between his house and theirs....which my brother-in-law settled by having the line re-surveyed and running a large cable marking the correct line. My brother-in-law didn't help matters because he then build a new driveway along said property line, as well as a garage and basketball court....as close to the pigeon coop as he could get them. Crazy Dave retaliated by installing surveillance cameras under the roof of his house, which he claimed he did to keep an eye on his pigeon coop.

Then a couple of years ago on the Fourth of July, things got worse. My brother-in-law always has a big party and shoots off fireworks for all the kids in the neighborhood. Crazy Dave came unglued and called the police ranting & raving because the noise was upsetting his pigeons. Unfortunately for Crazy Dave, my brother-in-law wasn't shooting off fireworks....it was the mayor, several members of the City Council...you get the picture.

A while later, my sister noticed that one of Crazy Dave's cameras wasn't actually aimed at his pigeon coop....it appeared to be focused directly towards their deck. Which really creeped her out, but she wasn't sure enough to complain. And so things kept getting worse, Crazy Dave kept getting weirder and weirder until about 6 months ago.

My sister & brother-in-law were sitting out on their deck quietly enjoying the evening. Next thing they knew, Crazy Dave stuck a pellet gun out his window and shot at them...one of the pellets hit a post right by my brother-in-law's head. My sis asked me "You know what my crazy husband did then?" I replied, "No, but I know what I would've done. I'd got my gun, gone out to the property line, looked directly into his camera and yelled 'Shoot at me will you you crazy son-of-a-bitch? Stick your head out the window and let's see how you like it' while you called the police." Which is pretty much exactly what happened.

The police while inside Crazy Dave's home investigating, discovered that not only were his cameras aimed directly at my sister's deck as well as the neighbor's yard across the street, Crazy Dave also had quite the arsenal of weapons....and was severely paranoid.

Since the cameras weren't aimed to videotape inside their house, they weren't illegal. But my sister insisted on pressing charges for the pellet gun shots, arguing (correctly IMO) that the next time he would likely not use a pellet gun. Things temporarily got a little better because Crazy Dave became convinced that my sister & brother-in-law were trying to kill him and he was afraid to come out of his house.

But soon things started escalating again....rants about disturbing his pigeons, etc. Crazy Dave's trial date approached, since my sister refused to drop the charges. Someone, tired of listening to Crazy Dave's rants about how they were all out to get him, frustratedly finally told him he was right, they were out to get him and the safest thing for him to do was just move out of the county.

So he did.

At least this year's party should be a lot less stressful...I won't have to worry about Bubs getting shot while running over to look at the pigeons or anything.

And you thought life was so quiet & peaceful in these little rural towns, didn't you?