Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Vigilante Geezer

You'd imagine - at least most intelligent people might - that having achieved the age of 70 some degree of temperance would have diluted a younger man's propensity to personal outrage resulting in violence done to someone or something. Unbridled irritation can do that to some people. But in their dotage, some men simply revert to type, feeling perhaps that age justifies behaviour seen as unseemly in the young.

Or perhaps it's just too tempting to watch newsreels of brutal thugs wearing face masks and brandishing weapons they fire into the air as warnings of what they plan to visit on their enemies. The situation in the Middle East has far-ranging ramifications, some which we obviously could never anticipate, as reasonable human beings.

Not only do some malfunctioning intellects bring the angered grievance of their culture clashes with others along with them when they emigrate from the source of the conflict, to a new land of opportunities and there sow the seeds of discontent. But it might seem that the infection of miserable vengeance attitudes goes beyond the conflicts seen in the Middle East. Inspiring to those of similar sensibilities.

Some viewers of the nightly news may succumb to feeling invigorated in their distaste for their near neighbours by witnessing the carnage wrought so far from home, upon those who terrorists purport are deserving of their bloody predations. Still, it would be unlikely for a Canadian-born to take up arms for the purpose of inflicting bodily harm on a neighbour, however provocative his actions.

Instead, stealth is required and covert activities through which that neighbour's property can be destroyed. And that'll teach the bugger a lesson he won't forget. Even if the message is incomplete and leaves the victim confused, without the knowledge of what it is that has motivated the attack. And here's where the story sinks into its own absurd banality of non-effect.

Where residents of an upscale neighbourhood boasting its own traditional hands-off recognition from the City of Toronto through a long-accepted condition of presenting as a gated community within the greater metropolis, establishing a neighbourhood watch program, and discovering the perpetrator of criminal violations against personal property to be none other than their trusted, respected resident archivist and principal Neighbourhood Watch chief.

The ongoing, repeated vandalization of the pricey enclave, Wychwood Park, has finally been solved. The culprit, none other than a retired math teacher, a long-time resident of the private crescent, 70-year-old Albert Fulton has been charged with ten counts of mischief over $5,000. As it happens, considerably over that sum. Along with charges of criminal harassment, and an additional count of disguising himself with the intent to commit a crime.

As far as Mr. Fulton is concerned, what he accomplished was to serve them right, those upstarts. Parking in places where he personally found it to be outrageous, undesignated, not to be countenanced. Those parking spaces were not unlawful for residents to use, but they raised Mr. Fulton's ire, and that was that. His late-night tire-slashing sprees near the gated entrance to the community terrorized the people living there. Goal accomplished.

Targeted residents have had to pay more than $50,000 in replacing slashed tires as a result of those attacks, which began mysteriously occurring in November, 2006. As public mischief goes, Mr. Fulton's late-night forays to assuage his outrage over his neighbours' inability to park their cars where he thought they should - although he left his opinion unsaid - did not represent something as catastrophic as physically harming someone or burning down a house.

But the cumulative, ongoing effect of never knowing when this silent predator would strike, and hoping that the incidents would somehow just go away, drained the confidence and comfort of security from the victims. Would whoever was involved resort eventually to fuller violence? To them, an unsupportable crime, a terrifying, re-occurring nightmare. To Mr. Fuller a clear case of social justice.

Finally, residents decided to pool their resources and they executed a late-night alert operation. With no fewer than three video cameras between them, they managed to capture the evidence they sought. There is a truly incriminating video of a man pulling on a balaclava exiting from his vehicle, then proceeding to puncture tires of the cars parked in his personally forbidden spot.

How this man has endeared himself to his neighbours - unforgettably, in perpetuity.

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