Unlawful Basketball poles?? Anyone else experiencing anything like this?

Hey ATS, I ran into this video. Not entirely sure what exactly is going on and the ramifications, but all I can tell you is that it sure is crazy and dare i say it; infringing our freedoms.

Take a look, and is anyone else experiencing crazy confrontations like this lately?
Source

i hate to say what i would do to someone coming up and acting like that. right when she says "i dont want to arrest you" there would be serious hate flyin out my mouth because she does not appear to be a cop. notice the cop that is there strolls off camera , he has to know how ridiculous it is. i would be murderous by the end of it all.

am i wrong in assuming the lady in plain cloths is working with the group taking the poles and not a cop?

reply to post by gandhi



That's just sinister! Especially the woman AND the officer claiming that they had the option of keeping THEIR pole and then taking it. It's like they just rubbed it in their face.

Sitting on top the pole would be peaceful protest and that is not a crime last I checked.

I like the part where the pole gets yanked, falls over and he yells, "Oh there ya go! Way to screw it up!" Haha!

Good thing they got that on video for sure.... redonkulous...

Oh.... and the city is currently forcing people to sell property for an extension to the hwy. Not aying much either... lame...

Who was that blond hair woman with glasses what authority did she have to say she could arrest those people and
deny them the right to speak?
That woman really got my blood boiling and the owners had every right to act in the manner that they did.

Maybe it's a conspiracy where someone high up and powerfull, has a 'Basketball Jones'.

Seriously though, as Howard Beal yelled, "This is madness!!! You maniacs!!!"

As he said --- "March Sadness"

That was a STATE POLICE car!! not rinky dink town police.

All I can say is WTF...

SMH

I wouldn't have moved anything and would have told them to arrest me. It would make a great false arrest 42 USC 1983 action. But I'm a lawyer and I know that they can't get away with that non-sense without a court order. As far as I could tell, the poll was actually buried on private property, and what the government did there was trespass and steal private property.

I wish these people were in NY, I would tell them to sue.

Crazy.

I have to assume that it is a town ordinance that prohibits the poles or maybe since it was
The Department of transportation maybe they have to set so far off the roadway?

Either way the lady was quite annoying.

reply to post by gandhi


yea..it really sucks...

was posted on the 1st of April already though..

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by gougitousakusha
am i wrong in assuming the lady in plain cloths is working with the group taking the poles and not a cop?

The news is saying that she was a State Trooper. Regardless, she didn't have the right to tell them to go into the house OR tell them to stop talking.

Why just buy a house where the city have a right of serviture of seven feet inside your property's perimeter ?

You have the right to live there but not quite.

I bet they have one of those billboard on the outskirts of the city that says:

WELCOME TO DeIDOT

John McCafferty met with a Delaware State Police representative for about 90 minutes today to air his grievances about troopers who helped removal a steel basketball pole from the edge of his property last week.

www.delawareonline.com...

I found this follow up article that includes a follow up video where the home owner deals with the situation with state police.

Originally posted by finemanm
I wouldn't have moved anything and would have told them to arrest me. It would make a great false arrest 42 USC 1983 action. But I'm a lawyer and I know that they can't get away with that non-sense without a court order. As far as I could tell, the poll was actually buried on private property, and what the government did there was trespass and steal private property.

I wish these people were in NY, I would tell them to sue.

Zoning laws are vary throughout. I'm a Custom home builder and more often than not, the property setbacks in our area range anywhere from 20-25ft off the center line of a two-way street. A good point of reference is the Water meter. That is most often placed at the property line.

Sidewalks are always City/county property in residential neighborhoods.

I'm thinking I still would have poured a glass of single-malt and sat atop the hoop playing quarters or something...

Thats ridiculous to use an an old states 7ft clear zone law....... apparently when it works for them to get what they want after 60 years. McCafferty is picking up his and 2 neighbors hoops this Friday at 4pm. State Rep. Byron Short will be present when this happens. And not that much will come from this but the state cops are doing an internal investigation into what went on Friday when they took the hoops.

www.delawareonline.com...
www.delawareonline.com...

Crud.......sorry to post these links, I'm such a slow typer.....lol

reply to post by finemanm


Just curious, if that happened in TX and the law says you can protect your home property, and personal property, with deadly force, would that be a self defense case?

I don't think it would have turned out so well for myself, trooper, or blond. although I would have whispered in her ear my intention to make sure she realizes I would make her my very first target if she would like to escalate the situation. I would hope she might change her tone after calmly sharing that bit of info with her.

This absolutely floored me for several reasons:

1) what an asinine WASTE of money/resources/manpower to enforce an even more asinine crusade against "basketball hoops"...I mean really are things there THAT good that the only thing left to be a "problem" is basketball hoops?

2) The clearly non-uniform wearing lady on a power trip asserting she could arrest them and then further telling them to "go into their house"????? I saw no badge and she presented no badge nor did she seem to clearly identify herself? The officer was there for intimidation purposes so she could power trip all she wants.

3) They flat out LIED to them about keeping the pole. Then they go as far as saying being allowed to "keep your property" is at the COURTESY of them????? They do is out of COURTESY??? Then they set him up for a rightful explosion of anger by reneging on their COURTESY to let him keep it where by which they set the stage for him to commit an ACTUAL crime out of anger.

I don't necessarily thing the basketball hoop is the issue here at all. I think the real issue here is this man is being threatened with arrest and intimidated for trying to protect his property. F*** the basketball hoop he was treated like a criminal for having a baseball hoop....


Absolutely ridiculous....



T

well..since we all are gonna break the law..(not really).

might as well go here and read this...

abclocal.go.com.../local&id=7674630

We had something similar.. on our private street a cop made an elderly man move a basketball hoop off of his driveway back deeper into the yard. Ridiculous IMO. The old guy got snappy and said he was leaving it there.We were over there letting him gripe to us to cool off and the cop came back with another cop.. and told him to take it deeper in his yard again. The old guy got mad and the cop replied that the city owns 3 feet of our property from the road. I said good.. you own it and you can mow it from now on.. and 5 of us on the block left a 3 foot swatch that we didnt mow to make the point for a season. We also didnt get tickets for high weeds.. imagine that! LMAO! The other cop that came with the first one was a nice kid though, he told the old guy he would move it for him and we all helped move it deeper in the yard. The base was full of sand and must have weighed 500 lbs!

It didnt help the old man or anything else.. but we felt like we were giving him the bird every time the cop drove by though and saw that 3 foot swatch of weeds.. and brought us neighbors closer together.

These hoops were not on private property but on public property. No issue here, just reinforcement of boundaries. Unfortunate for the people who enjoyed the basketball hoops, but if relocated on the public property, all is fine again. This is not the "freedom" issue it is being made out to be. Do some research if you believe otherwise.