Saturday, November 19, 2016

Friday Follies

Craig's Place Homeless Shelter at First Baptist Church opened November 1st

Maybe it was the nice weather combined with the recent reopening of the Homeless Shelter but in the span of just a couple hours APD responded to three separate calls relating to our less fortunate denizens who call "the streets of Amherst" home.

Police had to respond to Town Manager Paul Bockelman's office because one irate homeless man was angrily confronting Mr. Bockelman about a perceived injustice in his treatment by either APD or District Court.

But police did not have to go far to find him because as they headed to Town Hall he left and headed to the police station to yell at them.

Kind of funny in one respect I suppose.  But the real problem with these types of antics is it diverts police from potentially mores serious activities.

About a minute before the Town Manager called, Dispatch sent two units to an apartment complex in East Amherst for a possible domestic abuse in progress.

Since these calls can be very serious (a leading cause of death for police officers) you always send in more than one unit.  But since no other units were available one of them had to break off and divert back to Town Hall to assist the Town Manager.

 Homeless man angrily walks away from APD

Fortunately the domestic situation was nothing serious and after blowing off steam yelling at the Town Manager and police the homeless man stomped off towards town center.

A few minutes later police responded back to town center because another group of homeless individuals loitering in front of businesses were hassling a UPS delivery man and other store patrons.  Officers quickly "moved them along."

 Police moved along a gaggle of homeless folks from in front of downtown businesses

And over the course of the day Dispatch fielded a few calls for "Football Phil" walking in and out of traffic holding his nasty anti-Hillary sign.  You may remember Phil as he also did the same last spring holding a nasty anti-Bernie sign.

 Football Phil with a political sign instead of his football in front of AFD Central Station

Like an Internet troll, Phil loves to rile people up.  He also came close to being arrested for aggressively confronting Amherst Regional High School students who walked out of school in protest on Monday and marched to the downtown, which is of course his personal playground.

Saturday 2:00 PM.  The entire APD shift called to town center after woman calls 911 saying Phil punched a woman.  My guess is she got physical with him first.  Which is of course exactly what he wants.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

......and then the Leverett Buddhist from the Peace Pagoda gave everyone the bums rush with an incessant beating on drums-and so it goes-so it goes near Amherst. !!!$&@?

Dr. Ed said...

And you complain about the UMass students...

Larry Kelley said...

Probably not for the next week or so,

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we've had a lot of police die in domestic abuse cases in Amherst over the years. You are so right to bring that point into the (hee hee) "news article." Amherst is such a tough town, so many hard core criminals here. I get your point. We should just lock up everyone who might distract the police from doing the really important work of this thriving metropolis, like chasing drunk college kids.

Anonymous said...

And we really want to invite more of this to town? Are we the nuts running the asylum?

Anonymous said...

Well, the APD could have instead:

Arrested one Hit & Run Homicide driver.

Arrested the other 2-3 Ninja drug-robbers.

Arrested the drug dealers who were being ripped off.

Arrested anyone else involved in the fatal shooting.

Just saying....

Larry Kelley said...

Cowardly Anon Nitwit 11:37 AM

I'm not sure who's a bigger Troll, you or Phil.

Anonymous said...

Domestic abuse calls are very dangerous for cops because they face one or more people who are real angry, in an enclosed space that has lots of potential weapons.

Anonymous said...

Remember now, the homeless are just misunderstood tax paying citizens. OOPS, my bad! Oh well, this is the Happy Valley let 'em all in.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Ed, for your nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Perhapsn if we gave some of the public funding that gushes into local affluent family households to those in actual need, this issue could be mitigated.

Imagine a family with three kids not getting public assistance, likely to also be on the street too, because they also bit off more than they can chew, but we help them, ironically, liberally. They even go on vacations, on public assistance...21k per kid per year.

I think it is time to stop taxing and rugulating away our prosperity, the spirit is being lost....and we are creating huge groups of poor people, plus a failed generation we over invested in now even....the millenials....think of how many of them will be grey haired and on the streets. They have been ruined by liberalism, and they are so poorly educated, they think the solution is more.

Anonymous said...

For somebody who claims to be blind he sure navigates town well

Anonymous said...

Let's face it, downtown is getting quite unpleasant and a little dicey. Everyone should feel safe, welcome, including shopowners.

Dr. Ed said...

9:26 -- remember "blind" is less than 20/200 -- the big "E" on the top of the eye chart -- and a lot of us are that without our glasses. Even if all he can see is light & dark shadows, that won't precluding him from walking around town.

Or he may be lying -- but please do not fall into the trap of thinking disabled means unable!

Dr. Ed said...

And do not think Phil is a Trump supporter -- if we'd protested the 2012 election with the same visceral, he'd be out there with a sign saying the same thing about Mitt Romney.

There are a bunch of psychobabble reasons for it, but Phil is reacting to the protest and not the protest's message. He is a product of the anti-trump brigade.

Larry, this is happening nationally and it's going to get a lot worse if this bullshit isn't ended. I've endured 16 years of Presidents whom I despises, sandwiched around 8 years of another President whom I merely detested -- elections have consequences, Trump won, get over it.