What we used to call Santa Monica divebombers.
MSPCA ruffles his feathers: Animal lover says treatment is for the birds By O’Ryan Johnson/ Exclusive Sunday, June 11, 2006 - Updated: 01:06 PM EST
High-rise window washer Christopher Guay spent 20 hours in jail waiting for his wife to raise the $1,040 the state demanded to free him after he struck and killed a sea gull he says repeatedly dive-bombed at him as he was attempting to clean office windows.
Speaking exclusively to the Herald, Guay, 40 - who shares a home with his wife, 14 finches, two parakeets and several other species of birds - said he now fears the job he loves, hanging high above the Hub, is in jeopardy thanks to an overzealous MSPCA police officer.
“The (Boston) cops in the transport told me, ‘This is ridiculous. We didn’t want to take you in, but the MSPCA cop made the call,’ ” Guay said of his brief chat with Boston officers while shackled in the back of a prisoner-transport truck.
He will be arraigned Tuesday on charges of animal cruelty, a felony.
Three Boston cops who spoke on condition of anonymity said they would not have arrested Guay, smirking at the inexperience of the MSPCA officer.
“I didn’t even know they could make arrests,” said one veteran cop. Added another: “He’s fending for his life already. I wouldn’t have arrested him.”
Guay said he was working 12 stories up atop 185 Devonshire St. about 8:30 a.m. Friday when he was set upon by three sea gulls protecting a rooftop nest.
“They’d sit up about 20 feet, then dive in,” he said. “They hit me twice in the head.”
Guay said he moved to an attached roof at 161 Devonshire St., but the gulls followed. He eventually started swinging a broken broom handle, hoping to scare them off and give himself time to slip over the building’s edge and out of the birds’ sight.
“I’d been doing it all day, fending them off,” he said. “It was working until I made my last drop . . . When I swung I wasn’t aiming. I didn’t mean to hit it. It flew right into the broom stick. I knew it was dead.”
Office workers witnessing the 3:30 p.m. strike called the MSPCA, which responded with one of the agency’s 11 police officers.
“I don’t blame them at all for calling,” Guay said. “If I saw someone on the roof swinging at a bird I’d do the exact same thing.”
But he said he does have a problem with the by-the-book MSPCA cop.
“He wasn’t buying my story at all,” Guay said. “He didn’t listen to a word I said. He said to me ‘So you like killing birds?’ Am I supposed to stand there and let the gull whack me in the head? I had to do something.”
A sea gull is equivalent to a rodent. This is PC run amok.
2nd Amendment broom ban in Boston!
Someone needs to use that broom on the MSPCA dope. Hopefully the judge will recognize a clear case of self defense.
Sea Gulls = Sky Rats!
Gulls mean more than humans now. Lovely...
12 stories up in the air on a platform means anyone that is attacking me is threatening me with death. This man has the right to defend himself from anything that could result in his death. The f'ing MSPCA has got it wrong...why don't they arrest the other two gulls for attacking this guy first or do birds and animals that attack get a free ride? If that is the case then someone should turn a well trained pit bull loose at the MSPCA office and watch the mayhem.
Insanity.
What will it take to push these PC kooks right off the planet
Huh? I blame them for calling. What in the heck is this world coming to? It's a freaking bird, fer cryin' out loud!
Gulls Gone Wild!
Sea gull: flying white rat
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If you've never had a bird dive bomb your head, this story doesn't make any sense.
People who equate animals with humans are sick.
So this guy is out of a job, and could soon be a *convicted felon* because he tried to shoo away an attacking animal?
Insanity.
This was the story by the Boston Herald June 10th..broom handle?
Dead sea gull a pain for window washer: Man busted in alleged aerial attack
Saturday, June 10, 2006 - Updated: 10:10 AM EST
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=142960
A 40-year-old high-rise window washer sat in a downtown lockup last night on felony animal cruelty charges after an MSPCA cop arrested him for defending himself against an attacking sea gull, police and the man’s wife said.
“It’s ridiculous,” said the man’s wife, Lin Maloney, inside the South End home she shares with her husband, 13 finches, two parakeets, two dogs, and three cats. “He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body. He’s not cruel to animals.”
Christopher Guay was on the roof of 161 Devonshire St. yesterday about 3:30 p.m. when several office workers in neighboring building saw a man in white overalls and a harness striking the gull with a black bar or stick, presumably a squeegee. A responding officer walked to the roof of the building and saw the bird lying motionless, noting in his report, “the carcass was still warm.”
“The suspect stated he was on the roof when the gull started attacking him, forcing him to strike the bird,” Boston police spokesman Dave Estrada said.
A Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals cop who also responded to the call didn’t buy Guay’s story.
Maloney said Guay called her at work from jail, and since then she’s run a dizzying gauntlet of banks and bureaucracy to raise the $1,040 the police are demanding to free him.
“I’ve never bailed anyone out of jail before,” she said. “When I called the bail bondsman he said ‘What’s he in jail for,’ I said ‘For beating a sea gull,’ and he started laughing. He said ‘This is a joke right?’ ”
Peter Gollub, director of law enforcement for the MSPCA, refused comment about the dead bird except to say the agency had arrested a man for animal cruelty.
After spending the evening talking to a bail bondsman and racing from ATMs to check-cashing stores, late last night Maloney was forced to abandon her attempt to free her husband before sunrise.
“I’m still shell shocked,” said Maloney, who works for a visiting nursing company in Charlestown. “I was in tears. I was horrified. This is like something out of a movie. The guy is harmless. He’s a sweetheart. I’ve been with him for 17 years. He’s not someone who would viciously attack an animal.”
The Howie Carr show ran this question today: "Do you have the right to defend yourself against attacking wildlife? Had any close encounters lately?
http://www.howiecarr.org/
MSPCA officer is a petty turd. Any jury should let himwalk for killing a sky rat.