Maybe: then again probably not.
I have watched sheriff’s elections for quite awhile.
If a Sheriff manages to get elected twice he is pretty much a shoe in unless some major scandal brings him down or there is a major demographic shift in the county. The sheriff in my county does not even bother to run a campaign. He has been reelected continuously since 1993. Unless a person has prominence in the community I doubt that a sheriff is going to make a fuss about an old woman’s arrest unless it gets lots of negative press. A sheriff is much more likely to defend his deputies than berate them.
Understandable. I responded with why I don't think that your "take" is very credible. It is possible that it happened that way, but it requires a number of people to act unreasonably, rather than one person to get irate and feel that they have the right to say whatever they want as long as they remain on their property, especially when they dispute that the surveyors have a right to be there.
Well in my life time I have seen a number of occasions where groups of people act unreasonably in concert. I have if fact seen occasions where in the same circumstances had any of those persons been alone they would not have acted as they did.
Ever heard of crowd mentality also called herd mentality?
Speaking of unreasonable let us not forget that the Deputy Sheriff is working two jobs. If he is like any of the LEOs that I know that involve a rotating shift of some kind. I work shift work myself and I can tell you that puts a person under more than the usual amount of stress that non-shift workers endure in there day to day life. Add to that a second job regardless of how cushy following around some surveyors may be, it is still going to reduce the amount of sleep the deputy is getting.
Any deputy working overtime or a second job is getting less sleep. Lack of sleep can make one cranky and short tempered (I speak from experience).
As far as the deputy working this side job we don’t know his rank. Is he a corporal or a sergeant? Is he a superior of the deputies that arrest the woman? It could have impact on events. If the officers dispatched to arrest this woman were of inferior rank to the part time security guard they may be intimidated in to taking his side.
You've got to make some really one sided assumptions of bad intent on the part of the utility workers, the off duty deputy, and the two on duty deputies to come to the conclusion that they were intimidating a poor woman who was doing nothing but minding her own business.
I do not intend to make any assumptions as to anyone’s intent. I am merely postulating what may have happened drawing on what I know of human interactions in similar situations. As for minding her own business I don’t recall saying that, I merely stated that she said she was not being threatening or harassing anyone.
It is quite likely that your version of events is true, however given what I know of human nature and given the dearth information I believe that my description of events is nearly as likely.
In Ohio the average starting salary for Deputy Sheriffs was $29,868.87 in 2004.
I don’t know about you but that is not bad for a 20 year old fresh out of community college. If he still lives with the folks that is fantastic first job income.
And for a young kid who just got married having a cruiser to drive to work is a big deal. It means that his new family only needs one car. That is a big bonus to 30K budget.
The details of the deputy's side of the story start part way down page 4 of the incident report.
There are also witness statements supporting her incident report. They are a bit hard to read because they were poorly scanned hand written statements, but they are at least somewhat legible.
It appears that this wasn't really a side job, so much as the sheriff's department contracting out the deputies to provide security. That seems to be a pretty common practice so that the organizations that need extra security pay for the extra police hours that it requires rather than the taxpayer. It appears that the arrangements for her (Deputy Bush) to work with the survey crew were made through the Sheriff's office.
There does seem to be a lot of evidence supporting a charge of disorderly conduct. However, the plea conference statement said that no accusation was to be filed because there appeared to be insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that disorderly conduct had occurred. The charges were dismissed without prejudice, which means they could be refiled in the future. I guess you'll have to come up with your own interpretation of that.
I don’t know about you but that is not bad for a 20 year old fresh out of community college. If he still lives with the folks that is fantastic first job income.
Well, you can't be a police officer in Ohio unless you are over 21 years old, and while that is the starting salary, police officers don't get the kind of raises that people in other careers get their first few years. After a number of years of working, if they manage to get promoted to sergeant they might get up to 40k. How many years? I know two people who are sheriff's deputies, both are in their early 30s. One is getting a four year degree in the hopes that combining that with her years of experience, she might be able to make sergeant. Of course she has to work side jobs as well in order to afford classes. The other is on the SWAT team, he doesn't make crap either, and also has to work side jobs.
So you think it is reasonable that we should expect officers to have to live at home with their parents when they are 21 years old to have a reasonable standard of living.
This for a job that requires wearing a bullet proof vest to work?
This for a job that requires working late night and weekend shifts for no additional pay. Also don't plan on having many holidays off, holidays are often busy times for them.
This for a job that requires them to respond to domestic disputes?
This for a job that requires them to run toward a scene when they hear shots fired rather than running away like everyone else?
This for a job that when everyone else is hiding inside during a really bad storm, tornado, blizzard, they are out working to provide assistance to those who need it?
How much do you think an HVAC guy would make out of community college if they were willing to work the same kind of shifts?
How much do you think a hair stylist makes on average just out of school?
I'm not even comparing them to someone with a technical degree right out of a two year school.