Hey, I live in Yuba City! That happened about 5 miles from my home (we are on opposite ends of town.) This isn’t a very liberal town, and is positively Right Wing by California standards.
Scary story. Not how I would deal with a census worker. A guy in a blue shirt rang my bell yesterday. I looked through the peephole and decided not to answer in case he was a census worker.
It is usually a good idea to put down a gun when the police tell you to.
That said, this was 100% the fault of both the census worker and the police. The census worker was trespassing. The census worker was told to leave the property owner’s property and dis-respectfully did not do that. The property owner brandished a weapon, which is probably a crime today but it should not be when you are being accosted by a persistent trespasser.
Yuba City cops are pretty tame, so I don’t know how this got out of hand except that maybe the cops should not have been there. They should have told the census worker, don’t trespass next time. If people don’t want to cooperate, just let them take the fine. Let someone above you handle it.
Not today. Not in what is becoming a totalitarian state. Not today. Today, the property owner minding his own business is the bad guy, and the person guilty of criminal trespass is innocent.
There is a fine on paper but is never enforced. tell the trepassers to leave and Bob Groves can eat rahm.