Posted on 03/26/2012 5:36:44 PM PDT by ct_libertarian
The battle between one man and the city of Roswell that started over his keeping of chickens ended Monday afternoon in a fiery explosion. Investigators believe that rather than be evicted from his home, Andrew Wordes poured gasoline throughout the house and set it on fire.
"There was an initial explosion and subsequent fire," Lt. James McGee with Roswell police said during a news briefing.
A body was found inside the home, but a positive identification had not been made late Monday afternoon due to the condition of the body, Capt. Paul Piccirilli with the Roswell Fire Department said. The body was taken to the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office for identification.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Roswell used to be country, now it’s city.
Small-time government at its finest.
He probably tastes like burnt chicken...
Or just toasted nut-job.
Thank God he didn’t take any humans with him.
The Chickenman fought a determined and hard battle with Roswell....and lost. I applaud his warning the marshalls to back away from whatever he set off that blew the walls out from under the roof like a toy.
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
* December 2008: Roswell Zoning Department issues a warning for the chickens on his property. (At that time, the City of Roswell’s Code of Ordinances said “On less than two acres you MAY NOT have livestock except for poultry and swine.”) The City decided to issue a citation anyway. Mayor Wood attempts to step in and stop the city, but the city moves forward. Both parties head to court.
* Spring 2009: Mr. Wordes hires former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes to represent him against the city. Both parties presented their cases to Judge Maurice Hilliard who issued a dismissal of the case against the Chicken Man.
*
Summer 2009: The Roswell City Council rewrites the law, without a ‘grandfather clause’, to make all but 6 chickens on a property illegal–directly targeting and affecting Mr. Wordes. The law further states that the ‘legal’ chickens must remain in a permanent enclosure.**
(**Mr. Wordes property sits on a flood plain. 3-4 feet of water rises on his property when it storms. Because of this, the city would not issue a permit for a permanent enclosure, therefore making it ‘illegal’ for him to have his birds. This is important because after the storms and flooding in September 2009, with a 6 foot storm surge of Storm Water the sewer backed causing 4 feet of Storm Water and SEWAGE in the basement of his home. In order to save his home AND his chickens, Mr. Wordes borrowed a BobCat to move the dirt around. He was subsequently issued citations for too many chickens, grading of property without a permit and too many cars on his property. The City also would not submit requests for FEMA funds for the property. The property has flooded several times since this initial flood.)
* Additionally
* The City of Roswell contacted Mr. Wordes mortgage holder, an elderly woman who has held his mortgage for the entirety of his 16 years in his home. With the threat of liens, citations and grievances, the City pressures Wordes’ mortgage broker into SELLING the note to another broker for 50 cents on the dollar. The current mortgage broker is attempting to foreclose on Mr. Wordes home.
* Mr. Wordes reports to court for his citations after the flood. Judge Hilliard again rules in his favor stating that he is ‘grandfathered in’ to the new law, but must complete 180 hours of community service for the illegal grading and the excessive number of cars on his property. Unbeknown to him, his sentence of Community service also requested him to be on probation which he was unaware of and immediately requested that he be allowed to pay the fine.
* Mr. Wordes is harassed by the Roswell Police Department as well. He is pulled over more times than we can count, thrown in jail on multiple occasions, and given a number of petty citations. It’s common for multiple police cars to sit at the end of Mr. Wordes street and ‘wait’.
* The City of Roswell files Zoning violation for having a Nuisance property and he is appointed a Public Defender of course to be paid for by The City of Roswell. His court appointed counsel states in court that the ordinance is vague and the city will likely lose again.
* Roswell later additionally files a 55-page civil suit against Mr. Wordes in an attempt to take his property from him again charging him with having a Nuisance property. This is the first civil suit to attempt to take a man’s property in the history of Roswell. This civil suit was filed in attempt to deny Mr. Wordes his right to a public defender, as he can no longer afford to pay for representation. Fortunately because of Mr. Wordes involvement with Georgia Carry, they have provided legal representation for him.
* The City lists Mr. Wordes home on the ‘Roswell 2030 Plan’ as a green space and parks area, publicly announcing and solidifying their effort to take his property. (View the plan here http://www.roswellgov.com/DocumentView.aspx?DID=1552 –the road you’re looking for is Alpine Drive. Can you believe this? He is still the lawful owner of his property but the City has a 20-year-plan to dissolve that. Note that Mr. Wordes has offered to SELL his property to the City, but they have declined. Instead, they want to take the long and painful route of forcing him into foreclosure so the property can be purchased at a reduced price. This would also prevent Roswell from having to face pending lawsuit for damages, “inverse condemnation” and taking of his property, and the many civil rights and due process suits which would follow.
* July 2011: Mr. Wordes leaves his home to attend a political rally. When he returns home, he finds that all of his chickens have been let out and feed is all over the ground. The next day, his birds begin to die. Mr. Wordes realizes that someone has poisoned his birds. Over the course of the next few days, Mr. Wordes loses 1/3 of his livestock, including 45 baby turkeys (10 of which belonged to Roswell Mayor Jere Wood), 25 chicks and 6 adult birds. I spoke with Mr. Wordes personally and he claims there is no doubt in his mind who was behind the poisoning. He alleges that it was his next door neighbor who has rallied with the city through this entire process. You see, Mr. Wordes has a very private backyard that is surrounded by woods. From the street, however, it would appear that people were home because there were a couple of cars parked in the driveway. Unfortunately, Mr. Wordes posted on his Facebook page that he would be attending this political rally. Mr. Wordes has indications that lead him to believe that his neighbor monitors the page through other names (via his neighbors own personal website that has a page dedicated to ‘The Chicken Man’). Mr. Wordes alleges that this neighbor is the only one that would 1) know the seclusion of the property, 2) have access to the property in addition to knowing where everything is and 3) have a motive to commit such an atrocity. A police report has been filed, but is not moving forward at this point due to the lack of proof. The birds were taken to two different forensic labs to determine the source of poisoning but the necropsies have not yet returned. In the meantime, this has become an economic hardship on Mr. Wordes since he cannot sell the eggs from his hens since the poisoning.
* Mr. Wordes is due in court August 10 at 2:30pm (a specially scheduled hearing on a day the court is not usually in session) . The hearing is public at the Roswell Municipal Court. He will be arguing a probation violation for missing a ‘check-in’ over the time his birds had been poisoned. At that hearing Mr Wordes is taken into custody and ordered to serve the remainer of his probation for a trumped up zoning violation amounting to 99 days in jail.
* Roswell of course invited the press and issued a press release stating Mr Wordes house is vacant and the RPD will be keeping an eye on things. Of course with in hours, began the three month long ransacking and looting of his home. Everything of value was stolen or destroyed including a large collection of firearms, weapons and ammunition that in the hands of criminals puts the entire community at risk.
Mr. Wordes was foreclosed on while he was in jail for 3 month (for a minor city zoning violation). When jailed the Roswell Police refused his access to his records, to contact his Bankruptcy attorney, was refused to attend a court ordered hearing held for the benefit of him and his creditors in United States Federal Bankruptcy Court and by doing so Roswell refused to allow Mr. Wordes to provide the Bankruptcy Trustee with documentation he had ordered him to provide. That information gave the Bankruptcy Trustee the right to HALT the foreclosure on his home of 16 years while still protecting the mortgage holder.
Roswell opened their court room and held court on an unscheduled day instead of waiting until the next week and maade an annoinccemnt to the press stating his house would be vacant and Roswell Police would keep an eye on it. It was less than 24 hours before the City Chief, Dwain Orr and The CIty Manager Kay Love were informed in a meeting with a prominent citizen that Mr Wordes house had already been the scene of a burglary and looting and Mr Wordes had a extensive firearms collection. Their statement was that they were not going to do anything and thanks to Roswell there is a large cache of weapons and ammo in the hands of criminals.
IF NO ONE DOES ANYTHING, JUST THINK, THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU OR ONE OF YOUR FAMILY NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can read more about what is happened by following these links.
https://theperspicaciousconservative...warded-rights/
http://theperspicaciousconservative....e-chicken-man/
http://theperspicaciousconservative....l-chicken-man/
He was driven to act because the city of Roswell was determined to f#ck him out of his property...with or without his permission.
They wanted “Greenspace” dammit.
See above post.
That was uncalled for.
“IF NO ONE DOES ANYTHING, JUST THINK, THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU OR ONE OF YOUR FAMILY NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Note to self: Pick up a dozen Extra-Large at the Buy-Low..
Stop pecking on me just because my humor is nothing to crow about.
“The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and who comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause. The man who at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, fails while daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who never knew victory or defeat.”
I thought for one frightened moment that something had happened to Marietta’s Big Chicken.
Damn straight.
I believe I’m gonna get a “Chickenman” shirt made up to wear as I go about my work in that part of town.
I’m devastated by this.
This man reached out to me last month for help, and I had no way that I could think of to do so.
*head in hands*
Jackass.
I’m sorry to read your post...what a sad story.
There is at least another thread about this where you can aim your insults at joking “jackasses”, probably all of the posters there.
I feel your pain, seriously, but this is Internet, and some if not most of the stories are impersonal to almost all of us, so it’s extremely rare to encounter someone personally involved in the case. Sorry.
G*D BLESS AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE. -- Andrew Wordes AKA The Roswell Chicken ManThank you for supporting out Constitution and helping people see how governement is taking us over one at a time. If they could do this to me, just think you could be next. Please support me in my fight to stop a corrupt city from doing any more damage to me.
He was a nut-job.
Self-immolation is not how we protest onerous State actions.
I am sorry if you have a personal connection. It doesn’t change the facts as presented.
No one is justifying self-immolation.
But you’re still acting like a jackass.
Don’t you have any compassion for suffering human beings?
Do the circumstances that led to a fellow citizen feeling this hopeless and helpless against tyrannical government affect you at all?
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