Posted on 01/27/2007 1:36:11 PM PST by tpaine
By Vin Suprynowicz
For years, Garry Watson, 49, of little Bunker, Mo., (population 390) had been squabbling with town officials over the sewage line easement which ran across his property to the adjoining, town-operated sewage lagoon.
Residents say officials grew dissatisfied with their existing easement, and announced they were going to excavate a new sewer line across the landowner's property. Capt. Chris Ricks of the Missouri Highway Patrol reports Watson's wife, Linda, was served with "easement right-of-way papers" on Sept. 6. She gave the papers to Watson when he got home at 5 a.m. the next morning from his job at a car battery recycling plant northeast of Bunker. Watson reportedly went to bed for a short time, but arose about 7 a.m. when the city work crew arrived.
"He told them 'If you come on my land, I'll kill you,' " Bunker resident Gregg Tivnan told me last week. "Then the three city workers showed up with a backhoe, plus a police officer. They'd sent along a cop in a cop car to guard the workers, because they were afraid there might be trouble. Watson had gone inside for a little while, but then he came out and pulled his SKS (semi-automatic rifle) out of his truck, steadied it against the truck, and he shot them."
Killed in the September 7 incident, from a range of about 85 yards, were Rocky B. Gordon, 34, a city maintenance man, and David Thompson, 44, an alderman who supervised public works. City maintenance worker Delmar Eugene Dunn, 51, remained in serious but stable condition the following weekend.
Bunker police Officer Steve Stoops, who drove away from the scene after being shot, was treated and released from a hospital for a bullet wound to his arm and a graze to the neck.
Watson thereupon kissed his wife goodbye, took his rifle, and disappeared into the woods, where his body was found two days later -- dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Following such incidents, the local papers are inevitably filled with well-meaning but mawkish doggerel about the townsfolk "pulling together" and attempting to "heal" following the "tragedy." There are endless expressions of frustration, pretending to ask how such an otherwise peaceful member of the community could "just snap like that."
In fact, the supposedly elusive explanation is right before our eyes.
"He was pushed," Clarence Rosemann -- manager of the local Bunker convenience store, who'd done some excavation work for Watson -- told the big-city reporters from St. Louis. Another area resident, who didn't want to be identified, told the visiting newsmen, "Most people are understanding why Garry Watson was upset. They are wishing he didn't do it, but they are understanding why he did it."
You see, to most of the people who work in government and the media these days -- especially in our urban centers -- "private property" is a concept out of some dusty, 18th century history book. Oh, sure, "property owners" are allowed to live on their land, so long as they pay rent to the state in the form of "property taxes."
But an actual "right" to be let alone on our land to do whatever we please -- always providing we don't actually endanger the lives or health of our neighbors?
Heavens! If we allowed that, how would we enforce all our wonderful new "environmental protection" laws, or the "zoning codes," or the laws against growing hemp or tobacco or distilling whisky without a license, or any of the endless parade of other malum prohibitum decrees which have multiplied like swarms of flying ants in this nation over the past 87 years?
What does it mean to say we have any "rights" or "freedoms" at all, if we cannot peacefully enjoy that property which we buy with the fruits of our labors?
In his 1985 book "Takings," University of Chicago Law Professor Richard Epstein wrote that, "Private property gives the right to exclude others without the need for any justification.
Indeed, it is the ability to act at will and without need for justification within some domain which is the essence of freedom, be it of speech or of property."
"Unfortunately," replies James Bovard, author of the book "Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen," "federal law enforcement agents and prosecutors are making private property much less private. ...
Park Forest, Ill. in 1994 enacted an ordinance that authorizes warrantless searches of every single-family rental home by a city inspector or police officer, who are authorized to invade rental units 'at all reasonable times.' ... Federal Judge Joan Gottschall struck down the searches as unconstitutional in 1998, but her decision will have little or no effect on the numerous other localities that authorize similar invasions of privacy."
We are now involved in a war in this nation, a last-ditch struggle in which the other side contends only the king's men are allowed to use force or the threat of force to push their way in wherever they please, and that any peasant finally rendered so desperate as to employ the same kind of force routinely employed by our oppressors must surely be a "lone madman" who "snapped for no reason." No, we should not and do not endorse or approve the individual choices of folks like Garry Watson. But we are still obliged to honor their memories and the personal courage it takes to fight and die for a principle, even as we lament both their desperate, misguided actions ... and the systematic erosion of our liberties which gave them rise.
The law relating to easements can indeed get pretty complicated. The strange loopholes are most often the result of a failure of the parties to come to agreement before they reduce their intent to writing.
Easements can for the most part be divided into two rather broad classes. Those that are personal in nature or which encumber an entire holding, are classified as easements engross. On the other hand, some easements are created for the express purpose of benefiting some other parcel of property are know as easements appurtenant.
The easements created expressly for the benefit of some other property in almost all cases flow with the title to the dominant tenement. Thus, the new owner of a property which was burdened by an easement will take title subject to the same burden as the former owner. Easements appurtenant with rare exceptions can last forever.
Easements that are personal in nature may or may not flow with the title. In my example above about picking apples the right granted is personal. To insure that that right remained intact, a transfer of title should expressly state that the personal easement is intended to pass also.
Try to remember that easements are intangible. You cannot see them and you cannot touch them. Easements are rights. Some can be located while others float around awaiting some event that will allow them to rest in a specific place.
In the case being hacked to pieces here, most likely the town held an easement engross which may or may not have been a floater.
I have been working with land boundaries for more that 50 years. I have surveyed them, defined them and argued their location in Court. I have been employed as a right of way agent and as an appraiser of real property. Sometimes I was even charged with negotiating the purchase of land for sewers just like the one under discussion here.
If I were on a Jury in a trial to determine who was at fault here I would without hesitation lay blame at the feet of those public officials who were in charge of this sad affair.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
--Thanks upallnight, for clearly showing your obsession about GA, -- and your frustration at being unable to refute my position.---
You could clear it up with a simple yes or no but you continue to distract and divert. You credibility is falling.
A yapping dog threatens your safety? I feel sorry for you.
--Though this happened over 20 years ago, I believe he did.--
Don't go posting stories on what you believe. If he didn't call the cops then he didn't exhaust available resources. You don't know.
Since you have so little faith in our government, please move to North Korea. They will take better care of you there.
--And calling the authorities? I actually had a neighbor call the authorities on me once on something very minor that I would have happily rectified immediately. --
Huh? Nobody is advocating calling the cops prior to working it out one-on-one. Perhaps you had had previous problems with this neighbor and he felt that he could no longer work things out with you based on your previous behavior?
--And calling the authorities?--
Perhaps you don't know how to work with the authorities. Try looking inside at your attitude.
Yep.
--And calling the authorities? --
You might find your relationships with the police a little better if you didn't go around saying we should kill them.
>>A yapping dog threatens your safety? I feel sorry for you<<
Huh?
>>Perhaps you had had previous problems with this neighbor and he felt that he could no longer work things out with you based on your previous behavior?<<
Nope.
>>Huh? Nobody is advocating calling the cops prior to working it out one-on-one. <<
I was responding to a post where it was implied that FIRST you call the authorities. I was verbosely disagreeing.
You were responding to a post about a yapping dog by implying that one needn't bother calling the cops since they won't protect your safety.
>>Perhaps you don't know how to work with the authorities. Try looking inside at your attitude.<<
Attitude? It is interesting that you, of all people, would use that word. ;)
BTW, I have a very good relationship with the authorities, some are even friends of mine.
--I was responding to a post where it was implied that FIRST you call the authorities. I was verbosely disagreeing.--
I know. Your position is that we should eliminate the "little hitlers".
--BTW, I have a very good relationship with the authorities, some are even friends of mine.--
Are they aware of your feelings that they should be eliminated? Or do you really not mean what you post here.
"You gotta kill the grunts in the foxholes to get to Hitler."
You could clear it up with a simple yes or no but you continue to distract and divert. You credibility is falling.
I answered your silly leading question once. -- And you rejected that, demanding a "yes or no". -- You've 'fallen' into an obsession. Get help.
>>Are they aware of your feelings that they should be eliminated? Or do you really not mean what you post here.
"You gotta kill the grunts in the foxholes to get to Hitler."<<
For some jurisdictions they would strongly agree with me.
But regardless, you miss my point.
The best I can determine is that:
1. You approve of the GA bill.
2. I approve of the GA bill.
3. The GA bill allows the employer to prohibit what is brought onto his private parking lot.
4. You called me a gun-grabber.
ERGO - You are a gun-grabber?
I know none of this makes sense, just hoping you would clear it up.
--For some jurisdictions they would strongly agree with me. --
Which jurisdictions agree with murdering civil servants? I would like to know and bring it to the attention of the proper authorities.
--I was responding to a post where it was implied that FIRST you call the authorities.--
Keep up with the thread. He explicity stated that he tried to work it out with his neighbor first.
--I was responding to a post where it was implied that FIRST you call the authorities.--
The leading question?
After further review, do you still support the GA bill?
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