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The case of the gun toting neighbor October 12,1999 In some past entries I have talked about my neighbor Hose and his strange behavior. For those of you just tuning in I'm going to give you a brief recap. Hose lives four doors down from me, he appears to be very nice, keeps up his yard and is a stay at home father. When I first met Hose I was impressed with him, then I started hearing accounts of his strange and violent behavior. Before we moved in he blocked off the culdasac with his car and sat on the hood with a gun, pointing at Mrs. Cool who was six months pregnant. He has also been known to sit in his driveway cleaning or just holding this large rifle that looks like a military weapon verses something you would hunt with. After we moved in I began to hear about him peeking into peoples homes through the windows and how he stole things from the construction sites of the new homes. I was trying my hardest not to become overly dramatic about the situation, thinking he is just going to be the odd character that lives in the corner. Then he pulled the gun on a utility worker threatening to blow his brain outs, taunting people with words and telling them he had no problem pulling the trigger and killing someone because he is mentally ill. This is when I started to become frightened of Hose the crazy neighbor because our street is full of children and when you are waving a gun around like a mad man someone is eventually going to be hurt. I called the developer about the situation and also informed him of the blatant and obvious theft that Hose was doing and was there anything we could do. Basically I was told they were working on it. The developer told me that the police had gone out to his house several times, but for one reason or another charges were dropped against him. I informed him that since we had lived in the house the police had to be called for domestic violence. Yesterday was the day Hose was finally arrested. He was charged with theft and trespassing and taken to jail, only to have his wife post a bond for his release. I had workers at the house doing touch up work when they began to tell me that Hose is mentally ill and under psychiatric care. On several occasions he has told people on the construction sites and the developer that he could shoot and kill anyone he wanted and get away with it because he was mentally ill and could use the insanity defense. Right now as I write this he is sitting in his car infront of his house with the windows rolled down with his rifle. I don't know if he is trying to intimidate the construction crews or if he is thinking about shooting someone, who knows. I'm feeling terrified in my little yuppie neighborhood though. Hose is very unstable and I do believe he is capable of shooting up the neighborhood without a second thought. Even though the police have been called, as long as is he is on his property and not "threatening" anyone with the rifle then there is nothing they can do. The police basically told us that they really cannot do anything until he hurts someone. Is there something wrong with this picture?
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