re: #180 Ghost of Tom Joad

Guy clubs a dog to death with a lead pipe, shoots at the family across his road (before this whole kidnapping incident) yet he was walking around free to do as he pleased. I don’t see how he wasn’t locked up for something already. Am I wrong here, or is it just Alabama?

I started to say “say just the south” but, well, I lived in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado for a while and so I know better. Unless you live in the dense population zones, beating a dog to death will get you frowned upon but so long as it’s on your own property the worst you’ll get is a misdemeanor fine. Shooting at someone walking up a shared dirt driveway? Claim you were practicing and didn’t see them, have no felonies or sustained record of misdemeanors, and/or have lived there for a long time, and you’ll have a manageable bail.

He’s probably done a lot of things - reports I’ve read says he has a ‘reputation’ - but he’ll have had the benefit of “everyone knows what a kook he is”. Nobody pushed anything to a complaint, either because they were afraid or because they were the newer people and didn’t want to be ostracized by the long-timers, or perhaps because making the complaint was just more trouble than it was worth. So he’s just the guy everyone keeps an eye on when he’s around, and everyone’s happy he spends almost all his time in his bunker.

Note the above isn’t from reading about this guy. It’s my experience with others like that in the places mentioned as well as Georgia and Texas. He’s not unique, except he crossed the line.