As promised, my crazy-ass story from the weekend, entitled Jesus Effing Christ, the Crazy Goddamned Town I Come From
Posted by
Reagen
Jul 2 '12, 19:17
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As background, my brother is selling a small subdivision of some of his farmland to a German immigrant family (henceforce referred to as Ze Germans or ZG) moving into the area to start farming - they'd be building a house on that portion.
As a courtesy, my brother has allowed them to live there while the deal goes through, but it's currently in escrow and still his by title. ZG have already started making improvements to the property, without my brother being aware of them or allowing them - ZG had wanted to start fencing, but there's a survey that has to happen and any fence would be wildly premature (Germans being aggressive - stop me if you've heard this before). A random drive-by inspection by someone from the rural municipality sees this work in progress and they call my brother because he's still the land holder, and any improvements have to go through the RM. It's a rubber stamp, essentially, but they need to know about them for tax purposes and such and such. So a minor annoyance, but it's no problem - they just have to pause, go to the meeting, get the approval and they continue. Easy, right?
So my brother goes to see them to tell them this and thankfully takes the French university student that they're hosting for the summer with him. ZG immediately get hostile about this news and tell my brother to "Get off his property". My brother leaves to avoid confrontation (or so he thinks) and heads to his lawyer to see what his liabilities are. While he's there, he gets a panicked call from the student who he left at the house - ZG have barged into my brother's house (spurred on to this, we believe, by another of our crazy neighbours who they're friends with), punched holes in the wall and glass and pushed the student through a closet door. This is the house that I grew up in, for context.
My brother sets a landspeed record back to the house to find a mess and a rattled student clutching a shotgun. He calls the RCMP to get them to come out, and also calls my parents (did I mention we're all at a golf resort for their 50th anniversary?) to let them know what's up. My dad and another of brothers head over (we're about 45 minutes away) just to get the lay of the land and by the time they get there, they see my brother waving them away frantically - ZG (the father and two Teutonic sons) are *in the process* of kicking at the door into the house inside the garage, behind which is the student, my SIL and my brother who is guarding it with said shotgun ready to shoot anyone that comes through (and would have). Amazingly this is a door without a deadbolt that doesn't break with repeated kicking. My dad confronts them and tells them to GTFO, and they stand down and leave.
After this, the RCMP arrive and take statements, and you would think this is open and shut. They go up to talk to ZG and are told by them that my brother had hit ZG's wife (supposedly at the first confrontation which the student was witness to) and while ZGs will be charged, *my brother* is also being charged with assault. I'm the tiniest bit sympathetic to the Mounties on this point as they can't just dismiss claims out of hand, and the supposed (totally made up) assault is just a punch in the arm, or so I understand and wouldn't be a major charge, even with a contradicting witness (who was able to speak to a French speaking officer).
Later on - another officer comes by and says that no one is being charged with anything and that my brother should "keep quiet" about the whole thing because "ZG are scared of my brother". He presses the issue and insists on charging ZG, but this means that they're charging him too still. (there are mutual stay away orders between ZG and my brother which is fine by him but presents numerous awkwardness and logistical problems). So now it goes down to lawyers at ten paces but over nothing. My brother is now in the process of trying to cancel the sale and evict them at whatever the cost. We're not totally sure, but we believe ZGs aren't citizens and could end up deported, which would be the ultimate best case at this point.
TL;DR summary - my brother almost had to kill three people over a bureaucratic technicality and the Mounties were willing to ignore it to avoid some paperwork.
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