Arlington, TX to home owner "we don't give a shit about your property rights"

[RB TexLa]

Police: Homeowner Assaulted Official Removing Racist Graffiti
Last Edited: Wednesday, 19 Mar 2008, 8:27 PM CDT
Created: Wednesday, 19 Mar 2008, 6:17 PM CDT

Police on Wednesday cited an Arlington homeowner for allegedly assaulting a city worker who was intent on removing racist graffiti from his home.

Officials said Broderick Gamble pushed the woman when city workers attempted to remove racial slurs spray-painted on his garage doors.

The vandalism occurred in December, around the same time Gamble's wife, Silk Littlejohn, was attacked by a woman who is now charged with a hate crime.

The graffiti had adorned the home for several months and Gamble had said publicly that he wanted it to serve as a reminder of the racial discrimination that he and his wife have suffered.

City officials said they gave the couple plenty of time to remove the paint and finally gave them a deadline of 11 days, which the pair ignored.



http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=6078862&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

[Vinca]

1. Have to side with the home owner on the initial complaint.

Isn't it your first amendment right to have words on your house? That said, they can't be shoving people around.

[Wizard777]

5. The Neighborhood Nazi Associations don't recognize the US Constitution.

Apparently freedom lowers property values. Right now the biggest threat to freedom in America doesn't come from Al Qaida or their partners in Crime the Bush administration. It's coming from Condo boards and neighborhood associations. They are attacking the core of freedom. The American dream of the American home. They are destroying property rights. Now you have a say about every home in the neighborhood except your own. You don't decide what color to paint your home. You decide what color to paint every home in the neighborhood. I even had one disagreement with a condo board. Their rules were violating my constitutional rights. They told me "the Constitution does not apply to condominium law." I told them then this is War. My property is America and I'm now at war with your quasi government that isn't America. The Judge told them the Constitution absolutely applies to condo law and to pay up or else.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

19. sorry...

HOA and condo boards are in full compliance with the law in just about every regard. you are notified prior to purchase that you will be entering into a contract with the HOA as part of your purchase. that contract is legal and binding...you violate it...you lose.

sP

[Javaman]

20. LOL that's priceless!!

There are countless examples of people suing the HOA and winning.

HOA are little Nazi fiefdom run by control freaks.

solar panels, clothes lines, color of houses, mail boxes, types of lawns, all have been issues and have been over turned by courts as freedoms of speech.

HOA all should burn in hell. The are resource sucking, self aggrandizing little cults of personalities that care nothing of their neighbor and only for the want of power.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

21. i am not saying that these things don't suck

but there are plenty of cases where HOA's and condo boards get their judgments upheld in the courts...otherwise they would not exist.

sP

[Contrary1]

22. Last Spring the husband and I found the perfect home to retire in...

Master bedroom on lower level, upper level was a loft; one bedroom and an office. Five acres, two ponds, and a beautiful meadow past the wooded area. It had a 30'x20' storage building. Since we would have been replacing carpets, painting, etc. in our present home before we sold it, we could have moved in slowly at our own pace.

The HOA ruined it with their pet policy. One outdoor and one indoor pet only. And there was a limit to the size of the pet allowed too. :wtf:

[Wizard777]

33. Exactly! I fought my condo association and won.

I was also able to disolve the contract because of thier breach and language that was so vauge. There was really no way to not violate the rules. I also refused to sign a new contract. Then sold the place contract free. I don't know if the new owners bowed to threats and strong arm tactics the board was trying to use to me back under their contractual thumb. I hope not. I would hate to think that my liberation of that property from the Neighborhood Nazi's was in vain.

[MindPilot]

2. I got my education at a "code enforcement" seminar in my city.

The speaker was describing many of the more obscure violations, one of which is you are not allowed to have an inoperable vehicle in your driveway for more than two weeks. At that point I spoke up, "ok, I see where it is in the best interest of the neighborhood to not run a repair shop in your front yard, But who gives a damn if the car in the driveway doesn't start? Maybe the owner is just waiting for the next payday to get it fixed.
'
The response floored me. "Sir, this is not the wild west anymore. 'Property rights' (she made air quotes) are a thing of the past."

I walked out.

[madokie]

3. good for you

stormed out was probably more like it, huh ;-) Yep, that would have been me cussing the whole way

[Wizard777]

6. Neighborhood associations are the antithesis of property rights.

They say they protect property values. But I can't think of a more worthless piece of property than one in which I have no say. I wish I still owned a home in one of those Nazi neighborhoods. With Property values on the decline. I would be in the property managers office every day demanding that they restore the property value RIGHT FREAKING NOW! I would be at the board meeting proposing that management company be fined 1,000.00 per day for every day the property values were in a decline.

[MindPilot]

10. That wasn't someone from a HOA telling me that.

It was a government official of the of the City of San Diego.

[Elspeth]

23. A government official told you that property rights were a thing of the past?

In San Diego?

[pitohui]

9. that's an "obscure" code violation?

hot damn, i guess it IS pretty obscure, i've had hell trying to get officials to remove vehicles that have been sitting around inoperable for over TWO freakin' years by my log, let alone two weeks -- and that's before katrina, after the storm, i'm willing to cut some slack, but once FEMA removed all the dead vehicles from my street from the decent people and one slob still managed to hang on to his inoperable pieces of crap, well, it's enough to make you weep

there is an inoperable vehicle sitting across the street from me, right now, that has been there five freakin' years by my log

as this is not exactly a poor area, i can only conclude that someone is taking pay offs

this homeowner is running an used car lot out of his driveway but i do not understand the purpose of this one particular inoperable car, if it's his lucky freakin' charm or what, because it does not move, it does not get repaired, and it does not go -- and it ain't some antique or something that may one day be of value unless i guess a 1988 is an antique

when we live in close proximity to other people whose major investment -- the biggest thing they can ever dream of buying -- is their home, no, i'm sorry, we shouldn't have to put up with "property rights" if "property rights" includes junk cars, offensive graffiti, never mowing the freakin' lawn, and entire RVs parked in the street

i have property rights too, my home is just as valuable to me as their home is to them -- hell, more so, considering i'm trying to keep the place up

[MindPilot]

11. Obviously the laws are different

But it sounds like there is way more going on across from your place than just a dead car in the driveway. Again I don't know the laws in your area, but here in CA, IIRC, if you sell more than 3 (may be 5) cars in a certain period, you need a business license. Have you approached it from that angle? And if he's doing a lot of repair work on multiple vehicles in the driveway, he may be violating environmental laws too. Is oil or antifreeze running into the gutter?

[RB TexLa]

14. inforcement is a bit different when a city is trying to sweep something away

[sce56]

4. Hey they have nothing to be complaining about

Hat tip to

[pitohui]

7. well his property rights end where mine begin

what's the matter with people? sounds like a mental health issue

i bet his wife was just "thrilled" about coming home every day and seeing a reminder of the attack on her spray-painted on her fucking house -- but the hubby seems to have a short fuse and no problem about getting physical with a woman (as he shoved the city worker) so who knows the pressure he puts on his wife to go along

i'm sure the neighbors were just "thrilled" about coming home every day and seeing that kind of trash talk on a neighbor's house, which is sure to create a feeling of hostility and to make everyone feel unsafe and to drive down property values

if it was about "property rights," the property rights of everybody else in the freakin' neighborhood have to come ahead of the property rights of one embittered nutter -- the grattifi should be removed ASAP

and this guy needs to be fined and learn that you don't go shoving around women

[LanternWaste]

12. The wife had been assaulted by a neighbor prior to the graffiti

The wife had been assaulted by a neighbor prior to the graffiti due to her race as the couple were in the process of building the home. Then the 'paint job' on their door one evening. Indeed, he and his wife feel themselves to be the victims of neighborhood hostility.

He's a reasonable sort of fellow-- he was planning on keeping the original defaced door for a specific amount of time before replacing it. The reason (as per him) is that it would remind everyone in the neighborhood that racism is indeed alive and well.

However, his time frame and the city code compliance time frame weren't in agreement with each other.

He's also getting pulled back and forth by local interest groups-- his church, the neighborhood, his friends and family, etc. I think his lack of patience is due more to exasperation with getting hit by a bajillion opinions from all sides.

I've talked to the guy on a number of occasions. Although I'm neither defending nor attacking his positions, he's not mentally unstable-- he's just frustrated and afraid, which comes across as anger in many cases.

I haven't seen the film where he shoved the compliance worker, so I can't really comment on that part...

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lonestarnot]

13. K & R

[timtom]

15. Remember, "What if they gave a war and

nobody came?"

What if they built a gated community and nobody came?

I mean, we're all adults now. We have heard these stories for years now.

I wouldn't live in a gated community (or any other that had stringent neighborhood association "rules" if you gave me one.

I'd rather go live under a bridge.

BTW, I would've left the graffiti up, too, to remember how this "neighborhood association" had welcomed me.

[RB TexLa]

17. There's no neighborhood association involved in this.

[timtom]

18. Boy, do I feel like a fool.

I didn't read the original attribution. I got the neighborhood association meme upthread (I won't call it out).

But, if there HAD been a neighborhood association, this would have been a pretty clever post, huh?

[w8liftinglady]

16. the same thing happened down the street from me(about 30 miles from there)

you think these things are in the past?An African-American family moved in,only to have the same thing written on their door.They have left.I am ashamed to live here,but I can't move.All I can do is speak out against it,which I do.

[Rage for Order]

24. At least be honest and tell the whole story

http://www.star-telegram.com/arlington_news/story/538474.html

On March 5, Gamble and his fiancee, Etha Kay "Silk" Littlejohn, were notified that they had 10 days to remove the graffiti from the garage or the city would remove it for them. The city gave them until March 14 to appeal the decision.

Littlejohn and Gamble allowed the March 14 deadline to pass without informing the city of their intentions, City Attorney Jay Doegey said.

In January, KSKY/660 AM radio host Mike Gallagher donated a new pair of garage doors to the Gamble family in the aftermath of the vandalism. Gamble said he intended to install the $4,000 custom doors after he donated the spray-painted doors to the Slavery and Civil War Museum in Selma, Ala.

Doegey said Gamble had enough time to take the doors down and send them to a museum. "Had they given me a certain date, this could have mooted all of this," Doegey said. "But they never responded."



Members of the community raised $4,000 to replace this man's custom garage doors in January, delivered the doors to his house, yet the guy still wanted to leave the vandalized doors in place rather than replacing them. His claim of not taking them down yet because he wanted to donate them to a museum is bogus. He could've taken the vandalized doors off, put them in storage, and replaced them with the donated doors. That would've been the smart thing to do, especially if they were going to a museum. Doing so would've ensured that they were not damaged prior to being delivered to the museum. It appears that Mr. Gamble wanted to stoke division and resentment in his neighborhood.

[RB TexLa]

25. Or he just wanted to leave a reminder up for everyone to see.

What resentment? It was neighbors were who put it there, why would they resent it?

[Rage for Order]

26. Yes, we should focus on the negative

Don't focus on the positive, i.e. the decent members of the community who generously donated money to replace Mr. Gamble's garage doors. Instead, we should focus on the vandalism and the acts of a single racist prick. I think the people who donated money for new doors might feel a little resentment at the fact that, rather than appreciate what they did for him, Gamble elected to leave the old doors in place to remind people what happened. How about reminding people that there are many more kind neighbors who were just as upset about this as he was and wanted to do something to help?

[RB TexLa]

27. You are calling listeners of KSKY decent members of a community?

:rofl:


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[Rage for Order]

28. Nice straw man

No, I'm calling the people who donated money to buy the new garage doors decent members of the community. Mike Gallagher is an ass-hat. Good job at dodging the substance of my post though.

[RB TexLa]

29. You said they are decent human beings. I think they just wanted it swept away as soon as possible.

[Rage for Order]

30. We'll just have to disagree

I tend to think that the majority of people are good, decent people at their core. Just out of curiosity though, what do you think Mr. Gamble wanted by leaving the vandalized doors in place rather than replacing them with the new, donated doors?

[RB TexLa]

31. I'm sure he wanted everyone to be reminded of what kind of people live in the neighborhood

[Rage for Order]

32. Probably "person", not "people"

I can't imagine that the entire neighborhood was in on it. It was probably one person, no more than 2 people, who did this. My guess would be his next door neighbor lady who had charges pressed against her for assaulting Gamble's fiance.