Utah Justice?

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Utah Justice?

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

Puullllleeeez!!!! Obviously the cops in Orem have nothing better to do with their time.
BTW, isn't everybody's lawn in Utah brown? The whole state was brown when we lived there!

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Aren't there some polygamists out there they can go after. My goodness. The west is in a drought but they want you to have a green lawn. Please!

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

At least she's got Gloria Allred now. She'll whoop 'em. I think that's the plan with the "not guilty" strategy... you can nail them later for giving her grief to the tune of a few $mill.

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

If the Orem police and court system had any sense of self-preservation and interest in saving face they would drop the whole thing. I mean, what District attorney in their right mind would really want to prosecute this? But no, they can't possibly admit they were wrong for approaching the lady about her lawn in the first place.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Can you imagine watching this on COPS? It would totally break the stereotype of that show only staring young latino and black males!

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

I heard about this while I was in Utah. Man alive, I would be locked up forever since I refuse to pay that much money to water my lawn.

I'm sure there was some city ordinance or homeowner's decree or something they are spouting. If that's the case, then why didn't the neighbors help out with her lawn? I'm just shocked this could happen.

And yeah, I'm smelling lawsuit.

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

As a person who does have a sprinkler system cuz it came with the house, but we never use it cuz it's never worked properly and we don't want the water bill that comes with it, we'd be locked up forever too. Our grass was browning a bit from the drought this summer but after a few good rains our grass is just as green as the neighbors who did water their lawn.
Doesn't anyone know that grass goes dormant in drought conditions??? It's not dead.

-- Edited by Poncho29 at 13:14, 2007-09-19

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

It's not dead.

I'm not dead yet! I'm feeling better!

Hoss Cartwright · Senior Member

I'm moving to Orem, because all of the crack dealers are obviously in jail.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Nope they had to let them out because the jails were overcrowded with serious offenders like this old lady, the guy the smuggled in a non low flow toilet from Canada for his house, and the poor older gentleman who removed the tag from his mattress that said, "Do not remove under penalty of law."

Crack dealers are small timers compared to these hardened criminals.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Dude, the tags on pillows and mattresses, if you actually read them, says no one BUT THE CONSUMER can remove them. HELLOOOOO! I'm offended, here!!

Janey · Senior Member

From a previous news article, they decided to prosecute because they have ticketed several other people for the same thing. They didn't want to let her off the hook just because the officer fouled up the initial meeting big-time. The others just accepted the ticket. This lady is freaking out.

Yes, it's stupid to require green lawns during a drought in Utah. But, also from a previous article, the cops didn't find this lady on her own. Neighbors called in complaints.

It's all-around idiotic, but the lady is just as big of an idiot as the police are.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

No. I think the neighbors are big idiots. She's an old lady. What's her income? What's her ability to move around and water her lawn? This is all nonsense.

Whose business is it if your neighbor has a brown lawn?

This is exactly the sort of crap that gives Utahns a bad name, and though chances are there're no mormons involved, everyone's gonna think it's those intolerant mormons who are busy oppressing their neighbors...

--Ray

-- Edited by rayb at 20:34, 2007-09-19

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

Utah doesn't have the corner on idiot neighbors. Despite my earlier post I seriously doubt that the police go around canvassing the neighborhoods for people with brown lawns. They just follow up on complaints.
In our city, there is an ordinance that your lawn can't be more than a certain length.
Well, there was a time where we had neighbors call the city to complain that our lawn was too tall.
Even though it was during a time period where we were having almost constant rain and there was little opportunity to cut our lawn. We knew darn well it needed cut, we just never had a chance to do it. About the only day it didn't rain was a Sunday and of course we weren't going to do it then.
So the city came out and marked it and if we didn't get it cut within a certain period of time then they would've sent someone out to cut it for us and then would've billed us for it.

Some idiotic people seem to think that if your lawn isn't in pristine condition then it is a reflection on them and it will decrease their property value. To worry about your lawn or anyone else's lawn looks during a drought is just stupid.

And even though it really wasn't fair, the lady should have just paid the ticket and let it go. It would've saved her a whole heep of trouble. Then she should have gone and beat up her neighbors. I don't the think the good neighbor policy exists anymore.

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

I don't the think the good neighbor policy exists anymore.

Two thoughts. First, we should be those good neighbors. I like those commercials for some insurance company that shows people doing something good and another observing it. Then that person does something good, and so forth. As we are good neighbors, we can hope that, in turn, our neighbors can be good.

Second, this past winter we had a buttload of snow. I had gotten my car stuck at the bottom of my driveway. As I'm digging out with my shovel, my next door neighbor (man) got stuck in his driveway with his truck. He got his snowblower out, began "digging" his truck out while blowing the snow in my face! And he knew it because he looked up sheepishly and apologized. When he was done and got his truck in the garage, he put away his snowblower, waved at me still digging out my car, and went inside. About 3-4 days later, we got another buttload of snow. So much that they cancelled work. I had waist-high snow in my driveway. I began shoveling the snow and would get so cold and tired that I would stop after 45 min to go inside and thaw out. After doing this for about 4 hrs or so (I made a path from the front door to the driveway, then cleared about 1 foot of the driveway during this time), I was inside thawing when I heard a loud noise. My neighbor from across the street had come over with his snowblower and was plowing my driveway for me. Examples to me of good neighbor vs. thoughtless neighbor.

Janey · Senior Member

I remember this story the day it happened. It actually made the evening news because they had such good visuals. They ran a tape of a lady with a scraped up nose and chin, pointing to the blood smeared on her door frame. She told the story about how the cop had shoved her down while trying to handcuff her, and she hit her face on the door frame and got scraped up.

Great story, huh? Except it never happened. She tripped while trying to go back into her house to call her son when the cop asked for her name. By the second day, every news report (I read a couple) said she had tripped. The accusation of police brutality was gone like it never existed.

But it was the accusation that the cop had shoved her down that garnered all the media attention that first day, and that's the reason anyone has been following this story. There's nothing noteworthy about being cited for an ugly lawn. If she'd called the reporters and said "I fell and hurt myself while a cop was here" they wouldn't have run the story.

So while we're busy slamming the Orem officers, let's remember that the only reason this story got any national media attention at all is because the lady is a bald-faced liar. She called the reporters, told them lies, and the reporters believed her. If there was anything to her initial story at all, news reports would still be reporting the "alleged police misconduct" but there isn't enough fact to even support a whisper of an allegation anymore. Of course the media never admitted that they'd reported her lies as truth, and never apologized for not checking facts before running the story and embarrassing the police.

I have no sympathy for liars and I hope they throw the book at her. It's too bad they can't sue for slander, but public officials like police officers are limited on being able to sue for slander and libel.

Stories like this make me mistrust pretty much every report of outrageous events. The media leave out two-thirds of the story. I bet if you knew the real story behind all those outrageous stories, you wouldn't be outraged at all.

-- Edited by Janey at 09:34, 2007-09-20

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

rayb wrote:
No. I think the neighbors are big idiots. She's an old lady. What's her income? What's her ability to move around and water her lawn? This is all nonsense.

You've asked some questions that seem to assume that a 70-year old woman is too poor and too old to move around and water her lawn. I know one 70 year old that watered 1 1/2 acres of lawn and garden with hose and sprinklers every day of summer.

As Janey has so aptly illustrated, nobody here knows the whole story about this situation, and the facts that we do have shows that the woman in question hasn't proven herself to be the most reliable source of information.

Move on, people. There's nothing to see here.

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

Come on, bok. We are doing what we do best. Commenting on a specific piece of an article or comment.

I still say it's stupid to cite someone for brown grass. My patchy brown/green grass hopefully won't get anyone's attention other than the birds.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

By doing what we do best, you mean harping on ultimately meaningless bits of current events?

I agree about citing someone for brown grass. Are we positive that is really what it was about, and not junk and waist high weeds? I don't know. I haven't followed this story at all.

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

Well, Janey is right. A story can be very biased when you only have pieces of it and very little fact.
While it was idiotic for the neighbors to complain about the ladies brown lawn, who knows maybe this 70 year old woman was a mean old lady that even the neighbors are afraid of.
She obviously is milking this for all it's worth and yes, she is a liar and liars will do anything to make someone else look bad.
I work in a pharmacy and so I see alot of elderly people. They are either very nice and pleasant to deal with or they are the meanest, nastiest people you would ever meet in your life and we cringe every time they walk in the door.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Bok: If the lady can't even walk on her own sidewalk without tripping, how's she supposed to keep her lawn nice and green?

Yeah, we're carping about something we don't know the whole story about... mostly because of the stupidity of it all... the story's out there...

SO when the legal system does have its say, and they file in favor of the old woman, THEN can we call the cops and neighbors idiots? :)

--Ray

Janey · Senior Member

Nah, I think the legal system will find in favor of the cops and neighbors. What gives you the idea she's innocent besides the fact that she's elderly and is milking this for all its worth? She's been cited for having a dead lawn, which everyone agrees is true, so she'll lose on that count. And she's been cited for interfering with a police officer because she wouldn't tell the officer her name. That's also true. He asked her name. That was when this whole silly situation went south. She refused to tell the officer her name. Now there's a hill to die on.

I object to the city just letting this go solely because she's so embarrassing. That tells the next obnoxious person (not a criminal, just garden variety obnoxiousness) that they can get out of their ticket by threatening to call the paper, tell lies about how they were treated, and generally scare the city with a lawsuit.

I think she ought to be treated just as if this wasn't in the papers. And if that means a citation, then she gets cited. I hope the city can stick it out.

Otherwise, the next time the cops get called to break up a noisy party at 2 a.m., the party's host will tell the cop to get lost or they'll call the papers and say the cop was waving his gun around, even though the gun never left the holster. Heck, if the reporters will believe it, does it matter if it's true? You can get out of a ticket!

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Ooh-kay... so essentially you're saying that the Brown-shirt Lawn law is a good thing, and that she shoulda taken her lumps.

I think that law is ridiculous and deserves to be ridiculed. I think I have a right as a human being living in a desert to have a brown lawn.

--Ray

PS> I also like to gripe. :)

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

One thing I thought I heard early in the story was that she had several offers of help with her lawn which she repeatedly declined. Who knows... (I'm with Janey now

)

Janey · Senior Member

I think the lawn law is kind of dumb. They should change it to a prohibition against having an unkempt yard. Perhaps Orem City Council will change their ordinance to what is actually enforced, which is that you have to take some basic care of your yard. There are several nicely xeriscaped yards in Orem that I've seen. I haven't heard of anyone prosecuting people who maintain yards without grass though. Now that would be a great outrageous story - somebody getting in trouble for planting bushes that use 1/4 the water that grass uses.

So go ahead and ridicule the law. I don't think people have a right to let their yards go completely to weed, even in a desert (not just turn brown - why does everyone think she just had some brown areas in an otherwise green lawn and not a completely dead filthy weedpatch?). But even if the law was just a prohibition against an unkempt yard, she would likely still be in violation, and her false accusations against the cop are inexcusable. Be sure to ridicule her behavior too.

I think the dumb law is the lesser evil, compared with calling reporters and telling them a cop shoved you when you tripped.

Janey · Senior Member

I took a waterwise landscaping class a couple years ago. The instructor mentioned that it was only in the past ten years or so that Utah cities have started changing their ordinances to NOT require grass in the parking strips. Now you can put rock there, or xeriscape bushes. Keeping a parking strip green is pretty water-intensive because it's surrounded by concrete and asphalt.

So the laws are changing. I expect several cities will look at their ordinances about lawns as a result of this fiasco. That will be great. Of course, xericscape yards are more labor intensive than ordinary lawns because of the weeding. You can't just spray for weeds around bushes like you can in a lawn. Means a lot more mulching and weed pulling. Plus, you have to spot water new plants, prune bushes, deadhead flowers, stuff like that. Xeriscape isn't just filling the yard with rocks; it's gardening with desert plants.

No way could that lady handle the upkeep of a xeriscaped yard if she couldn't handle something as easy as a lawn. Somehow I didn't get the impression that saving water was her motivation anyway. Maybe she ought to consider buying a condo.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Of course, it's always easier to dictate to others policies that we don't personally hold a stake in... and since I live in the pacific northwest where I don't have to water my lawn... and have a huge hedge of rhotodendrons around my yard so no one can even see my yard... well... I think all those utah folks are yard-nazis.

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Rhodo-hedge?!? NO FAIR!!!

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

I can't find anything in the Orem City Code that requires a person to water their lawn. There are ordinances against overgrown weeds and junk in the yard, and the code outlines a process for serving notice with minimum periods within which the owner of the property must abate the nuisance, after which the the city will do it and bill the owner.

Maybe somebody with sharper eyes than mine can find the "green grass ordinance". Because we know that anything that is printed in the paper must be true.

Janey · Senior Member

Yeesh, I'm not reading city codes. How boring.

Hey look! I made it to Veteran Member! Maybe I ought to get an avatar now or something official.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I suggest a picture of brown grass, you brown grass loving lawyer lady!!

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

bokbadok wrote:

Because we know that anything that is printed in the paper must be true.

No, no. It's anything that's on TEEVEE must be true.

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

No, if it's written in the National Enquirer THEN it must be true.

arbilad · Head Chef

Cocobeem wrote:

bokbadok wrote:

Because we know that anything that is printed in the paper must be true.

No, no. It's anything that's on TEEVEE must be true.

Oh man, I'm totally cut off from truth then. I don't subscribe to a paper and I turned off the satellite service a while ago. I get all my news off the internet.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Bountiful, in particular?

arbilad · Head Chef

What makes you think that I spend a large amount of time here?

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

YOu don't need news, Arbi... you have chickens... and that's what counts. :)

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

We all don't need news! We ARE the news! Yeah!

Janey · Senior Member

Here's another fun news item involving Utah police officers, just for your reading pleasure:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1847808

I'm beginning to think that giving police officers tasers is a bad idea.

And if you're going to assault a police officer, you should at least get your baby out of the tub first.

Good grief.

I've heard that Utah has a really high rate of anti-depressant usage. Stuff like this makes you think it isn't high enough.

(those are pills)

-- Edited by Janey at 13:08, 2007-09-22

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

I've heard that too about Utahans and anti-depressants.

Makes you wonder.

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

Janey wrote:

Here's another fun news item involving Utah police officers, just for your reading pleasure:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1847808

I'm beginning to think that giving police officers tasers is a bad idea.

And if you're going to assault a police officer, you should at least get your baby out of the tub first.

Good grief.

I've heard that Utah has a really high rate of anti-depressant usage. Stuff like this makes you think it isn't high enough. (those are pills)

-- Edited by Janey at 13:08, 2007-09-22

Janey, I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that police officers shouldn't tase people? That you feel that is too much force for an officer to use?

And what does anti-depressants have to do with this story? I didn't see it mentioned in this article that you linked to.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

If you're on anti-depressants, you won't care so much if you're tased?