Guest blog by Nila Ridings
I recently spent eight long days in Wichita at the federal courthouse observing the pre-trial hearing of an HOA lawsuit where a Homeowners Association board member attacked and severely beat a homeowner with a crow bar! These six photos, taken at the hospital, show the viciousness of the attack.
It seems the homeowner discovered work being done on a neighbor’s condo that also happens to belong to the mother of an HOA board member. While others had been on a long waiting list to have their work orders completed, the board member opted to make his mother’s condo top priority over everyone else. The homeowner took his camera and phone to the nearby common area and proceeded to document this “special treatment.”
The board member saw him taking pictures while looking out his condo window, grabbed a crowbar from his garage and started clobbering the camera holding homeowner. The homeowner did not fight back. Obviously, one man was taken to the hospital by ambulance and the other went to jail!
Surprisingly, the District Attorney declined to press charges. The injured homeowner proceeded to file a civil suit in federal court. And as bizarre as this sounds, the HOA members, not their insurance company, are paying all the legal bills because the board member claims his actions were part of his “official duties” as a board member. The legal bills are already estimated at more than $200,000 and the case hasn’t even gone to trial yet!
The homeowner who was beaten began sending emails expressing his anger and frustration with the board of director’s conduct. He did not send any to the defendant. He admitted to the judge that it wasn’t one of his better moments when he attached the somewhat crude “Revenge Song” by Miles Betterman. The HOA board’s legal team actually played that YouTube song in the courtroom, claiming it amounted to a “death threat” to a board member. Give me a break!
The board is seeking a court-ordered injunction to take away this HOA member’s First Amendment rights to communicate with his neighbors. The board also created an HOA “no call” list and they fine this homeowner $100 for every email he sends. The U.S. Constitution be damned!
The community is divided with supporters and haters on both sides. This community has been plagued with lawsuits causing property values to plummet. Even more dramatic, the HOA members have installed security cameras aimed at every nook and cranny of this neighbor’s condo. They even have them installed in their cars!
One other interesting note: While being interrogated about life in this Kansas Homeowners Association, the board member on the stand was asked about a suicide committed by a female resident of the HOA. The woman reportedly had told neighbors she could no longer take the harassment from this particular board member. She hanged herself from a tree right next to the entrance sign to this HOA. I was stunned: When questioned under oath about this tragedy, the board member chuckled.
Dear Readers, let me take you by the shoulders and shake you until you totally understand the madness that’s happening in American HOA neighborhoods!!! “Love thy neighbor” is a completely dead commandment when it comes to life in an HOA!
Insanity!
I cringe to think of the special assessments these HOA homeowners are going to have to fork over when the dust clears. If this homeowner wins a sizeable lawsuit over the crowbar beating or the invasion of his privacy….put a fork in it…this HOA is done!
This story is so sickening, that I’d like to close with the only amusing part of the pre-trial hearing. It involved the HOA attorney and happened on Day 2.
The HOA attorney is very large with a girth that rivals that of Governor Chris Christy. Can you envision that image? While standing at the lectern and questioning a witness his suspenders came loose letting his pants drop down to the floor on one side while he was gripping the other and still questioning the witness. The judge didn’t see it, but those of us in the gallery sure did! Priceless! I nearly burst my lungs trying to keep from laughing out loud!
(Editor’s note:)
Please help this story go viral. Every homeowner in America should read it. Send it to everyone on your email list and ask them to do the same. Send it to your friends, and make the same request to keep it moving throughout our country.
I’m including a link to the song that was actually played as evidence in this Federal Court of law in the case described above. If you are easily offended DO NOT click on the link. If, however, you do listen to the song, just keep in mind that it was introduced into the U.S. District Court record by a well-known Kansas Homeowners Association and its attorneys and is now part of the official court record. Actually, this song could eventually become the national anthem for the anti-HOA movement. Bizarre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my7sxZ0KfHU
During the Cold War, there were a group of people we called “useful idiots”, who would apologize for, downplay, or rationalize the evil empire that was the Soviet Union. These “useful idiots” were invariably on the political Left. Today’s “useful idiots” are on the political Right.
After several years of back-and-forth e-mails, the author of “Free-Market Alternatives To Zoning” added a little footnote at the end stating that “Since writing this I have learned that HOAs often do not settle disputes with homeowners in a civil manner.”
Displaying the same integrity as the Independence Institute, the New York Times published “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving” by Walter Duranty on March 31, 1933; during the peak of the Holodomor.
Mr. Duranty wrote that “But—to put it brutally—you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”. Advocates of the glorious path to collective housing — the wretched political aims of communism using ruthlessly efficient capitalist means — hold the same contempt for the individual.
I will take major issue with you on one point. There’s a huge number of ‘useful idiots’ on each side of the political aisle.
Finally….the end of Jerry Berg’s nightmare!
Thank you Shu Bartholomew for giving him this opportunity to update us all!
http://onthecommons.net/2016/09/jerry-berg-3/