Free Ward Bird? Yes, but a Caveat

For those of you who haven't heard the case of Ward Bird (you can get the one-sided view at http://freewardbird.org/) he is a local man in my neck of the woods who lives down the end of a country road and apparently has up a lot of NO TRESPASSING signs. He was charged with threatening a woman with his gun who went past the signs looking for help. Depending on whom you believe, there's either no way had he done anything and the woman made up the entire story and is off her rocker or he acted like a madman to her for no reason.

My suspicions are that the truth is somewhere in the middle. In this neck of the woods it's hard for me to believe that the local law enforcement would have taken the woman's word as gospel and pushed the issue this far without there being some substance. Then there's the fact that a jury of his peers convicted him of the crimes he was charged with. I can't imagine people I know in this area of the state not giving him the benefit of the doubt without there being something more to the story. Still, I don't know in looking at the transcripts if I would have voted for a conviction on the most serious of the charges. I can't be sure that the slanted web-site has the transcripts un-edited though.

Even so, he didn't deserve the sentence he got which was three years in prison. At a time when we're letting many more dangerous criminals out on the street, we're going to keep a man who (maybe) waved a gun at someone in jail and let more violent criminals go free? It just doesn't make sense. So today when it was announced that although he isn't being pardoned he will be let out of jail. I agree with that whole-heartedly.

What gives me pause here is what his actions say about us as a society. I would hope that if I or my children were lost while hiking and we went to a home for help, even with NO TRESPASSING signs posted, we would be given help and not have a gun waved in our face. What happened to the time when we would help our neighbors out? I lived on Long Island, a place near New York City with much more violent crime than what occurs in this neck of the woods and can't imagine my neighbors waving a gun at someone who came to them looking for help. There's no basis for the kind of fear I've seen being used as an excuse for his actions. Oh, there was one, count it, one fatal home invasion in the lower part of the state last year - fifty miles away from where Ward Bird lives. That's the excuse given for his paranoia out of one side of his supporter's mouths while the other side denies he did it altogether.

What also makes me shake my head is his supporters claim he and they are all "good Christians". Perhaps they should re-read Jesus' parable of The Good Samaritan. I don't see him saying that the traveler should have whipped out a weapon - if anything he is condemning those who ignored the person in need. Don't even try to tell me we live in more violent times - saying that just proves your ignorance.

Yes, Ward Bird should be out of prison. But maybe this is a time when we have to think about our own actions if we were in the situation as it was presented. I would hope we would all help those travelers in need and our first inclination is not to grab a gun when a stranger approaches our home, NO TRESPASSING signs or not.