Saturday, February 03, 2007

Out of the Frying Pan

In Minnesota, 74-year-old farmer Kenneth Englund is in trouble with the law for chasing down a suspected thief and holding him at bay with an unloaded shotgun...

Meanwhile, in the nation's capital, The Washington Post today tells how retired lawyer Gary Peterson helped police collar a fleeing robbery suspect by conking the guy on the head with a frying pan. The kid had burst into Peterson's kitchen.
What stands out for me is that in the situation with the gun, actual violence was avoided.

Here's what I think explains the different attitudes conveyed by the authorities:

[W]e liked his choice of weapon...

You'll notice they don't like the choice enough to deploy with skillets instead of guns themselves.

2 comments:

E. David Quammen said...

Both the sheriff and the prosecutor against Mr. Englund are sycophants. This has the distinct odor of a personal vendetta. As Mr. England, so I am told, was very active in local politics.....

Hyunchback said...

The police in the WaPo article are "Only Ones".

Now, are we going to see Mayor Bloomberg form a group of mayors to ban illegal frying pans?

Well, considering his war on Transfatty acids... mmmm, could be!