Gun Pointed at Census Worker - Police kill One of Gun Wielders 67 Yr Old Woman

A 67-year-old Yuba City woman was shot and killed by officers when she pointed a shotgun at them and refused to put it down, according to Yuba City police.

Victoria Helen Roger-Vasselin was pronounced dead late Thursday at her home at 764 Mariner Loop in an affluent neighborhood on the city’s far south side.

A U.S. Census worker “had been confronted by residents who pointed a firearm at the worker and said they would not answer any questions and closed the door,” said police spokeswoman Shawna Pavey.

When two male officers arrived, 51-year-old Lionel Patterson answered the door, armed with a handgun, police said.

“As officers were dealing with the male, a female approached the door with a shotgun and ignored officers’ orders to release the weapon. As the female advanced on officers, she continued to point the shotgun at officers in a threatening manner and the two officers fired their service weapons, hitting the female,” police said.

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/family-95100-city-woman.html

Who was the numbnut RW Media figure who said they'd point a shotgun at a census worker? One point - I don't think census workers should be coming to the door at night.

but I'd pay to see that!

It sounds like the only reason for this (unless it's after 10 or 11 when some people are asleep) would be for the protection of the census worker in question. If it's just a bit after dark I wouldn't see a problem.

them. It's light until after 9 now; I am fine going to people's homes until about 9 p.m.

Sometimes people make appointments to have a census enumerator come by. I'm not saying that's what happened here, though.

shoot a census worker if they came to his house, or was that Breitbare or whatever his name is.

No doubt. His hatred and contempt for Census workers got a lot of right wingers riled up. Yet he sits in his mansion laughing all the way to the bank.

Erick Erickson. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/eric-erickson-threatens-t_n_525106.html

I'm pretty sure that's the procedure. So if it was 8:30 and they were finishing up for the day, it could be 9:04 by the time someone called the police. That's just a possible explanation. I don't think anyone should be out censusing at 9:00 either, but it does stay light pretty late this time of year.

I'm calling 911 and then calling a supervisor

You're not in danger if the door has been shut and you're gone. The only reason you need to report it at all is to keep another worker from facing the same nutball.

the cops will be brought into it. I can't comprehend a mindset where one would simply meekly wander off and leave the situation unaddressed.

So the dead woman was the instigator of the threat, and the census worker was there much earlier than the beginning of the story seems to imply - before dark. The worker did not call the police, but as theorized, her supervisor did.

I don't seem any incorrect actions on the part of the census worker, her supervisor or the police. It sounds to me as if the dead woman was being a wing nut and achieved suicide by cop. I am more sorry for the police than for her family.

And also never indicated, or meant to indicate, that the census worker instigated anything.

Funny, I had a case just last week where the man was cooperative as he could be, and the woman came along with her power trip. No gun, thank god.

And I did not mean to imply that you said who instigated the event. Frankly I think the old woman was bat shit insane, driven that way by listening to too many bat shit insane right wing nuts.

I do this for a living... and I would absolutely not knock on a door after 7:30.

I guess it depends on local standards.

Maybe you live pretty far north? If it's staying light past 8:30, and the average interview takes 10 mins, why not go to a house at 7:45? Especially if you have already driven down there.

Really? Where do you live? I have had knocks on the door at 830PM from school kids doing fundraisers, and I managed not to shoot any of them.

These people and others are encouraging this evil. They have blood on their hands even if they don't want to admit it. If I were to go to one of their rally's I would color my hands with red and hold them up for all to see - "Blood on your hands" would be my sign!

The story makes it clear:

Sonny Le, regional spokesman for the U.S. Census Bureau, offered a different version of events. The female census taker knocked on the door at 7:45 p.m. about 25 minutes before sunset when workers are supposed to quit. The Roger-Vasselin home was the last one on her list before she went home, he said.

Patterson answered the door and first talked with the census taker, Le said.

"The visit was quite routine" until Roger-Vasselin approached with a gun, he said.

The census taker immediately left and called her supervisor. It was 9:04 p.m. when police were called, after news of the incident traveled up the Census Bureau's chain of command, Le said.

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/family-95100-city-woman.html

Wow what a stupid person, did she think the government was coming for her like GLENN BECK says daily? Too bad our government doesn't want to arrest people that call for these kinds of acts...we could get rid of Fox News in a heart beat.

in Tennessee. Stories like this worry me to no end.

She said she's a little concerned because some people have turned hostile when she starts asking questions.

Thank the loonies on the right for stirring this pot.

Damn skippy. I've had a few that were hostile but no guns and no physical threats.

They're already on the paranoid/angry side and I can usually get 1-3 questions from the 1st page answered (by accident on their behalf I'm sure) but these particular individuals got pretty angry/upset when I ask them for personal information (name/address/phone number) we need for the back of the form.

Sometimes the anger is very palpable :scared: and you just want to get out of there, fast.

live in the house.

You can get a proxy to give you that info. You do need the proxy's name, address and phone number.

so I try to do just that. He said at the bear minimum, just get the number of people living there on 4/10.

Trust me, some of this stuff has me wondering why they really want to know this or that right along with the person I interview.

level of education, etc. Some of the questions on prior censuses were much more invasive, I believe.

I will have to own up to skipping the part about asking some of my respondents if they are males or females though. You DO NOT ask a 58 year old backwoods Nebraska farmer to verify that he is in fact a male and that his wife is in fact a female if you hope to stay on his good side and complete your EQ.

on my list who insisted that I check both.

We had a great laugh on that one. I told him, come on - just pick one and make it easy for me :rofl:

"Because I'm not allowed to assume gender, you would be a...?" to some full-bearded farmer. Then after he answered I usually say "well, you know, you're not suppose to assume a person's gender or that a woman is pregnant". That usually gets a smile.

they should no go out when they are most likely to find people at home? In this nation today, unless you are unemployed, most likly you won't be home in the day time. For maximum efficiency, census workers need to go out in the evening.

The loss of life is horendous, but most people understand that pointing a shotgun at a police officer is likely to lead to vilence. The Census worker and the police officer were doing their jobs.

Not to talk to the census workers. It's this kind of constant crap that fills the heads on these right wingers and causes them to make really bad decisions.

In this liberal, Massachusetts town, there are quite a few who refuse to answer even the simple short form questions. I said I couldn't believe it and she named names....We live in a wacko country, no question about it.

Then that would be why people refuse to answer the questions. It's big time illegal, forever. Yes, there are even people in my little town who refuse to answer. They think it's funny, a big right wing game to them. Until you get a real nut like in the OP. Maybe a few of them will stop laughing.

That's part of the problem right there.

and one of the reasons people are parnoid, shame on her. :mad:

Divulging info can land you in a cell or paying a big, big fine

So hmmmmm

AS for the OP, the potential for this type nutso situations is why I declined an offer to be an enumerator this year(on top of the fact that my other two jobs are killing me.) When i heard what all the Wingnuts were telling their audiences, I said no way. I was signed up for class but changed my mind.

it all worked out, i got a raise today so maybe I can afford to get my star back :)

It was fun last year doing address canvassing

most people were really nice

not so sure I would have had such a good time these days....

Even the few who have been not so nice are really only fox news idiots so you can't take them seriously anyway.

He said: "See that house right there? That guy is a wacko and he's paranoid as hell and he's probably about to shoot you."

"Okay sir. Thanks for the tip." lol

I'm almost certain he is not the only one to do so. But for CNN to keep him on their payroll says a lot about them.

I believe technically this was a good shoot, but it was still necessary.

Maybe tempers would have calmed by then. The only reason a census worker really needs to report it is so that nobody goes back to that location. I probably would have turned it in with the rest of my paperwork. Why rile people up if you don't have to. And now someone is dead. Damn hatewingers anyway. They started this shit.

Nothing in the incident was worth anyone dieing over

They dealt with the situation the only correct way. What kind of cops leave a scene when someone is pointing a weapon at them in an obviously threatening way and who also threatened a census worker?

The woman should have put the fucking weapon down. Did she think the cops were going to leave and just forget the whole incident because she was such a nice person?

The police were trying to deal peacefully with the husband that answered door. The lady left them no choice. The police couldn't have retreated, because the lady kept advancing on them.

I criticize the police a lot for use of force, but if the article is correct, the police tried to talk the lady down, but she blind with hatred and couldn't be talked down.

conservative paranoia,

Enjoy when the red part of your state has roughly the same representation as Wyoming!

Dark red areas are only screwing themselves over by boycotting the census, we could do nicely with a few fewer representatives from red states.

Interestingly enough, Republicans raised a major stink (that went on and on) about statistical adjustments to the 2000 census which (does anyone doubt) they'd argue for today if they thought they'd be underrepresented.

.... Does the 67 get counted or not.

:shrug:

It sounds like she knew what she was doing and paid the price. Stupid. Unnecessary. Tragic. RIP shotgun lady.

Is that she gets counted as she was alive on the day to be counted.

The enumeration going on now asks who was living in the home on April 1.

If she lived at that address on April 1, 2010. . .

and they do have rules which state no night (after dark) work. No exceptions.

'The female census taker knocked on the door at 7:45 p.m. about 25 minutes before sunset when workers are supposed to quit. The Roger-Vasselin home was the last one on her list before she went home, he said.

'Patterson answered the door and first talked with the census taker, Le said.

'"The visit was quite routine" until Roger-Vasselin approached with a gun, he said.

'The census taker immediately left and called her supervisor. It was 9:04 p.m. when police were called, after news of the incident traveled up the Census Bureau's chain of command, Le said.'

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They told us the same thing.

I mailed mine in, but I still got a visit this week. Her only failure was not heeding the "Beware of Dog" sign, as my great dane was outside. She quickly corrected her mistake. Anyway, nice lady who was just doing her job. Took me 5 minutes as I knew the questions (having already filled the thing out). She asked me if I knew if any of the homes on the street were vacant, etc. Helped her out all I could.

They are not suppose to go out prior to 10:00 AM and not after 8:00 PM. No where in this article (unless it is in the link itself) did I read what time of day it was. Regardless, all Census Workers have to think of their safety first. I have been working the Census and the only issue I have faced is a couple of doors slammed in my face out of many, many people that answered the form/questiions, with no problems.

'The female census taker knocked on the door at 7:45 p.m. about 25 minutes before sunset when workers are supposed to quit. The Roger-Vasselin home was the last one on her list before she went home, he said.

'Patterson answered the door and first talked with the census taker, Le said.

'"The visit was quite routine" until Roger-Vasselin approached with a gun, he said.

'The census taker immediately left and called her supervisor. It was 9:04 p.m. when police were called, after news of the incident traveled up the Census Bureau's chain of command, Le said.'

I don't think there is an actual time in the manual, could be wrong. Have you had literal doors slammed in your face?? Or just a no, I'm not doing that kind of thing.

We told our enumerators to use their own best judgment and to stay safe. We did say that we didn't think it was a good idea to bother anyone after nine, but we have a pretty sensible group of people - I don't think anybody planned on working that late anyway.

1% of those are just lazy and can't take 5 minutes to do it, even though they don't have to do a damn thing but answer a few questions, another 1% won't do do it because they say they mailed it in and about %3 are the rightwing nutjobs. They are rude as all get out. The funny thing is that we can't accept refusals anymore so we have to get a proxy for each refusal now. So you hear that teabaggers? For every time you've refused to do the questionnaire I've found one of your nice neighbors to tell me all about you. Most people have been extremely helpful and nice though.

Those are the rules. For the refusals, Census workers must get a Proxy, so refusing to answer 10 simple questions are not doing them any good.

The Census will be taken regardless of the right wing's refusal to cooperate. You would think they would be happy to do it, it's in the US Constitution, been taken since 1790. Why do they hate America?

I ended up answering for a neighbor (just because he's never home, not because he's a wingnut) a few days ago. They'll get the info one way or another.

However we can't accept no for the ones who say they've already done it and I've never had anyone refuse to do it again. I've only had about 10 total nutjobs, although getting a hold of people in any form has been pretty difficult around here. We have a lot of part-time residents who are gone until summer.

then we were told that we had to get a proxy for a RE

.

Had she recognized the person she wouldn't have been so quick on the trigger.

Definitely part of the same community

Who this person was is immaterial. What was important is that the woman perceived the government coming to her door to get her information and she pulled a gun to get them to leave. When they didn't leave and called the cops, it reinforced her worst fears, which is why she approached the cops with a gun.

than a Federal employee.

She was an employee representing the Fed, but that's only because something else wasn't available thanks to the recession.

like we had lunch with Obama last week or something.

We are from their own communities.

True enough.

The invitation? LOL! Man you missed it.

To the point that she would pull a gun on a female worker just doing the mandate of the US Constitution as it had been done since 1790?

Perhaps she was unhinged by watching too much Fox News or listening to too much right wing radio? Or just listening to Republican politicians who have been pushing fear and hatred of our government for thirty years.

By the way, the article states that the census worker DID leave:

Maybe she's afraid of the death panels

Of this malfeasance by the talking heads of the right. I truly believe they are more dangerous to our country than any outside organization. They have cost us more freedoms, more of our national resources, and more of everything this country should stand for than any "terrorist" organization.

In the process, they have driven some parts of our populace insane.

..

Rather like someone convinced they can fly stepping off the roof of a sky-scraper.

Insane or un-sane she may well have been, but the form it took made her a danger to others, and so the argument she could not help herself does not really work in her favor....

I feel very sorry for the woman. I think she was definitely a victim of both bad media and inept policing.

My sympathy with armed sedition is nil; people who take up arms against a government ought to expect it to use arms against them, and have little ground for complaint when it does so. This applies whether the people taking up arms against a government do so from the left or the right.

"Mercy by definition is undeserved: were it deserved, it would not be mercy but justice."

This was one terrified old woman, not the Confederate army. Sounds like someone needs a valium.

First in the person of a census taker, then in the person of two police officers.

Until these things are taken seriously, and examples made in sufficient quantity, this sort of thing will exercise its near-permanent warp on of political and social life. The right in this country harbors, and has long harbored, an armed terror movement, that needs to be broken conclusively.

"Kill one, warn one hundred."

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If you point a gun at a police officer, shoot immediately, and have an escape and evasion worked out; otherwise do not bother, and comply immediately with any demands the officer makes. Once the gun is out, it is not a game.

Persons like this, Beck's audience, the tea-bagging crowd, amuse themselves with fantasies of violence and triumphant resistance, and it is very entertaining, it provides them with a good deal of enjoyment to do so. Actual corpses, the click of hand-cuffs, in short, real danger and consequences, take the fun out of it very efficiently. When it is no longer fun, it will stop.

She was the inept, threatening person here.

The police should have told the census workers to leave and then have gone over after the couple had some time to cool off. Now they have created the image of the "jack-booted thug" boogieman that Glenn Beck fans are so terrified of. This was not well thought out.

For all they knew she was having a psychotic break and may have been a danger to anybody who happened to walk by her house, or her neighbors.

The police did not do anything wrong in this situation. She did. And now she's dead.

Read the article. The whole thing was tragic:

"An autopsy Friday showed she died of "multiple gunshot wounds," said Sutter County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Brenda Baker.

A neighbor reported hearing five or six shots.

Roger-Vasselin was the sister of the late Thomas E. Mathews, a Yuba County judge and district attorney who died in 2005.

"They shot her dead," Roger-Vasselin's distraught son, Christian Biscotti, said outside the house Friday morning.

"I think she was just startled" by late visits to her home, he said."

The police did not know if the woman might have been a danger to anyone who happened by at that time.

You just can't have people out there threatening others with weapons and leave them alone in some misguided attempt to read their mind, or "wait till they cool off."

Some tragedies are entirely avoidable and foreseeable. Pointing shotguns at people in general and police in particular is a pretty good way to ensure a starring role in just that manner of tragedy.

The census worker LEFT the scene, reported the incident to her supervisor. The report worked its way up the chain of command and someone higher up made the decision to report the incident to the police.

So what are the police supposed to do? They get a report that some unhinged individual is waving around a gun, threatening a government worker. They HAD to respond, for the protection of the public. The police on the scene were talking things out with a male who was holding a gun at the door when the whacked out woman approached the door with her gun.

Now the police have TWO idiots with guns - the man seemed to be peaceful, but the woman would not back down. She is the one who escalated the situation, not the cops.

From a different story:


So both the old lady and her boyfriend could have been under the influence and they both came to their door more than once, guns in hand. What is wrong with this picture?

You would just want the police to lay back for a few hours? Sure Nikki.

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Sorry. I was venting...

Thanks mods

takers that gets people to grab their guns?

When I was doing Census years ago, I had a nut job hold up his rifle to show me he didn't want to answer my questionnaire. I did as the supervisor had said to do, turn around and "get the heck out of there"
I don't know if the supervisors were supposed to call in the police or not. I suspect not. That person was just checked off as non responding.

or chianti.

Horrible movie.

:hi:

IMHO

Contrary to popular belief, people are not rational actors. But rather, irrational actors. I maintain B.F. Skinner's postulate that free will was merely an illusion. The environment controls our behavior, we only live under the illusion of free will. Every living being has a fundamental right to self-defense and life is an inalienable right that cannot be taken away by any man, except in self-defense.

It is a felony to wield a gun around a census worker in an intimidating manner. When such an incident arises, they simply report it to law enforcement and they are simply doing to their jobs to enforce the rule of law. That woman, at 67 years of age, has implicitly agreed to be bound by the social contract. The Government acts in the best interests of society. Either be a part of society and interact with it in a peaceful manner, or you will be eliminated. Among that possibility, is also social ostracism or you will become isolated, alone, apart. Segregated. All the while, you'll be struggling, forced to extract the heart. You have no choice but be isolated.

How will Beck and co. report this?

"A woman, who did what we said to do to defend herself from the evil census was brutally murdered by cops."

Even Jesus' Mom and Step Dad, St Joseph and the Holy Mary went to Bethlehem for the CENSUS!

With all the uproar (much of it justified) about tasers, this is what happens when they go in old school.

These RW Hatemongers shows should come with a mandatory disclaimer.

*dons a vest that hopefully proves flame-retardant*

Now, I've lurked here for a few years, and occasionally I'd see a post where a cop shoots someone. The (generalized) response was, essentially, outcries of police not doing their jobs, taking advantage of their authority, just being eager to kill someone, et cetera.

My question in regards to this is... Why is this case so different?

We have testimony from the cops, and the cops alone, that this woman was pointing a gun at them "threateningly" at the time of the shooting. I will grant that if such was the case, the police acted in their own defense, if not necessarily completely rationally (as opposed to backing off.)

This entire situation was a clusterfuck of overreactions; on the part of the old lady, on the part of the census... erm... dispatchers? On the part of the police... I guess what I'm wondering is why I'm seeing posts borderline cheering the loss of a human life in the name of political capital. If a wingnut with more than a few screws loose dies, it's just "one less wingnut", but if it's a homeless man or a proponent of civil liberties who was killed in their own home, it's a deplorable crime?

I am new to this site, and I have no doubt that I'll end up on the thick end of a beat-stick, but... I kind of feel morally obligated to say that this whole thing was wrong. All parties in the conflict were horridly, horridly wrong, a life was lost, yet a fair number of the responses here are, to (EDIT) put it bluntly, either neutral or something along the lines of "Good." (END EDIT)

Am I the only one who sees anything wrong with that?

All right, let's have the flames. *Braces for impact*

I wish the police had waited until morning and tempers had calmed. Others agreed. No one was in danger so there was no immediate need to go to the home. The Census Bureau had been notified so they wouldn't send another worker to that home. There was no need for this to happen. Several people have stated that already.

Any time there is a shooting, about half of DUers side with cops and half side with the victim. This one doesn't appear to be any different.

The situation is simple, and pretty clear.

A person pointed a gun at a census worker. That is a crime; it is a crime to point a gun at anyone, unless one is acting in self-defense. there is not a shred of self-defense in pointing a gun at a census worker. These are things you are perfectly aware of.

The crime against the census worker was reported to the police; this is not over-reaction, this is good citizenship, what any civics text-book would direct as the proper action by a person victimized by a crime. This, too, is something you are perfectly aware of.

The police responded to the report of a crime by proceeding to investigate it, and since it was a crime involving menacing behavior with a fire-arm, they went to the investigation alert to the possibility of violence. This is not over-reaction, it is what police are supposed to do, what they draw their pay for. This, of course, you are perfectly aware of.

When the police arrived, a person pointed a shot-gun at them, and refused repeated orders to disarm; that person was then shot. This is perfectly proper behavior by police, and you are perfectly aware that is so.

If there were some information to call into question any of the factual elements here; say, a convincing claim this woman did not have a shot-gun in her hand, that would be one thing, but there is not a hint of that in the accounts. Your 'honest question' is simply a typical fishing effort seeking some hypocrisy by leftists on the subject of police behavior. The instances in which outrage at police behavior is expressed here generally involve police assaults on persons who are unarmed, who present no threat to the officer, and usually are involved in mere non-violent misdemeanors, or even in purely civil violations, or have, in fact, done nothing at all themselves, but simply had the wrong complexion. You know perfectly well such cases have no relation to the incident under discussion here.

What I'm asking is, why the immediate trust of the police in this instance? All we have to go on (to my knowledge) is that she was pointing a weapon "Threateningly". If she was pointing the weapon at the police, then yes, they were within every right to shoot to kill, as she was an imminent danger to their continued existence.

Moreover, as was said earlier, why did the police simply not back down when presented with armed conflict? The man in the house was perfectly willing to speak with the police, so why not simply bring that conversation outside, leaving the woman indoors, where she was no threat? There were plenty of ways to diffuse this situation, yet none were taken, instead relying on killing a human being to end what was a dubious threat to begin with.

I can see where you'd come across the post as "fishing", and for that, I apologize. I didn't mean for the tone to convey as such. In this type of situation, I like to reserve judgment. I do think that oftentimes, police are put into pressure situations where they have no choice other than to react, and oftentimes they are reacting to save the lives of themselves and the people around them. However, I cannot immediately presume that this was such a case, when the only evidence in favor of the woman being shot is that she pointed a gun "Threateningly", a highly arbitrary and subjective bit of 'evidence' that would hold up in no court were anyone other than a police officer saying it. All we have, to my knowledge, is the officer's word that the woman was being threatening.

I will say that the woman pointing her gun at the census worker does not particularly aide my story, and while I do remain dubious of the need for a life to be taken, I'll admit that if the woman is crazy enough to point a gun at a census worker (whatever the hour), there's a fair chance she might point that same gun at police. I just prefer to have more concrete reasons for a life to be taken in any situation, and I think that point might have gotten itself convoluted a bit in my previous post.


As an aside... Glee! Never thought I'd be responded to by one of the greats! It's like meeting a celebrity.

There is no particular reason to doubt the police in this matter. There is independent corroboration of the presence of weapons and propensity to menacing behavior. The mere pointing of a fire-arm is 'threatening'; it is a crime in and of itself, and creates a reasonable fear for one's life to which any person is within their rights to respond with use of deadly force. Police are not supposed to 'back down when presented with armed conflict'; they are supposed to apprehend or disable the person initiating armed conflict. The only reason for them to have left the doorway would have been to call for back-up by a S.W.A.T. team, or other reinforcement.

This is not the sort of situation where an officer says he saw a glint in a man's hand, fired several times, and so slew a homeless man holding a spoon twelve feet from the officer, or in which an officer says he was engaged in a struggle for his gun with a resisting suspect, in the course of which the gun went off, while several civilian witnesses say the dead man was in 'the position' facing the wall and the officer put his gun to the man's head, cursing him roundly, and shot him (both incidents recalled over the years in my own city, in which no discipline was given the police involved). This is a perfectly straightforward case of a person pointing a gun at police officers, and being shot accordingly; that is what is supposed to happen to people who point guns at police officers.

"This is a perfectly straightforward case of a person pointing a gun at police officers, and being shot accordingly; that is what is supposed to happen to people who point guns at police officers."

... then I have no problem with it. While I hold no inherent distrust for law enforcement officials, whenever there is a shooting, I always try to see if it could have been avoiding. After some quick google-fu, your posts, and some research about the deceased, I really can't help but say that I doubt it could have been avoided.

That saddens me to no end, but the world is a fucked up place. Anyways, thanks for the patient response. Sorry to have set off your "OMG BAIT POST!" alarm. :)

The police should not have been called. The census worker should have been on their way to the next house. There have been home invasions by fake census workers & people have the right to protect their homes & to be left alone. There are two sides to a story & the census worker & the police are still alive to change theirs.
On the very evening I got my census form in the mail, two ladies banged, they didn't knock they banged (I have a door bell!!) And because I don't want strangers on my door step either I called out the window To ask what did they want. My census form had came today(oh my god I didn't notice) & to be sure to fill it out..our tax $$ at work.

I'm just guessing here.

Welcome to DU.

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a pretty good one for all it's faults and troubles. 99.9% of the time you are left alone by The Government. They don't come to your door unless they need to. Say, if you did something illegal and you need to be served a summons, or arrested, or in this case, every once in a great while you need to be counted. Most people mail in their forms, but if you forgot or don't want to some census taker may come knocking to just make sure. That's how it works. If you don't want to be counted and help insure all the benefits that come to your community when the population is accurately known, then fine, you just tell them to go away. They don't harangue you. They don't do "home invasions" They turn around and leave. (I was a census taker and that's how I know this) If, however, you pull a gun on them - a federal worker- that is unlawful and they report it to the supervisor, partly to make sure no other Census taker happens to go there. See, even then you get left alone. In this case when the police showed up to look into it (according to the reporting above) and were talking to a man at the door, a lady comes at them with an aimed gun. You have a right to defend your home, but if you point guns at police, the police may or may not react they way that keeps everything cool. You are not defending your home at that point. You are being stupid. In this case deadly stupid. This lady was no spring chicken. She would have know that was stupid.
And yes it is your tax money at work as you say. Having a police force that most of the time does the right things to keep us safe is one of the benefits of a mostly functioning local government. If you don't like the benefits of a community, maybe there is some other place for you. Deep in the Alaskan bush, maybe? I dunno.

Just wow.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/answersrequired.htm

Workers are sent to people's homes only after multiple attempts to get responses by mail. And for people who are too lazy to fill out the form and return it by mail you cost the taxpayers $60 for every household that must be physically visited by a census worker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybcu2itqvEQ&feature=player_embedded

This is enough to scare any poor old woman shitless about the government. It's so Glenn Beck.

:scared:

Scary as hell.

There's no enforcement. Just move on and talk to a neighbor.

So if I shut my door on a census worker, he or she would have to move on and that would be it?

Why would you shut your door on a census worker?

And why would you take a hypothetical situation and make it personal and accusatory?

A neighbor, for example. Or a landlord.

Worst case is the enumerator's crew leader might have to come out and try again.


As long as you don't threaten the Census worker no law enforcement gets involved.

Old people are often the target of fake workers of all kinds. When I was a teenager, there were criminals who would dress up as fake electric company employees, gain access to the house, and then rob the old people living there blind. Sometimes they would kill them as well.

If you're so terrified of the stranger knocking on the door that you need to bring a loaded gun with you to answer the door then DON'T FUCKING ANSWER THE DOOR!

Why do people answer the door to strangers anyway? If I don't know you or know why you're knocking on my door and you aren't the police, I ain't answering. Period. Hell, even if I do know you and you're knocking on my door I still probably won't answer since I hate drop-by's.

If these people didn't want to deal with a census worker at their door they had no business answering the door to begin with.

Like DUers. :)

it stopped being "leave me alone" and began to be a criminal act.

I blame Glenn Beck and his ilk for this tragedy.

They got people so goddamned riled up over nothing.

Seems the old lady did not like the cops arresting her boyfriend:



So the man was not cooperative, as I inferred from the previous story, he resisted arrest and the woman showed up in the middle of that scuffle. That explains better why the police were on the defensive, since she was interfering with an arrest and brandishing a firearm.

Thanks for posting.

After all, she was the one who pulled out a gun over a harmless piece of paper, and then she was too stupid to obey the officers' orders to disarm.

"No thank you. I don't wish to participate in the census."


Fine. I'll just go ask your neighbors about you instead.


Nobody dies.