This is a tragedy of errors.

Maintenance worker killed at Grand Prairie apartment complex after resident believed he was being burglarized, police say

An investigation is underway after a maintenance worker was fatally shot while checking on waterlines at an apartment complex in Grand Prairie on Saturday evening, police said.

Officers responded to a shooting call around 6 p.m. at the Clayton Pointe Apartments along the 2900 block of Alouette Drive near Arkansas Lane and Highway 360.

Upon arrival at the scene, police said they found an apartment complex maintenance worker identified as 53-year-old Cesar Montelongo injured with a gunshot wound on a resident’s balcony.

Police said their investigation revealed that Montelongo was checking on multiple balconies for frozen or busted waterlines after pipes had burst throughout the apartment complex due to the recent arctic blast that has plagued the region.

According to police, a resident spotted Montelongo on his balcony, believed his apartment was being burglarized and shot Montelongo through a window.

Police said the resident stayed at the scene and cooperated with detectives. He was not arrested.

This was a fuck-up compounded by another fuck-up that resulted in one man dying, his family mourning, another man left with the emotional toll of what he did, and perhaps some prison time.

Let’s count the fuck-ups.

One: The resident shot Montelongo through a window.  Shooting through a window or door is almost always unjustified.  When the person is on the other side of the barrier, they are not in your property and don’t constitue an immediate threat.

The only exception to this is if the person on the other side of the window points a gun at you, if they can shoot you through the window, then it would be justified to shoot them through the window.

Texas law may be different.  My opinion is based on a general, non-lawyer understanding of castle doctrine.  But I’m inclined to err on the safe side.

Two: The maintenance man climbed onto people’s balconies without announcing himself or his intentions.  If I saw a man I didn’t know on my balcony I would definitely break my gun out of the safe and call 911 expecting the worse.

The apartment management and Montelongo should have gone door to door and spoke yo residents and asked to check their balconies.

I don’t believe either man acted with malicious intent, but a combination of stupid actions created a situation that led to a tragedy.

Don’t cut corners, use your brain, and obey common sense and the law.

I have sat at home with my mother and my brother looking at a sad Christmas tree. It was sad because my father was deployed and would not be home for Christmas. We would be at my grandparents on Christmas day and all would be brighter but still, my father was away fighting in a war.

In 1941, days before Christmas the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Men and boys by the thousands lined up to join up. They were gone before Christmas. The first of many years without husbands, fathers, sons and brothers being away for the holidays. Families gathered around the Christmas table and said prayers for the safety of their loved ones, away fighting the war.

That Christmas a song by Irving Berlin was aired on the Kraft Music Hall.

Thousands of miles away from home, men huddled around small fires trying to stay warm. They ate what they could. They dreamed of being home with their families if for only that one night. Further back from the front line, men sat under cover eating K-rats and wishing they were home and that the food was better. They dreamed of the meals they shared with their loved ones only a few short years ago.

If they were lucky, it wasn’t just K-rats, sometimes it was real food, turkey or ham. Something to remind them of home.

One of the small comforts was music. The radio would play music. By Christmas of 1943 the song was often requested by troops at USO shows where the singer was performing.

I hesitated about doing it because invariably it caused such a nostalgic yearning among the men, that it made them sad. Heaven knows, I didn’t come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it.

My great uncle flew missions of Europe during WWII and was shot down. He recalled that the men hated the song but had to listen to it. It brought out so many hard memories. Other veterans of WWII have told me the same thing when asked.

A song so bitter sweet. To hurt so much to hear and remember yet to bring back those memories of what waited at home. The love that still kindled around the Christmas tree. The love of family. To know that those back home were praying for that soldier.

It is past Christmas this year. Still take the time to think of those that are still deployed, that are spending this holiday season far from home.

I never served in the military. My job was to support the US Army by keeping computers alive and well and by helping to build better software to keep our troops safer and to allow them to kill our enemies before they were killed.

I thank each of you that served. I’ve known to many veterans that left a part of themselves behind. Again, thank you.

Quote is from an interview given by Bing Crosby

Buffalo, NY.  And no, people were not desperate for food and had to break in stores after a week of starvation. This happened less than 48 hours after the storm.

And when DotGov does its best to eliminate its natural enemies, they run rampant.

Nach ein paar Tagen #Schnee und #Eis beginnen in den #USA #Chaos und #Plünderungen…

Die armen Menschen klauen lebenswichtige Dinge wie #iPhone|s und #Flatscreen|s.

Was würde wohl im Falle einer echten #Katastrophe passieren?#BuffaloNY #looting #blizzard22 #BuffaloLooting pic.twitter.com/VheH9h3UXr

— Dr. David Lütke (@DrLuetke) December 27, 2022

And of course, it is going to be blamed on White Supremacism and/or Global Warming and/or Misgendering and/or some other horseshit rather than a collapse in basic community values and respect for individual and corporate property.

But we are the bad ones because we post warnings like this….and carry them out if necessary.

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1606380282835308544?s=19

This pudgy fuck is a stand-up comedian and writer for a grotesque Netflix show.

Now he says this was a joke.

I think I dawned on him that the people who he threatened in his sing-song way are a lot better at the skills of applying of violence than he is.

That’s why I own guns.

Because people like this will always exist.

For Hanukkah my wife got me kitchen lingerie.

For those of you who don’t understand, it’s a term based on an old joke:

“Lingerie is a gift a man gives to his wife which is really For himself.”

Since I do the lion’s share of the cooking, kitchen lingerie is what we call fancy cooling appliances.  They are gifts for me which I use to make food for her and the rest of the family.

This year, I got a deep fryer.

I have been experimenting and made my own potato chips.

One of the tips I got was to brine the chips after slicing.

I brined them in a minute of kosher salt and a beef bullion cube, to give that beefy old-school McDonald’s beef tallow flavor.

Hot damn are they good.

I’m not sure if I’m ever going to buy potato chips ever again.

Next weekend I’m going to have to break out the deep fryer again and experiment some more.

I think this gave me a stroke…

There are two definitions of anarcho-tyranny that I have found that summarize the principle perfectly:

A stage of governmental dysfunction in which the state is anarchically hopeless at coping with large matters but ruthlessly tyrannical in the enforcement of small ones.

And

Anarcho-Tyranny is a form of Dystopia where a state permits or encourages Anarchy Is Chaos in limited form, either out of laziness or some more malevolent motive, while decent people are suppressed.

This perfectly describes the State if California and is epitomized here in this interaction with California law enforcement.

Police officer knows his priorities. pic.twitter.com/ZTPowEF3nA

— Mens_Corner__ (@Mens_Corner__) December 26, 2022

These types of outlaw motorcyclist are a scourge.

But chasing them down and stopping them is difficult and dangerous work.

The guy who stopped is law abiding.

It’s much easier to be an officious jack-boot against a guy who stops at red lights than it is to catch real criminals.

On paper, when this cop fills out his report, he will get credit for enforcing the law.  That he ignored much more dangerous criminals to stop a guy revving his engine will not be factored into his performance review.

Real criminals are given free rein but the law abiding are stomped into submission and given citations they pay fines for to fill the government coffers.

This is, of course, antithetical to the way America is supposed to be.  This is the New America pioneered by California.