Posted on 06/12/2006 8:25:10 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
BOSTON A high-rise window washer in Boston has been fired because he killed a sea gull on the job.
Christopher Guay was washing windows at a building on Devonshire Street last Friday. He told WBZ Radio’s Carl Stevens he was being harassed by sea gulls.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs4boston.com ...
MSPCA ruffles his feathers: Animal lover says treatment is for the birds By O’Ryan Johnson/ Exclusive Sunday, June 11, 2006 - Updated: 01:06 PM EST
High-rise window washer Christopher Guay spent 20 hours in jail waiting for his wife to raise the $1,040 the state demanded to free him after he struck and killed a sea gull he says repeatedly dive-bombed at him as he was attempting to clean office windows.
Speaking exclusively to the Herald, Guay, 40 - who shares a home with his wife, 14 finches, two parakeets and several other species of birds - said he now fears the job he loves, hanging high above the Hub, is in jeopardy thanks to an overzealous MSPCA police officer.
“The (Boston) cops in the transport told me, ‘This is ridiculous. We didn’t want to take you in, but the MSPCA cop made the call,’ ” Guay said of his brief chat with Boston officers while shackled in the back of a prisoner-transport truck.
He will be arraigned Tuesday on charges of animal cruelty, a felony.
Three Boston cops who spoke on condition of anonymity said they would not have arrested Guay, smirking at the inexperience of the MSPCA officer.
“I didn’t even know they could make arrests,” said one veteran cop. Added another: “He’s fending for his life already. I wouldn’t have arrested him.”
Guay said he was working 12 stories up atop 185 Devonshire St. about 8:30 a.m. Friday when he was set upon by three sea gulls protecting a rooftop nest.
“They’d sit up about 20 feet, then dive in,” he said. “They hit me twice in the head.”
Guay said he moved to an attached roof at 161 Devonshire St., but the gulls followed. He eventually started swinging a broken broom handle, hoping to scare them off and give himself time to slip over the building’s edge and out of the birds’ sight.
“I’d been doing it all day, fending them off,” he said. “It was working until I made my last drop . . . When I swung I wasn’t aiming. I didn’t mean to hit it. It flew right into the broom stick. I knew it was dead.”
Office workers witnessing the 3:30 p.m. strike called the MSPCA, which responded with one of the agency’s 11 police officers.
“I don’t blame them at all for calling,” Guay said. “If I saw someone on the roof swinging at a bird I’d do the exact same thing.”
But he said he does have a problem with the by-the-book MSPCA cop.
“He wasn’t buying my story at all,” Guay said. “He didn’t listen to a word I said. He said to me ‘So you like killing birds?’ Am I supposed to stand there and let the gull whack me in the head? I had to do something.”
A sea gull is equivalent to a rodent. This is PC run amok.
2nd Amendment broom ban in Boston!
Someone needs to use that broom on the MSPCA dope. Hopefully the judge will recognize a clear case of self defense.
Sea Gulls = Sky Rats!
Gulls mean more than humans now. Lovely...
12 stories up in the air on a platform means anyone that is attacking me is threatening me with death. This man has the right to defend himself from anything that could result in his death. The f'ing MSPCA has got it wrong...why don't they arrest the other two gulls for attacking this guy first or do birds and animals that attack get a free ride? If that is the case then someone should turn a well trained pit bull loose at the MSPCA office and watch the mayhem.
Insanity.
What will it take to push these PC kooks right off the planet
Reminds me of the case a number of years ago of a fellow worker at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard who spent about two years defending himself in federal court for alledgedly deliberately running over a seagull with a scooter. He finally got off on a technicality (prosecution couldn't provide the dead seagull) but it did cost him a bunch of bucks. And this was at least 15 years ago so I see things haven't much changed.
It's far better thing for a family man to fall 12 stories to his horribly gory death than a single, vicious seagull perish.
/dripping sarcasm
Again-th-t animal-ths!
Call the poli-th!!
Huh? I blame them for calling. What in the heck is this world coming to? It's a freaking bird, fer cryin' out loud!
Gulls Gone Wild!
So are Bostonian libs. I guess they watch out for each other.
Sea gull: flying white rat
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If you've never had a bird dive bomb your head, this story doesn't make any sense.
People who equate animals with humans are sick.
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