Atlanta: Rufus O'Terrill (Bumbot creator) for mayor!? (video)

Homemade "BumBot" Wages War on Riff-Raff

Using the control and a walkie-talkie, he approaches the vagrants around his bar and a local day care center to inform them via the robot's loudspeaker that they are trespassing on private property. If that doesn't do the trick, he gets rough with the water cannon. Apparently the robot has been so successful that the owner of the day care facility wishes she had three more just like it.

Rufus O'Terrill, local idiot, uses robot to assault, batter, and recklessly endanger homeless people, gets some attention for it. Then he runs for mayor of Atlanta:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

PEACH BUZZ: Terrill, robot to take on mayor's race

04/24/08 - "I'll wait till June to make an official announcement," he told Buzz. "But yes, I plan to run. I want Atlanta to have safe streets."

Fed up with drug dealers and petty thieves who, he says, roam the streets outside his downtown bar, O'Terrill's pub, O'Terrill crafted a 300-pound robot complete with red lights, spotlight, infrared video camera and a water cannon.

...

With the election more than a year away, it's unclear who he'll be up against... Consumer guru Clark Howard ... and state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) also may throw their hats into the ring.

This isn't funny.

It gets down into the 30's in Atlanta in the winter. He's become so popular for his efforts in spraying homeless people with cold water on a cold night, that he is running for mayor.

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Neighbors Enraged by Hobocop

Neighborhood activists are threatening to protest the use of the Bum Bot which they say is a cheap a marketing tool and a political prop whose intentions are questionable and whose use is intimidating to the street people.

O'Terrill came up with the idea after being told to stop patrolling the area armed with an assault rifle by police. He began patrolling armed with a torch but his bar was continuously vandalized until his wife came up with the idea for the Bum Bot.

Oh. So the water cannon robot is just the concession he made when they wouldn't let him patrol the neighborhood with his assault rifle or his torch. His. Torch. Was he going to set them on fire? Or threaten to?

He can't possibly be a person who would be taken seriously... maybe what he's planning is one of those gag campaigns like when Larry Flynt and Gary Coleman and porn stars and everybody else ran for governor of California. I don't think Mr. O'Terrill should benefit in any any way from publicity of these actions. In fact, I think he should be prosecuted for:

Assault:

1. An intentional, unlawful threat or "offer" to cause bodily injury to another by force;
2. Under circumstances which create in the other person a well-founded fear of imminent peril;
3. Where there exists the apparent present ability to carry out the act if not prevented.

and Battery:

A battery is the willful or intentional touching of a person against that person’s will by another person, or by an object or substance put in motion by that other person. ... A defendant who emphatically pokes the plaintiff in the chest with his index finger to emphasize a point may be culpable for battery...

If I had to choose, I'd rather get poked with in the chest with an index finger than get sprayed with cold water in 30 degree weather, especially if I had to sleep outside that night.

I couldn't imagine that he'd win any election. It seems he is generally regarded to be sort of a nut (ya think?). Anita Beaty, homeless advocate: "It's insane. This idea of the robot spraying homeless people is insane. It's really crazy. Rufus O'Terrill is a very passionate man. Some of us might think he's not... wrapped as tightly as we'd like."

But we're not talking about a harmless case of wacky eccentricity here, a cute old guy's antics. This is physical abuse and endangerment - how might getting soaked with cold water on a 30 degree night exacerbate any number of untreated medical problems the homeless victim might be experiencing?

Reckless endangerment:

A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. “Reckless” conduct is conduct that exhibits a culpable disregard of foreseeable consequences to others from the act or omission involved. The accused need not intentionally cause a resulting harm or know that his conduct is substantially certain to cause that result. The ultimate question is whether, under all the circumstances, the accused’s conduct was of that heedless nature that made it actually or imminently dangerous to the rights or safety of others.

Rufus O'Terrill shouldn't get to go around making a spectacle of himself over this and having fun with it. This isn't funny. He shouldn't get to mount a campaign for any public office with the attention this gets him. He should be in jail. He may be guilty of assault & battery, reckless endangerment, and quite possibly an even more serious crime:

An official for the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless estimates that 60 homeless people die from the cold each year in the Atlanta, Georgia area, a region which enjoys a relatively mild climate compared to the northern US.

When homeless people are found dead after a cold 30's night in Atlanta, is there any investigation into why the person might have been soaking wet and if that was the cause of death? Probably not.

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Contact the Atlanta DA and demand action on this.

[xposted@dkos]