Unneighborly verbal altercation - leaf blower sends grass cuttings onto parked car

 

Past the yellow fire hydrant two city police leave defendant to speak with plaintiff at nearby house

A little before 10 a.m. on Friday the lawn mowing service had mown the client's grass, cut the edges, and was just about finished with the noisy, gas-powered leaf blower to dissipate the cuttings off the client's sidewalk and driveway. That is when the adjacent homeowner came striding with purpose to confront the man with the blower to express his offense at cuttings blown onto his car and driveway. The confrontation began at full volume: both the decibels and the choice of fighting words, rather than less accusatory word choice and tone of voice. So the worker being verbally attacked replied in kind, adding lewd gestures and posturing to amplify his replies. Back and forth the temperature of the verbal wrestling proceeded until the nextdoor man pulled out his cellphone to video record the worker and his vehicle before then warning him that the police would soon arrive, presumably to adjudicate the plaintiff point of view and perceived injury by lack of respect from the worker that he was aggravating verbally by assault.

This photo shows the two officers after hearing the worker's perspective. They already heard the plaintiff in his phone call to the dispatcher. It took perhaps 10 or 15 minutes from first threat from the plaintiff about bringing the police into the matter until the car arrived. First one uniform approached the worker slowly, in case the situation was explosive. Since the man was relatively calm, the second officer joined the first to listen to the account from the worker's point of view. What happened next is the two policemen went to the house of the plaintiff for further discussion. After a total of maybe 10 minutes they left the scene, the worker in his truck and trailer departing before that, having been told there was no more for the moment and therefore that he could leave for the next client's lawn.

Since the verbal bout could be heard at a distance, the experience as a spectator was worrisome. Since so many people have applied for "concealed carrying" of pistols, it is not impossible for one or both men to have been trigger happy. Nothing did happen with guns, although verbally there was gun banter. The whole episode illustrates something about city living, leaving aside its paperwork, communication snafus, and any additional procedural consequences. 

In villages there are layers of family-to-family history, interrelationship, and shared stake holding. So conflict resolution by individuals or representatives for each side can typically come to some arrangement involving apology and restorative justice so that the offender makes whole the injured party or parties. But in larger urban settings the social fabric is held together by rules and ordinances and is enforced by professional law-keepers. Since most person-to-person intersections involve strangers, these formal systems and infrastructure is how problems are solved.

In the history of societies and their civilizations and languages, new words and rituals and titles and rights/responsibilities are created. In urban environments since the density of ambitions, greed, and dependence is much higher than in villages or tribes, there is a concentration of boundaries, differing opinions, and levels of experience in handling difficult topics and injuries - verbal or physical or financial. In the case featured above, one middle-aged or elder man felt injured when his property (car) was affected by the grass cuttings landing on his side of the property line. Due to this offence, he felt entitled to shout abuse at the one blowing the cuttings. Since the verbal attack was unaccustomed and unexpected, the worker's hackles were raised and he replied in mirror image by heaping abuse on the offended homeowner and then amplifying the venom for good measure. The next step escalated to requesting the services of the armed police. How the matter ultimately ended is not obvious, except that the police did indeed arrive in a timely manner and speak respectfully in word and by nonverbal communication (posture, eye contact, tone of voice and so on). Then the worker was released from waiting and the police drove away.