Man Attacks Snowplow with an Ax
Posted: Sunday, November 20, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
We had a big snow storm a few weeks ago. It was the earliest I remember having one like that. It was rough. Some people around here went without power for a week. In other places it was even worse. Branches broke off of trees all over the place, including in my yard. We didn’t lose wires though. One hit my wife’s Mustang, but didn’t do damage. I had to get a ladder, tie a rope around one broken branch, hitch it to the Jeep and pull it off the guy wire on our power/telephone pole. My wife was sure I was going to get electrocuted on the aluminum ladder (I could tell by the big smile she had on her face while I was up there), but it was just the TV cable I was hanging onto for balance.
Sometimes I get pretty frustrated about it, but not nearly as frustrated as Vernon Logan, 44, of Wasilla, Alaska did earlier this month. They get a lot of snow days in Alaska. Almost every time, the snow plow leaves a huge berm in front of his driveway that he has to shovel if he wants to get his car out of the garage. He’s not supposed to shovel it back into the street, and he has to get his sidewalks cleared by city ordinance, so he can't shovel it there. It’s a conundrum that gives him fits.
When he’d finally gotten his vehicle shoveled out he went in the house to change cloths and have a cup of hot chocolate before he went to the store. When he opened the garage door and started backing out, he discovered that they had plowed him in again! While he was digging away again, he got angrier and angrier. When he saw a snowplow turn the corner and head his way with the intention of plowing him in for the third time, he snapped. He ran to the garage and grabbed an ax.
According to the Mat-Su Valley newspaper, 'The Frontiersman', snowplow driver James Ross, who was only doing his duty, reported that a man had run out in front of his vehicle. Ross had to slam on the brakes to keep from plowing him under. The man then ran over to the driver’s side door, swore at Ross and asked what he was doing. Ross thought it was pretty obvious what he was doing and quickly locked his door. The man then began hacking at the door with his ax, trying to get at the driver.
According to Trooper Wallace Kirksey, Ross was “fearful for his life” (I believe it). Ross thought the man was going to beat and hack him with the ax if he didn’t leave, so he jammed it into gear and fled the scene (he had the plow blade up to make better time). Authorities say Logan "had previously been angered by a snow berm” blocking his car in, so they suspected him and went to pick him up.
When they arrested him at his home (he’d gotten back from the store by then), he admitted that he had been mad about being plowed in again, but denied having attacked a snowplow with an ax. But, his father ratted him out. While they were cuffing him, he yelled at his dad, and while they were hauling him ‘downtown,’ the troopers heard him mumble something in the back seat about “involvement” with the plow truck
He did $200 damage to the plow truck in his fit of ‘road rage.’ They charged him with assault and criminal mischief, and after keeping him on ice for the rest of the weekend, they let him go home after posting $5,000 bail, cold cash.
He should have called me. They do it to me every snow storm, too. You just have to wait until their totally done, then start digging. Usually I can get the Jeep out by just bucking it back and forth and doing minimal shoveling. My wife doesn’t mind staying home, snowed in. She sees it as sort of an adventure and an excuse to stay in her robe and slippers all day. Sometimes she’ll try to shovel some while I’m at work. She tries to look pathetic and feeble and sometimes the neighbor comes over with his snow blower to give her a hand. If he doesn’t, she soon quits and I finish it up when I get home.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)WOW, so glad we only have a couple of snows a year, except at higher elevations, just the cold mostly. With as crazy as these people are here, it would be more than axes. We have our snows usually Jan-April; two or three..maybe. ICE is our biggest problem here in the mountains.
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