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Prosecutor Drops Case Against Man Who Says Plainclothes Police Tried To Force Their Way Into His Home Without Warrant. By Edward Ericson Jr.

Scheper holds his busted deadbolt lock

It was 28 seconds past 7:45 p.m. on Aug.18 when the 911 dispatcher took the call from Sascha Wagner. “There’s someone breaking into the house,” she yelled at the 911 operator, giving the address of the home she shares with David Scheper on the 800 block of West Lombard Street. “Send police now!”

Moments before, Scheper had opened the door to two strangers who then tried to force their way in. Scheper, who is 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds, slammed and locked the door on the would-be intruders, but he was in a panic as they smashed the glass in the 100-year-old door. He grabbed his 12-gauge shotgun and “was racking the slide over and over,” he recalls.

“I didn’t have any ammo for it, I’m racking the shotgun, telling them to get out. I’m not sure they’re in yet.” He ran to his basement in search of a usable weapon to defend himself and his girlfriend. “I was scared for her safety more than mine,” Scheper says.

In the basement, Scheper grabbed a CZ-52 semiautomatic. “I have this piece-of-junk Czechoslovakian pistol,” he says. “I put a magazine in it, racked the slide back. I was trying to check to see if there was a round in the chamber and I couldn’t rack the slide… so I was fighting it. The gun was jammed, and I was trying to get it operable. It accidentally went off into the floor of my basement.”

And with that, police say, Scheper committed the crime for which he was charged in Baltimore City Circuit Court: Discharge of a Firearm in Baltimore City. He faced up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Prosecutors dropped Scheper’s case Dec. 2.

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my beloved old man

when i was home for thanksgiving break, my parents had scheduled to have a family portrait done for our church directory. mom and dad and i got all gussied up and headed over to the church, where my sister was going to meet us. the appointment went off exactly how one would expect, uneasy conversation with a church family i haven’t been a part of for years and trying to stomach the world’s most stereotypical photographer and his cheeseball jokes. then on to meet with his bimbo of an assistant and pick out which portrait we liked. all in all, pretty mundane and uneventful.

my sister left to go to work, and mom and dad and i piled in the truck to go home. it was beautiful, a red and white powerstroke diesel f-250 with mom in between dad and i and a g.w. sticker in the window. as we were pulling out of the parking lot of the church, the first thing my mom said was something about how my sister didn’t have to wear such a low cut blouse. again, not entirely unexpected and frankly par for the course. but i’ll never forget what happened next. my dad said “you know honey, i don’t really think it was all that bad.” he had mom’s attention. he continued, “you know, these days people just dress differently. honestly i think it’s a shame to see a pretty girl whose built really nice wearing a turtle neck sweater or something.” about that time, i looked over at my father (pictured top right), whom i love dearly. i swear to christmas i saw his window begin to form frost, and it was at that point i realized it was from the icy stare dealt by my mother. he slowly turned his head around toward me and saw every ounce of hope drain from his eyes as they landed on that fateful item: my mother’s turtle neck sweater.

thanks mom and dad, for never steering me wrong and always giving me something to laugh about. i love you guys.

On August 1-2, 1946, some Americans, brutalized by their county government, used armed force as a last resort to overturn it. These Americans wanted honest open elections. For years they had asked for state or federal election monitors to prevent vote fraud (forged ballots, secret ballot counts and intimidation by armed sheriff’s deputies) by the local political boss. They got no help.

These Americans’ absolute refusal to knuckle under had been hardened by service in World War II. Having fought to free other countries from murderous regimes, they rejected vicious abuse by their county government.

These Americans had a choice. Their state’s Constitution — Article 1, Section 26 — recorded their right to keep and bear arms for the common defense. Few “gun control” laws had been enacted.

These Americans were residents of McMinn County, which is located between Chattanooga and Knoxville in Eastern Tennessee. The two main towns were Athens and Etowah. McMinn County residents had long been independent political thinkers. For a long time they also had: accepted bribe-taking by politicians and/or the sheriff to overlook illicit whiskey-making and gambling; financed the sheriff’s department from fines-usually for speeding or public drunkenness which promoted false arrests; and put up with voting fraud by both Democrats and Republicans.

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MARSEILLES, France — Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach — and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

“I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams,” the rattled bachelor later admitted. “And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she’d said she would.

“But when I got close, she turned around — and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn’t know what to say. All I could think was, ‘Oh my God! it’s Mama!’ ”

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