The state of Georgia is known for many things, including the setting for Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 bestseller, Gone With The Wind:
Georgia is known for peaches:
And, briefly, Georgia was in the news because of this guy:
This is Christopher Spaulding, 40, and his news coverage appeared – and quickly disappeared – back in early December, but I thought the story was worth resurrecting.
Why?
Because ole Christopher is – no question – my nominee for the list of…
The setting is Rockdale County, GA:
And the catalyst was the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO).
On November 28 RCSO posted this on Facebook:
Posting a “most wanted” list is a normal thing for law enforcement to do.
Spaulding, also of Rockdale County, GA saw the post, and I guess his feelings were hurt – that everyone-got-invited-to-the-party-but-me kind of thing.
But whereas most of us who aren’t invited to the party would hide out in a dark room and sulk…
Not Spaulding.
Are you kidding?
Look at him:
This guy is a University of Georgia Bulldogs fan through and through! Right down to his color-coordinated sweatshirt and hat!
And you can bet that Spaulding knows that UGA Bulldogs slogan from back in the ‘80s:
That’s right: GATA.
It stands for…
“Get After Their Asses!”
So Spaulding got after their asses – those Rockdale County, GA Sheriff meanies who didn’t invite him to their “Top Ten Most Wanted” party.
He jumped right on that Facebook page and said this:
And someone at the sheriff’s department took note, did their homework, and confirmed Spaulding had two outstanding warrants.
RCSO replied to Spaulding’s post:
They took a page from Spaulding’s playbook and got after his ass, and arrested him on warrants for felony violation of probation:
RCSO politely thanked Spaulding for his assistance:
This article:
Noted:
“After Spaulding was taken into custody, the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office reminded wanted fugitives that being left off the ‘Most Wanted List’ isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
“‘Our Top 10 is compiled based off of the severity of the charges only. By not being on this list does not mean our Fugitive Unit is not looking for you if you have an active warrant.’”
Well, RCSO, that may be.
But Spaulding was walking around Rockdale County with not one but two outstanding warrants, and if you were looking, you sure weren’t finding.
How many other Top 10 candidates are walking around free in Rockdale County, GA?
So Spaulding has taught RCSO a thing or two about…
Now I want to return to that ABC 11 Spaulding story from above:
Something right in the middle of the story struck me as odd:
This link:
“How,” I wondered, “could finding a ‘whole alligator’ inside a python be ‘related’ to the Spaulding story?”
The link took me to this story:
I watched the video and read the Florida Everglades/python/alligator story, and found nothing “related” to the Spaulding-getting-himself-arrested story.
But – I did see some mind-boggling images of the 18-foot python…
That made clear just how huge this snake was…
Compared to the humans in the Florida lab that were performing the necropsy on it.
How big?
Big enough to swallow a five-foot alligator:
And though the video narrator was making a joke of the story, I didn’t find anything funny in it.
We all know that pythons aren’t native to Florida, and we all know how they got there.
According to this article:
“Between 1996 and 2006, roughly 99,000 pythons were imported into the United States as pets.
“It’s believed the pythons began breeding in the wild as a result of two primary causes: irresponsible pet owners releasing them, and the animals escaping their loosely-kept cages as a result of hurricane or stormy weather.”
Pythons are decimating the native wildlife in the Florida Everglades, hundreds of thousands of pythons breeding and expanding the python population because the animal has no natural predators in the Everglades.
All because of irresponsible pet owners who may have started with one of these:
But when it got to looking like this:
They loaded it into their car, drove to the Everglades and dumped it.
As for that “animals escaping their loosely kept cages,” the article says:
“In the late 90s and early 2000s, storms likely enabled snakes in loosely secured cages to escape during stormy weather.”
So – Florida’s python invasion is a 100% human-caused problem, start to finish.
Irresponsible humans.
I now see that the Christopher Spaulding and the python stories actually are “related.”
Let’s take a page from Spaulding’s playbook.
And those people responsible for the python disaster in the Everglades?
Let’s…
I Hate Houseguests 