For the past 36 hours, a wanted murderer from Florida has been sitting on a construction crane, several hundred feet in the air, keeping police at bay, in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. The august police force has completely shutdown Peachtree Street (a major road here) and kept it closed since all this began. Rather than doing everything they can to get this guy down, the police are coddling him. He was cold, so they sent up a blanket. He was hungry, so they sent up food. He had to take a leak, so they sent up a bucket.
The police say they closed Peachtree St. because he is hanging out over it and they don’t want him to jump onto the road. Which begs the question: why don’t they just turn the crane? Why are they coddling him? This has gone on for about 35.5 hours too long.
The latest news is that he is moving around up there, dismantling the crane, and dropping the various parts into the latrine bucket. Won’t that be nice for the poor saps who have to put the crane back together.
Anyway, once it was clear who the guy was (murderer) and that he wasn’t coming down, they should have turned the crane so he was no longer over the road, set up an air bag under him, and then asked him once more pretty please to come down. If he declined, there are a couple of methods they could have employed to get him down.
- Start moving the crane to make him fall.
- Send up a cop to push him off.
- Shoot him (rubber bullets or lead, or tranquilizer darts, I don’t care)
Whichever method they chose, this ridiculous event would be over and the people and businesses in Buckhead could get back to business.
If I was one of those businessmen, I’d be pissed off.