Sure enough. I know this from personal experience. My grandparents owned some rural property and visited several times a year. When they decided to leave their city house and move out there were creeps in the neighborhood and one guy used legal status to set up residency in an abandoned trailer house. It was hell to move him off the property as the local police aided him and gave him legal advice to thwart an eviction. We did eventually win but even the police after evicting him tried to intimidate my grandparents into letting him back on the property. I had foreseen this possibly happening and had towed his vehicle to the local junkyard the night after the eviction within an hour of discovering he had left it. The cops were pissed that the ploy failed and the perp was also outraged. Over the next couple of years an on going scheme of harassment against my grandparents developed. When I protected them the attention turned toward me as their "hired thug". I was arrested on trumped up weapons violations in one case that suddenly morphed into felony ammunition possession as it was clear that the weapon in question had been handed to me by the same officer that later arrested me. Stupid DA failed to understand that the ammunition had been in the weapon. I simply removed the ammo before placing it in the officer's vehicle. It's the law. When the officer handed me back the shotgun he naturally handed me the ammo. He was giving me a ride back to my grandparents house after I had been out patrolling the perimeter fence. I always carried the shotgun in case of the local mountain lion, bear, or just in case the unfriendly perp happened back on the property. He was involved in a homicide a few years before and had never been questioned and he was armed with a pistol. So I had ample reason to walk around 200 acres armed. The complete case was dismissed by the DA. Then they came up with assault with a deadly weapon after I discovered the perp had been on the property and stolen a farm disc. I couldn't stop him by myself and knew the police would never help me retrieve the tool. But during the course of trying to retrieve the tool the perp came back and armed with a chainsaw came at me with the tool running. I jumped into the pickup and armed myself with a pitchfork. I was really scared. I told him I would certainly run him through with the pitchfork if he came within range armed with it. He shut off the saw and then ran around and stole my keys. At that point I just walked off and pretended I was leaving. I saw him toss the keys in a bush and walk off. I retrieved them and left the area. It was six months later that the police came with an arrest warrant and actually stood around after announcing they would arrest me. I just looked at them and waited for fully a minute with them doing nothing. Finally I demanded they make good on the warrant and arrest me.

After getting out on OR and having some rounds of silliness with a public defender the DA representative spoke to me and demanded I leave town. Like in the old west. She said if I just left town they would not prosecute. I laughed. Not a chance. She turned beet red with anger and said then they would prosecute me. Ohhhhhhh. I was still laughing but pissed they would be so clumsy and make it some emotional pissing contest. I later phoned the DA and got in touch with the secretary for the head of the DA there. I had her write down the date of the murder committed by the perp and his brother, where they could find a Press Enterprise article concerning the murder and how the police had lazily taken everything the perps said as truth, in spite of their later boasting about the murder to anyone who would listen. It was washed away as self defense. Guy was in his own yard and they approached and tried to terrify him with a rifle. He grabbed for the rifle and one of them got in their vehicle and rammed him. Knocking the fellow to the ground and running him over. Then the one who had still maintained a grip on the rifle shot him. They then ran over him again as they fled the scene. Not what I call self defense. I listed the names of people on our street who had been robbed or harassed by this guy and his brother and friends. An hour later I got a call that the charges had been dropped.

My learning experience, Understanding the law is of great importance. Understanding how the legal system and police actually function in practice is of even greater importance.

I have found this to be true over and over again. This guy's biggest mistake was that he failed to realize that he is under no obligation to go speak to a judge if he hasn't committed a crime. If a judge actually wants to be friendly and speak, then come outside and speak. But then the guy should just walk away. Walk away. It's always best when you are dealing with a police force that is against you exercising your rights.

Those guys harassing my grandparents made several more attempts to drive them off their land. One was an area that was unfenced. They had been driving on it for no apparent reason when to access it they had to go out of their way. I noticed it for about a year and pondered what the game was. Then I realized they wanted to take it and attach it to the property they were being allowed on by a neighbor in his favor. I don't think the neighbor was in on it but they at very least wanted to claim rights according to California law. Squatters rights and all that. We promptly constructed a nice fence. They promptly drove a truck to the other side of the fence and claimed we had blocked them in and further more that they had rights since they had been using it for many years as access to "their" land. So here come the police to claim we were breaking the law as the fence was on the property line and should be six inches back. We asked him where the law states this. He didn't know. Just thought he remembered it. Then told him that even if it were so, it's up to the real property owner to take it up in civil court as it's hardly a criminal matter. And even if on the outside chance that it was some sort of criminal trespass, the owner needs to show up and say so and prove it. Not some hooligans running around raising hell.

So after all the failed attempts to run the poor old folks off and money spent defending the property and false charges and running back and forth to court the perps decided to set up their drug shop a few miles up the street in an old house that was abandoned. The families across the street from the new location promptly burned the house down. In retaliation they burned down their own father's house which he had sold to another family as they had tried to live there for free and thwarted any attempt he made to rent it out. That was the last they were seen in the area.