The Postal Service is under fire in Portland, Oregon after it decided to retain a postman who was captured on film peeing and defecating on a home on his route and simply reassigning the postman to another route.
PA neighbor, Don Derfler, caught the act on film and the postal worker was identified. However, urinating on homes does not appear to be a basis for termination in the postal service. It is a pretty lenient response given the spate of draconian actions where the postal service cut off service to whole neighborhoods as forms of collective punishment for dog attacks.
What is interesting is that public urination is a crime. Yet, both a criminal charge and a termination appear to be dead letters.
The neighbors on the new route may prefer snow or heat or gloom of night.
Derfler had been waiting for his babysitter when he saw his mailman acting odd at his neighbor’s house across the street. The postal worker then pulled down his pants and that’s when Derfler began snapping pictures.
“We trust people like the postal service and meter readers and people of that nature,” Derfler told us when we interviewed him in April. “To come on to our property and to defecate – it’s just wrong.”
The incident was an embarrassment to the post office and the worker was immediately placed on unpaid leave. Now, a decision has been made to keep the worker but he will be transferred to a different route.
A spokesperson said the administrative action was taken based on a postal service investigation but he did not elaborate. He also did not say which route the mail carrier has been assigned to cover.
Source: KomoNews
The postal workers unions at it again. defending the garbage employees and doing nothing for the good employees!!!!
Mike Appleton
1, May 27, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Blouise:
Great Robert Burns reference. Whenever I read him in school, I imagined him reciting his own stuff, and realized that I would not understand a word he was saying.
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I was raised on the Scot’s accent and can fall into it at a moment’s notice. My brothers and I would drop into it whenever we didn’t want those around us to understand what we were saying … those who weren’t relatives. 🙂
Blouise:
Great Robert Burns reference. Whenever I read him in school, I imagined him reciting his own stuff, and realized that I would not understand a word he was saying.
I’m still not sure what I would do if I was a postman walking his beat or whatever they call it has a sudden onset of diarrhea, what to do? crap in my pants or find a bush hopefully where no one will see and take a unstoppable you know what….
Since the management of the Service decided not to punish the guy I’m guessing hes a good employee and was over taken by something similar to the above scenario.
I’ve never had my mail stopped or my property destroyed by anyone working for the Post Office..
czech80 my advise Anger Management SOON!!!
“Isn’t that also macho posturing about your intimate knowledge of violence?”
No. It’s a statement of fact. Having studied martial arts for many years, I do indeed understand violence quite a bit better than many people. Including you apparently. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. But you go ahead and “protect the kids” by showing them that beating the Hell out of somebody is effective dispute resolution. That’s why it’s not funny.
As to the possible medical condition? It should matter as to mitigation of sentencing, not mitigation of charge. If genuinely ill, the penalty should be minimal. If just a dirty bastard dumping in the yard? It should be a maximum penalty.
I’ll close by saying if you don’t like me? That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. However, if it was meant to be a jab at me? Take a guess as to how much that matters. Probably about as much me thinking you’re a right-wing asshat who thinks violence is funny and appropriate matters to you. See? Now that was an ad hominem attack. English. You should get some. Your lack of skills therein are directly related to you not being funny or effective at argumentation. Although some of the not funny simply comes from you not being funny. If I’ve brought you down by not opining that you are funny and saying so, I don’t really care. Consult the 1st Amendment for further clarification.
Enjoy your hula outfit.
“Oh, and my pots are more of a silverish hue thus I can freely call the kettle black…” (czech80)
“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel’s as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion” (Robert Burns)
Blouise,
Are you suggesting that since its creation was explicitly authorized by the US Constitution that citizens have 0 redress when the USPS decides to stop delivering mail and its employees damage your property?
Don’t recall saying it shouldn’t exist just unhappy about paying for it given its behavior. They certainly need to abide by the same laws as everyone else and if they can’t operate within those laws then their leadership needs to be terminated and they need to rebuild immediately under strict supervision.
Oh, and my pots are more of a silverish hue thus I can freely call the kettle black…
BIL,
And do you not find it ironic that you refer to macho posturing and then mention “if you really understood violence, you’d know this.” Isn’t that also macho posturing about your intimate knowledge of violence? Regardless, you did not care for my tongue in cheek reference or form of humor. C’est la vie. I don’t care for your hostility and belief that you are the final judge on humor. It is a real Debbie downer.
Back to the topic, I personally have not seen a case where IBS or the flu were able to get someone out of a public urination / defecation fine / arrest (I’ll gladly eat crow if someone knows of one). So the USPS guy should be charged. However, numerous posters referenced the possibility of medical problems before passing judgment. Not seeing why someone should get a pass with IBS and not with a mental condition where they did not know what was right from wrong.
I’ll close by saying I am happy that imagining me gyrating is helping you pass time and I’ll happily return the favor but with you in a hula outfit.
Then I suggest you get better at using that hyperbolic tongue in cheek, because beating the Hell out of someone isn’t really funny and if you properly understood violence instead of simply macho posturing about it, you’d know this. Battery is a crime. Being crazy isn’t. If you beat the Hell of someone for defecating in your yard, you’ve committed a crime. Whether you are mentally competent to be held fully responsible is another issue entirely.
As to ad hominem attacks? None have taken place, but if you’d like I can change that. Suggesting your reaction was crazy is not saying you are crazy.
What culheath was saying was that you don’t deserve to held less responsible because you have a mental problem for the crime of battery unless (and I’m supposing this based on past conversations with culheath) your mental illness precludes you from consulting rationally with an attorney to aid in your own defense and to have a rational and factual understanding of the charges levied against. You seem to have some sense that battery is a crime and you are rational enough here to seem to be able to consult with an attorney and participate in your defense, ergo, no matter if you have a mental illness or not you should be held accountable for your battery.
“Ironically, I guarantee if the postal worker was a paranoid schizophrenic, you guys would offer far more leniency.”
Then your guarantee would be useless. The test of competency to stand trial is not clinical diagnosis. Competency at law is more complicated than that.
Dusky v. United States 362 U.S. 402 (1960) addressed the competence to proceed. Competency in Dusky was defined by the Court as the defendant’s ability to consult rationally with an attorney to aid in his own defense and to have a rational and factual understanding of the charges. In Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993), the Court laid the same criteria down as the Dusky decision for determining competency to plead guilty. In Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), the Court upheld the common law rule that the insane cannot be executed and that the petitioner is entitled to a competency evaluation at the hands of a forensic specialist and to an evidentiary hearing in court on the question of his competency to be executed.
Insane but guilty happens all the time.
But thanks for showing that you whatever partisan hack you are will gyrate endlessly to dig yourself out of a hole you put yourself in.