update

by Glen, Wednesday, June 29, 2016, 11:32 (3008 days ago)

Good morning gentlemen,

I thought I would give you folks an update, as this situation has had an impact on this discussion board in the past, and several of you have asked about it. For several years a friend of mine was a somewhat sporadic contributor to this discussion board. Over the years, he went by a variety of "handles", most recently (circa 2012) "FOG" (an abbreviation for "Friend of Glen"). I have known FOG since about 1990, and he and I spent many afternoons at a local gravel pit plinking together. He has a few quirks, but he's a nice guy, and very knowledgeable about handguns, especially S&W revolvers. He and I worked together in the early 90s, but then kind of drifted apart when his job took him to another building, across campus. A little after the turn of the century, he was diagnosed with MS (as many of you know, MS is a cause near and dear to my heart as my wife has MS). FOG's MS very quickly had an impact on his ability to perform his job (e.g. the fatigue would build to the point where he would sleep for 3 days straight), and he was ultimately laid off and put on disability. MS tends to progress faster in men than it does in women, and that tendency held true here, as his symptoms (fatigue, depression, weakness, numbness, etc.) got progressively worse in spite of treatment. He confided in me that at one point he had had a bad reaction to one of the depression meds prescribed for him, and had gone on a tear of angry, aggressive, abusive behavior that had lasted several days. This is relevant here because about a year later (circa 2012), he went on an angry, abusive, and highly vulgar and profane tirade on this discussion board, insulting a number of the members and calling into question their integrity, character, parentage, etc. I was stunned by this behavior, because this was not typical of the person I knew. Repeated email queries to him were ignored. Several of you asked me what was going on. I don't know what caused this outburst, but I suspect that it was another bad reaction to his depression meds. In any event, that was the last I heard from him (~4 years ago).

Until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from him, from the county jail. He was being held on a 72 hour investigative hold. It seems that there has been an on-going dispute between him and his neighbors (who like to throw loud parties into the wee hours of the morning). It escalated into such childish stuff as egg-throwing back and forth. I have no idea what happened, but sometime last week FOG says he was "attacked" by the neighbor during a late night confrontation, and was "forced" to pull a gun on him. It seems the local PD disagreed with his assessment and arrested him for assault. I don't know any of the particulars of the case, so I have no way of saying how justified the charges are, but I do note that he was not released at the end of his investigative hold (I was waiting for him in the parking lot at the county jail at 1:30am this morning), meaning the DA has decided to pursue charges. Generally speaking, DAs are not noted for pursuing cases they think they will lose, so I suspect that there might be big changes ahead for him (according to the internet, in this state first time offenders for Assault II are typically looking at 3-12 months, and fines up to $20K).

Anyway, several of you have asked me about him and his situation, so I thought I would share this update.