Tuesday, July 16, 2013

We call the law on "As The Assisted Living Facility Turns"

It seemed like a normal Tuesday morning as the President of the Resident's Council walked down the hall for breakfast.  Then he encountered one of the residents who has caused trouble in the past in the lobby, shouting about something that had happened to that person on this fine Tuesday morning.  As he inquired what was going on, he found that this resident had been asked to leave the dining room during first seating because they'd had an argument with another resident.  He promised to look into it.

A few minutes later as the President sat down to eat his oatmeal, the Head Chef was in the dining room and the resident who'd been involved in the dispute wanted to come into the dining room.  They were asked why and responded they wanted to get a drink.  The Chef offered to get it for them, but they then stated they wanted to go and sit with the new resident and get to know that person.  The Chef said that because of the earlier dispute, this resident wasn't welcome in the dining room again until lunch  Now this dispute escalated.  The resident said that the President had told them they could sit in the dining room anytime they wanted.

That's true.  Except for the omitted portion about only if the people this resident chose to sit with didn't object and only if the person didn't cause a disruption.

The President finally got involved in the dispute at the door because he was being discussed and he and the Chef managed to get it out into the hallway and down a ways from the dining room door.  The resident admitted having gotten angry at the other resident but wouldn't allow the logical connection to be made that this shows they and not the other person were the cause of the disruption.  That the other person may have been angry with the disruptive resident is irrelevant, since that resident wasn't raising their voice and causing a problem.

Finally, the Chef told the disruptive resident to go to their room and the President said that was a good idea.  A few more words were exchanged and the resident then said to the President "I'm going to kill you".

The police were called.  The officer who responded initially resisted the filing of a complaint, claiming that the statute requires there to be intent to carry out the threat.  The President disagreed and pulled out his trusty iPhone and showed the officer that California Penal Code Section 422 does NOT require intent to carry out the threat, only that the intent of making it was to cause the victim to be afraid.  A complaint was taken.  No arrest was made and the other resident wasn't contacted by police.

Perhaps the city attorney will pursue the complaint.  There are two chances of that, actually.  There's the slim chance and the fat chance.  But at least the complaint is filed and it will go into the resident's record.  Perhaps if there are enough of these, this resident may be evicted, causing peace to reign again.  For about an hour.

Tune in next time for another episode of As The Assisted Living Facility Turns.