Unfreakingbelievable!!!!

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LOS GATOS

Dirt-biker mystified by trap set on trail

No known conflict with 3 neighbors charged in assault

- John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Robert Barnes sat in his Los Gatos hills home Wednesday, his face grooved with gashes, his mouth reconstructed with titanium plates, and wondered: Why would anyone set a ****y trap across a road used by motorcyclists?

Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies say that Barnes, 46, could have been decapitated May 6 while riding his motorcycle along Loma Chiquita Road in unincorporated Santa Clara County when he rode into a rope or some other object that had been tightly stretched across the road.

On Tuesday, sheriff's deputies arrested Barnes' neighbors, Edward Anderson, 48, Donald Bryant, 62, and Donna Olsen, 46, on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury in connection with the ****y trap. Police say the three watched from nearby bushes as Barnes rode into the rope.

"I know Ed, I know Don, I know Donna," Barnes said, slightly lisping from the wounds and 500 stitches to his face. "It's hard to really explain. I wish I knew just what the heck they were thinking."

Barnes was the lead rider in a group of motorcyclists, going 20-25 mph, when something struck him across his upper lip. He was wearing a full-face helmet, but the impact ripped through parts of his face, knocked out teeth and damaged the sides of his helmet around the face guard, he said.

A second dirt-bike rider saw Barnes thrown from his motorcycle and slowed, Santa Clara County Deputy Serg Palanov said. As the second biker was coming to a stop, he saw the suspects pull taut what appeared to be a rope, Palanov said. The second biker was able to stop in time and sustained only minor injuries from hitting the object.

A friend drove Barnes to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, where, after surgery, he was in a coma for five days.

Sitting in the living room of a home perched on a hillside, Barnes tried to make sense of what happened that day. With teeth missing, and stitches protruding from a gash tracking upward from the right corner of his mouth, he spoke slowly, sometimes angrily.

"That was not just a rope," Barnes said. "When the trauma nurse looked at what happened, she said 'There's no way that a rope did this.' "

Barnes suspects he hit a length of rebar or something similar that his neighbors had secured at both ends across the roadway, and only after he had struck that did they pull up a rope for the second rider.

Barnes' wife, Wendy Barnes, 41, credited the helmet with saving her husband's life.

"Without that, they said he would have been dead," she said.

The bizarre incident stunned some law enforcement officers.

"I've ridden for years, and I've heard of stories like this, but I just thought it was another urban myth," Palanov said. "I can't believe someone would do this. ... If it was a few inches lower, I don't know. It could have decapitated him, or it could have broken his neck."

Authorities said they are investigating whether the incident was triggered by a dispute about Loma Chiquita Road, a private road about 5 miles east of Highway 17 at Summit Road. Barnes lives just houses away from his alleged attackers.

But Barnes, a construction worker by trade who now cares for his children, said there was no conflict with his neighbors.

He described the neighborhood, where a neighbor's welcome mat read simply, "Leave," and where a power pole is adorned with a blue alien doll, as one that "used to be like the Wild West."

Some neighbors along Loma Chiquita Road, a ribbon of asphalt that periodically turns to dirt, said they were shocked by what happened.

"I don't know anything about a dispute," said Kylee Johnson, 26.

Johnson said she had known the suspects for more than 10 years, described them as nice people, and said she had never heard them complain about motorcycles in the area.

"I've never heard them complain once; I've never really heard anyone complain at all," said Johnson, whose mother commutes to work on a motorcycle. "People who come up here usually come to get away from it all. You expect stuff like this to happen in the city, but you never expect that it can happen here."

E-mail John Coté at [email protected].

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URL: https://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...BAGHTITS0Q1.DTL

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©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

 
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Really *special* neighbors. Once ambulatory, I'm not sure I could resist paying my "neighors" a visit and going midevil on their *****. ****.

 
WTF????

you might expect this from some teenagers messing with their friends and it going wrong ,, but these people are in their late 40's ,, some very stupid humans !!!! some serious "whip ***" would be in those peoples futures ,, along with a very nasty civil action ,,

 
:assassin: Unbelieveable - I hope they are prosecuted with an applicable penality - but VERY unlikely in good ole liberal California (especially nor-cal). I hope the pursues civil damages against them as well. Jerk-offs!
 
I would expect medals to be awarded to the perpetrators by the 9th Circuit Court in good ole' Kalifornia, or is it Mexifornia...and a thorough tongue lashing to be administered to the motorcycle riders for having the nerve to 'disturb' their neighbors environment... :angry2:

 
I think some drug testing is also called for. Lock'em up!

 
:assassin: Unbelieveable - I hope they are prosecuted with an applicable penality - but VERY unlikely in good ole liberal California (especially nor-cal). I hope the pursues civil damages against them as well. Jerk-offs!


I would expect medals to be awarded to the perpetrators by the 9th Circuit Court in good ole' Kalifornia, or is it Mexifornia...and a thorough tongue lashing to be administered to the motorcycle riders for having the nerve to 'disturb' their neighbors environment... :angry2:
And a sincere "**** YOU" to you two ignoramuses.

Warchild posted this right after it happened, and it IS seriously ****** up. In my native state, you can expect this to be vigorously prosecuted by either the Santa Clara County or Santa Cruz County District Attorney's office (this is right near the border of the two counties). I wouldn't expect the slightest leniency for these ********. And unlike you two, I do know what I'm talking about -- I graduated from law school and used to practice there. In fact, my old boss, an extremely competent personal injury attorney, lives a couple miles from the described neighborhood. As to the civil case, that is a BAD place to be a defendant in that type of case. Punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294 appear to be almost a slam dunk on those facts, and juries there are anything but sympathetic to that sort of ****. Before that happens, though, I'd expect these fuckers to live for a while in state prison. In the civil case, expect a California jury to award compensatory and punitive damages that will likely put these ******** in the poor house once they return from public housing. BTW, getting any relief from the bankruptcy court from a judgment based upon an intentional tort is almost impossible.

 
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:assassin: Unbelieveable - I hope they are prosecuted with an applicable penality - but VERY unlikely in good ole liberal California (especially nor-cal). I hope the pursues civil damages against them as well. Jerk-offs!


I would expect medals to be awarded to the perpetrators by the 9th Circuit Court in good ole' Kalifornia, or is it Mexifornia...and a thorough tongue lashing to be administered to the motorcycle riders for having the nerve to 'disturb' their neighbors environment... :angry2:
And a sincere "**** YOU" to you two ignoramuses.

Warchild posted this right after it happened, and it IS seriously ****** up. In my native state, you can expect this to be vigorously prosecuted by either the Santa Clara County or Santa Cruz County District Attorney's office (this is right near the border of the two counties). I wouldn't expect the slightest leniency for these ********. And unlike you two, I do know what I'm talking about -- I graduated from law school and used to practice there. In fact, my old boss, an extremely competent personal injury attorney, lives a couple miles from the described neighborhood. As to the civil case, that is a BAD place to be a defendant in that type of case. Punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294 appear to be almost a slam dunk on those facts, and juries there are anything but sympathetic to that sort of ****. Before that happens, though, I'd expect these fuckers to live for a while in state prison. In the civil case, expect a California jury to award compensatory and punitive damages that will likely put these ******** in the poor house once they return from public housing. BTW, getting any relief from the bankruptcy court from a judgment based upon an intentional tort is almost impossible.
Well put!!

I can not believe the acts people do...

I hope they have a nice(miserable) stay in Folsum Prison!!!!!!

 
Warchild posted this right after it happened, and it IS seriously ****** up. In my native state, you can expect this to be vigorously prosecuted by either the Santa Clara County or Santa Cruz County District Attorney's office (this is right near the border of the two counties). I wouldn't expect the slightest leniency for these ********. And unlike you two, I do know what I'm talking about -- I graduated from law school and used to practice there. In fact, my old boss, an extremely competent personal injury attorney, lives a couple miles from the described neighborhood. As to the civil case, that is a BAD place to be a defendant in that type of case. Punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294 appear to be almost a slam dunk on those facts, and juries there are anything but sympathetic to that sort of ****. Before that happens, though, I'd expect these fuckers to live for a while in state prison. In the civil case, expect a California jury to award compensatory and punitive damages that will likely put these ******** in the poor house once they return from public housing. BTW, getting any relief from the bankruptcy court from a judgment based upon an intentional tort is almost impossible.
+1 And that would be Justice :yahoo:

 
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Let's keep on the subject of the assault and not take political potshots at California lest one of us admins have to take you aside about Board Guideline #2

You want to talk about the political ramifications of this specific act--that's fine, but don't use it as a springboard for some other rant.

Thank you.

The Management

 
Let's keep on the subject of the assault and not take political potshots at California lest one of us admins have to take you aside about Board Guideline #2
You want to talk about the political ramifications of this specific act--that's fine, but don't use it as a springboard for some other rant.

Thank you.

The Management


I used to live on the road for 10 years, I know all involved. It's WAY more involved than the paper makes out, you'd think the rider was a poor innocent rider from the article! NO WAY was it right to do what they did but there's WAY WAY more to the story. And no I'm not saying more !

 
I used to live on the road for 10 years, I know all involved. It's WAY more involved than the paper makes out, you'd think the rider was a poor innocent rider from the article! NO WAY was it right to do what they did but there's WAY WAY more to the story. And no I'm not saying more !
Aw, come on now, a little teaser wouldn't hurt anyone, would it? ;) :unsure:

I rarely believe anything I read in the SF Chronicle.

 
I used to live on the road for 10 years, I know all involved. It's WAY more involved than the paper makes out, you'd think the rider was a poor innocent rider from the article! NO WAY was it right to do what they did but there's WAY WAY more to the story. And no I'm not saying more !
Aw, come on now, a little teaser wouldn't hurt anyone, would it? ;) :unsure:

I rarely believe anything I read in the SF Chronicle.

Egos and liens and attorneys. My lips are sealed

 
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