Crazy guy back in neighborhood

This is the story of a 20 year saga that involves the Newport Beach Police department, dozens of citizens, a cat, the District Attorney and a lady with burns on over half of her body. Everything written here is true to the best of my knowledge, but I will not name any names because my goal is not to create a stir - I just want to chronicle my experiences around a man who my friends and I only refer to as “Crazy Guy”

June of 1989 was a wild month, as the Tiananmen square protests raged on, Crazy Guy was struggling with his own internal conflicts for which a psychiatrist had prescribed a cocktail of pills. I’m a believer that psychiatric therapy can be effective in many situations but in the case of our dear friend Crazy Guy, it most certainly fell short.

It was in June of 1989 that Crazy Guy was involved in a high speed pursuit with Newport Beach Police officers that reached speeds in excess of 75 miles per hour. Crazy Guy pulled his car over to the side of the road - the officers thought the chase was over (and with any other suspect it probably would have been). As officers approached the car, Crazy Guy began waving a Bible in the air as if the apocalypse was on its way - but the only thing that was to be on its way was Crazy Guy as he sped off again into the night.

The pursuit continued all the way to Beach Blvd in Huntington Beach where an unsuspecting young lady was to be the first victim of Crazy Guy’s insanity. The young lady was driving a pinto, and since Crazy people aren’t very good drivers, Crazy Guy ended up slamming into her car, causing the gas tank to rupture into flames. The young lady had suffered burns on most of her body (she later went on to sue the Newport Beach Police Department and Ford Motor Company).

After fleeing his vehicle for a brief run down Beach Blvd, Crazy guy was downed by a police dog that showed little if any mercy (Crazy Guy was later treated at Hoag Hospital for dog bite wounds while the young lady hit collided with was in intensive care)

A few days later, the movie ‘Batman’ came out (it was the highest grossing film based on a DC comic book until ‘The Dark Knight’ was released), but Crazy Guy didn’t get to see it. Crazy Guy was busted - sent to a state mental facility where he could no longer torment the people of Newport Beach.

Fast forward about 10 or so years to the 21st century. Crazy Guy has been released from the mental facility and is once again living in Newport Beach - two houses down from a good friend of mine. This is when I first met Crazy Guy. As I was driving through Dover Shores, a large disgruntled man was driving behind me, honking his horn and waving his fist. At first I thought it was a friend of mine who drove a similar black truck trying to get my attention, but then I realized this was impossible as that particular friend was thousands of miles away at college in Missouri. It was Crazy Guy - he had followed me from my friend’s house (the one two doors down from where crazy guy lived)

Had I known Crazy Guy’s past of high speed pursuits and general insanity, I probably would have been pretty concerned - but I simply scratched my head and though to myself “that’s strange”

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I learned this man was Crazy Guy. My friend explained to me that Crazy Guy often wandered around Dover Shores, and that during his more lucid moments he would even talk to the neighbors. He had once told my friend that his house was haunted, and that he could talk to the ghost. He had been spotted multiple times ‘watering’ his lawn with gasoline and he had a very impressive collection of feral cats who had wandered, unsuspecting, into his backyard.

Crazy Guy doesn’t work - instead he lives with his father (who looks like he’s 90 years old). This gave him a lot of free time during the day to do whatever he felt like - which included the occasional ‘joy ride’ in his father’s black truck or in the classic blue-green mustang that sits in their driveway.

It was back in 2004 that Crazy Guy decided to take things to a new level. On one of his psychotic episodes he barged into my friend’s backyard claiming ‘his cat’ had run back there. My friend had told Crazy Guy that the only cat there was his family’s cat, and that Crazy Guy was trespassing. This didn’t stop Crazy Guy - he tackled the cat and ran back to his house, cat-in-hand

Thinking that the best option was to call the Newport Beach Police (this was a mistake), my friend patiently waited 45 minutes for an officer to arrive. Once the officer arrived, my friend introduced himself and attempted to shake the officer’s hand - wrong move. The officer interpreted this as a threat and grabbed his gun “you’re lucky I’m not a ghetto cop, you might not be so lucky”

Needless to say, the police were no help. A community relations officer did stop by later to apologize for the incident, saying that “the officer has been under a lot of stress” - but he wasn’t able to help retrieve the cat.

After almost 2 years of trying to resolve the situation through peaceful means, the cat was finally able to escape Crazy Guy’s lair and ran directly back home (I was a personal witness to this). Unfortunately, the cat was malnourished, and looked like it had been treated very poorly. After a trip to the vet, they declared that the cat had been subject to neglect and that it probably wouldn’t survive. ‘Checkers’ died a few days later from some sort of heart condition resulting from being in Crazy Guy’s care.

The past few years have been filled with troubles for Crazy Guy - I have personally witnessed the police come by his house and arrest him 3 times for various offenses (and I don’t even live there) - every time we hope he doesn’t come back, but he always comes back.

He likes to hang out in Mariners park, sometimes with his knife (which he has been caught doing several times), just talking to people and things that exist only in his head.

Finally, in 2007 my friend was issued a subpoena - he was to testify against Crazy Guy in court (for another, non-cat-related issue), hopefully to send him away for good. Unfortunately (and as it usually goes with Crazy Guy) the case was closed, some sort of deal had been cut. My friend was no longer needed to speak against his long time neighbor and adversary.

The arrests continued. Since then I’ve seen crazy guy driving around Dover Shores with an absent look on his face and a menacing smile. I hear from the other people in the neighborhood that he likes to go for joy rides through the parking structure at John Wayne Airport. Every day, children from nearby Mariners Elementary School walk right past his house - my friend and I feel bad because we know Crazy Guy will strike again. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.

So next time to see an old blue-green mustang driving erratically around town, your best bet is to just get out of the way. That’s what we do. We get out of the way.