Painting Crew Arrested for Arriving Before 8:00 AM

Loma Lin­da, CA – At 7:25 this morn­ing, police respond­ed to a call from a grog­gy home­own­er who claimed that ​“a bunch of men with weapons” were out­side his home. The SWAT team was mobi­lized and the whole block was cor­doned off by police, when a chop­per cir­cling over­head dis­cov­ered the source of the dis­tur­bance. It was a paint­ing crew, and their ​“weapons” were mere­ly paint sprayers. Tony McClin­tock, the fore­man, explained, ​“We dis­cussed this with the client, and it says right here on the con­tract that we would show up at 7:00. We get here at the right time, we knock a cou­ple times, and sud­den­ly we’re in hand­cuffs. What gives?!” Even after the mis­un­der­stand­ing was cleared up and the home­own­er was informed of his error, he still insist­ed on press­ing charges. Des­per­ate to prove his point, the home­own­er sought legal grounds to have the painters jailed. First, he accused them of dis­turb­ing the peace, then tres­pass­ing. When the police said these charges wouldn’t apply, he tried hard­er. ​“Rack­e­teer­ing? Aid­ing and abet­ting? Intim­i­da­tion? Knock­ing before I’ve had my cof­fee?” Upon being informed that the last item isn’t a crime, the home­own­er insist­ed that they search the painter’s van. When a par­tial­ly used jug of min­er­al spir­its was dis­cov­ered among the tools, the irate res­i­dent final­ly had his way. All four painters were arrest­ed for dri­ving with an ​“open con­tain­er.” At pub­lish­ing time, the painters were wait­ing for their boss to come and make bail. Appar­ent­ly, he was not pleased to receive their call from jail pri­or to 8:00 am.