A Hale of a Night at Court

***Note: This post is intended for adults only. . if you are not at least 18 years or older then you should not be reading this post. .If you are over the age of 18 and your level of comprehension is still on the 5th grade level, you should not be reading this post.

Last night I decided to attend court because I wanted to know what they were going to do with the 80+ tickets that were written by Jacob Matthews. (Last night he was often referred to as "Super Trooper" and several people said that he's now working in Columbia as a police officer.) When I entered the building, I noticed this discrepant old man sitting in the corner and when I looked in his direction he just started jerking in his seat and was mouthing something. I looked over at him again and I realized that he was the old man that gave me the finger the other week. I just shrugged my shoulders and took my seat. After sitting down, I got a phone call, and I went in the back room to answer the call and when I returned to the court room I looked up and the man was still starring. By that time, the deputy clerk (Cindy) had started calling out the names on the docket. One by one they came up and some were sent into the office to get the other deputy clerk (Sue) to make copies of their proof of insurance. (Side note: I thought the only person that could handle matters of the court was the court clerk and according to law, the person working as court clerk is supposed to have at least 12 hours of training to get paid. How is it that we have two deputy clerks working/getting overtime/comp time and neither of them received any official training as court clerk?) Later, Cindy called some the names again, but this time the ones she called were told, one by one, that their case had been dismissed. Since the cases were being dismissed, I thought that I didn't have anything to blog about, so I got up to leave the court-room. As I was leaving, someone stopped me and told me to look at the guy in the corner with the walking cane and he told me that he was Owen Hale, Rebecca Hale's husband. Then it all clicked. You mean to tell me that the man that gave me the finger the other week was Owen Hale. I looked over at him and I just started to laugh. When I exited the building, I stopped to talk with Alderman Quincy Rogers and while we were having our conversation, Owen Hale walked right past me and once he got to the other side of the parking lot, he started cussing and said " I didn't know what I was talking about on that damn blog and I need to stop lying on his wife." Hale went on to say, from the safety of his truck, that "his wife has worked all her life and I didn't do nothing but sit on my fat ass and cause trouble." I told him "if I was lying on his wife, why don't he sober her up and file a libel suit against me." Hale then went on to say " I can't wait to get out of this racist ass town. . me and my wife are getting out of this racist ass town." Hale went on to say "I'd better be glad this wasn't the good old days because he and his buddies would have dealt with me." I wonder if this was one of those loosely cloaked references to the Klan? Hale then threw the cane in the back seat and sped out of the parking lot. By this time, two Lumberton police officers had made their way outside to see if everything was okay.
I wasn't troubled by his statements because it's a reflection of who he is. What troubled me was his reference to Lumberton as a "racist ass town" especially since he's benefiting from the racism of the City of Lumberton. Owen Hale was arrested for manufacturing of a controlled substance while married to an alderman of the City of Lumberton but his mugshot was never aired on WDAM and his wife was never asked to resign. Hale was released on a felony bond for his drug charges and who runs to his defense, Lindsey Carter, Attorney for the City of Lumberton. Now, Rebecca Hale was leading the parade to get Carter fired, but Carter defended her husband free of charge (pro bono). Later, Owen Hale wrote a check his ass could cash and he got the brakes beat off him. So, the powers that be scrambled to get his charges reduced to a misdemeanor to keep him out of jail since he couldn't get charged with a felony while on bond from a felony drug charge. Where was Judge Stewart when Mayor Holder's husband was charged with assault for protecting his wife? Why didn't he intervene and get those charges reduced? Now we have an alleged drug dealer walking about town, getting his ass whopped for making threats but in this same town, the Mayor's husband is banned from attending public meetings because he was defending his wife. Now, that seems pretty racist to me, but Hale is the one benefiting from the racism as well as the "Lunch Hour with Hale" sessions with the Lumberton Police Department, but he's screaming that he's tired of this "racist ass town." There are rumors that he's not only a drug dealer, but a user. . Whatever the case may be, he needs to leave the Purp, Cush the Oxy or whatever he's using along because it has apparently destroyed a significant amount of brain cells. (Not that there were many in the first place.) Prior to last night, Owen Hale had the benefit of anonymity. He knew me, but I, fortunately, did not know him, but thanks to his lack of restraint, I now know what he look like (the picture in the post is not Hale, but it's close) and I will definitely be there for his next court case in Lumberton's Municipal court to make sure that everyone else knows him as well.