Homeless man causes a scare at Wal-Mart
CALHOUN — A homeless man was arrested on reckless conduct and possession of firearm by a convicted felon charges after firing a shotgun at Wal-Mart on Sunday evening.
According to the official incident report, Calhoun Police responded to Wal-Mart, located at 450 West Belmont Drive, around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
Upon arrival, officers spoke with the owner of the RV. She told officers that her boyfriend, Douglas Calvin Hastings, 52, listed as homeless, had fired his shotgun into the wood line to clear the gun. Officers asked to talk to Hastings but he barricaded himself in the back bedroom of the RV.
Witnesses told police that they saw Hastings fire a gun into the woods and walk back into the RV.
Officers entered the RV, where Hastings told them that he did shoot his gun but was not coming out of the RV and would kill himself or one of the officers if the police came into the room.
Officers noted that there were several empty cans of alcoholic beverages on the kitchen sink and dining table of the RV. According to the report, Hastings stayed barricaded in the back room for approximately five hours. Hastings finally gave up sometime after 11 p.m. and was taken into custody, where he was transported to Gordon County Jail. He was charged with one count of reckless conduct and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
6th Congressional District race today
MARIETTA — Candidates and outside groups in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District race have spent more than $14 million on political ads in the district, enough that residents are tuning out. The election is today. Janice Matson, a retiree who lives in Marietta, said she’s stopped watching broadcast television because of all the ads.
“Because it’s just so disrupting and indecisive and it just goes against my grain. I know that we need to have conversations and so on, but I don’t think that’s the way to do it,” she said. “It’s all just too much. It’s gotten way out of hand.”
John Moulton, a blacksmith and maker of high-end kitchen knives from Marietta, said he’s more likely to watch Netflix than tune into broadcast TV, so he avoids most of the political theater, but he still has strong opinions on the ads that have reached him.
“Generally speaking, they’re overthe-top and excessive and silly and they go to black-and-white, like football mentality. Team sports,” he said. “Rally on A or B, not think for yourself and ‘I have this point to make and you should go research it for yourself.’ It’s all very ‘Hoo-rah! Go local sports team!’”
It’s hard to find anybody who says they like political ads, but candidates are spending big bucks to get their name out there, or to attack the competition.
If you are like Moulton and have only seen a few ads for this race, odds are good that they have mentioned Democratic frontrunner and investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff.
Ossoff’s campaign has raised $8.2 million, a large portion of which — $5.3 million on radio, TV and cable, according to opensecrets.org — he has spent on ads, which tend tout his experience as a Congressional staffer.
Ossoff has criticized President Donald Trump in his commercials, but he has yet to go negative on any of his Republican opponents. That has not stopped the other side from attacking Ossoff however.
According to Open Secrets, he has faced $5.5 million worth of negative ads by outside conservative groups like the GOP leadership’s Congressional Leadership Fund ($3.7 million), the National Republican Congressional Committee ($1.8 million) and the National Rifle Association ($61,000).
Among other things, the ads target Ossoff for being too close to Democratic establishment figures like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and for raising money from outside groups.
Ossoff may have been the subject of the most ads, but the candidate whose campaign has released the most ads has been Republican Dan Moody.
Moody has spent $2 million on ads, according to Open Secrets, mostly of his own money. His ads primarily cite his experience as a state senator, but Moody also released an ad targeting former Republican Secretary of State Karen Handel.
“Over the last 15 years, Karen Handel has run six times for five different offices,” a voiceover says in Moody’s April 11 ad “Running for herself.” “She usually loses and she didn’t even finish the jobs we did give her.”
Handel has not gone negative with her ads, instead touting her accomplishments as secretary of state.
She was widely considered the frontrunner going into the race, and is still a strong contender to face Ossoff in a possible June 20 runoff.
Any Republican who wants a shot at getting into the runoff has to go through Handel. As a result, she has been the target of conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, which has spent $441,000 against her, according to Open Secrets.
The Club for Growth has endorsed Johns Creek businessman Bob Gray, whose own ads have largely contained praise for President Trump and painted Gray as an outsider ready to shake things up.
If no candidate surpasses 50 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff election June 20. That seems to be the most likely outcome of this election with 18 candidates on the ballot, so residents can look forward to two more months of political advertisements.
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