Police arrest two Georgetown men for attack on Atkins

[longnecker]

Georgetown — Public service doesn’t always pay, as Rep. John Atkins learned – the hard way. Atkins, D-Millsboro, was punched in the face Feb. 20, while doing a favor for his father-in-law.
For two weeks, Atkins said, he had been helping his father-in-law clear a farm field near East Piney Grove Road in Georgetown. In a Feb. 23 statement, he said they had received permission from Sussex County 911 Center to burn brush from the field.
Atkins said he left the property briefly Feb. 20; two other men, who had been hired to help clear the field, remained. According to a police report, Georgetown residents Dennis Schirmer, 52, and Gary Conaway, 56, told police they saw black smoke rising from the field and went to check it out. After they arrived, they found tires burning in the fire and notified the fire department.
Atkins said during the time he was away, he received a phone call from the fire chief, who asked Atkins to go back and check on the fire because he had heard tires were being burned.
“When I returned to the field, I was confronted by two people who had trespassed more than 200 yards onto the property without permission to where we had been working,” Atkins said.
The police report said Atkins and the men began fighting verbally, then Schirmer punched Atkins in the face.
“I repeatedly tried to avoid a confrontation, even walking away at one point, but they both threatened me with bodily injury, and then one of them punched me, knocking me to the ground,” Atkins said.
The representative said he filed a complaint with Delaware State Police Troop 4 in Georgetown. Schirmer and Conaway were both charged Feb. 22 with terroristic threatening. Schirmer was also charged with offensive touching; he could not be reached for comment. Both men were released the same day.
According to accounts from police and from Atkins, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control investigated the incident. Atkins said one of the hired workers admitted to throwing tires in the fire while Atkins was gone. Atkins said, “DNREC issued two citations to the property owner, who has paid the fine.”
http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/n...-popped/218463

[Josef]

Now doesn't everybody want to punch a politician in the face every once in a while?

These guys actually did, lol.

[longnecker]

State Rep. Atkins won't be charged with illegal tire burning
Following an internal affairs investigation, state environmental officials have decided not to charge state Rep. John Atkins with illegal tire burning at his father-in-law’s farm near Georgetown.
The state had previously charged Atkins’ father-in-law, David Allan Baker, with burning tires and burning after 4 p.m. on Feb. 20. Baker pleaded guilty and paid $300 in fines and court costs for the criminal misdemeanors.

The unusual internal review was prompted by a complaint from Dennis A. Schirmer, a former state trooper who allegedly punched Atkins in the face after an altercation at the scene. State police charged Schirmer, 52, with terroristic threatening and offensive touching. The case has not yet gone to court.

Atkins said today that the internal review proves that he has told the truth.

“It’s what I said along. The right people were arrested,’’ Atkins said. Besides Schirmer and Baker, Schirmer’s friend Gary A. Conaway was charged with terroristic threatening for his role in the altercation.

In the tire burning dispute, which is filled with contradictory statements by those at the scene, Schirmer had alleged in a letter to the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control that Atkins knew of and participated in the illegal burning, and helped cover up his own role in the crime.

The DNREC review also cleared the environmental officer who investigated the incident.

Atkins has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that although he helped clear and burn brush at the site all day, he never saw the big tractor tires there until returning to the scene after taking a break to run errands.

Baker, however, told police at "he had a bunch of tires sitting near the fire" and told two work-release inmates he had hired that they could burn them to keep the fire going. Baker’s comments were published by The News Journal on March 19 in a story detailing Schirmer’s allegations and the varying versions of what occurred.

Since then, a neighbor who said he saw tires piled next to the fire during the day told the newspaper he did not see Atkins moving tires but “cannot’’ imagine a scenario in which Atkins did not know the tires were there. The neighbor, Linden R. Holston Jr., said he was friendly with everyone in the dispute and was “stuck in the middle.’’ There is actually a page 2 if anyone wants to see the whole article.
http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...nclick_check=1