By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Acting Out
In spring a young man’s fancy turns to why Gavin Love, 25, of Grand Haven went on a rampage March 20 at the Holland Walmart store.
Love knocked flat-screen TVs to the floor, smashed glass display cases and damaged thousands of bucks worth of merchandise before cops were called to haul him away.
Kudos, I say! What better way to celebrate the vernal equinox — spring’s first day — than smashing up screens that confined us all winter long? We need to act out, bud like seeds themselves, make our voices heard!
Love doubled down at the Ottawa County Jail, breaking another computer screen before guards shackled and hauled him to a March 26 video court appearance.
He was arraigned that day for malicious destruction of personal property worth more $1,000, a 5-year felony. Plus, as a now habitual offender, his sentence will double if he’s convicted.
Seems Love got busted in February for assaulting, resisting or obstructing police when stopped for unlawfully using a motor vehicle. Busy, busy.
“Mr. Love is apparently in dire circumstances,” Ottaw County Assistant Public Defender John Scheuerle told Circuit Court Judge Juanita Bocenegra, pleading for an “affordable” bond so his client could leave jail and “get straightened around.”
Instead she set Love’s bond at $50,000, noting keeping the public safe from future such acting out was important too.
Getting Love straightened ‘round won’t be easy. Spring fever can heat to simmering summers sometimes. A group of Donald Trump’s lesser admirers known as Saugatuck-Douglas Indivisibles has been acting up in a more-fitting fashion.
They’ve drawn close to 200 people to their first few meetings and have joined Holland Zeeland Indivisible (singular tense) peers weekly outside U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga’s Holland office calling for a town meeting.
They’re not fans of their Congressman’s Republican lockstep support for Trump’s and Elon Musk’s whack-a-mole government cuts and firings. Nor has Huizenga been eager to face them unless he can set the terms.
The group’s www.sdindivisibles.com website lays plans for April 5 mass demonstrations in varied venues and lists their next local meeting Monday, April 7, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Saugatuck’s First Congregational Church at 296 Hoffman St. A weeklong Walmart boycott will ensue.
Events to date have been nonviolent protests involving a prankster element (see photo with Huizenga foes and faux chickens nearby). Some Indivisibles have written letters to the editor, printed promptly as possible. All views — shy of libel, slander or smashing screens over my head — are welcome.
How Indivisible individuals stay will be tested as ranks swell, as diversity brings a panoply of opinions.
Huizenga’s cross-aisle peer, U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids), faced the music of town hall meeting March 20 in Grand Haven and March 27 in, of all places, the Devos Center for Arts and Worship at Grand Rapids Christian High School.
“It’s the fight of our lives,” she told a largely supportive audience at the Worship Center, “to make sure we can keep those programs for the people who need them most.
“Right now,” Scholten went on, “we have an unelected billionaire making these decisions for all of us. We need people to wake up and make some noise. I cannot do this alone,” she scolded.
Pressed for a more-detailed action plan, she replied that can be accomplished in November at the ballot box, not specifying which November. “We can’t wait that long,” one man shouted back.
The natives aren’t getting restless; they’re always restless. Love’s spring outbreak at Walmart, then in jail, were not isolated incidents. Violent protests — be they over George Floyd’s murder at the knee of a Minneapolis cop in 2020 or the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riots, all camera-documented — are commonplace.
I am all for paring bloated government, but Trump and Musk’s whack-a-mole firings are a backasswards way of doing things. These are people’s livelihoods. Look for a long, hot summer on climate-changed city streets.
