There Is No Place Like Home: Citizens From Small Towns Share Their Town’s Most Recent Scandals

Our newly elected mayor (who is a school teacher as well) caused a head-on car crash injuring 2 small children in the other car. She was found to be drunk and it was 330pm on a weekday. The kicker: she wasn’t charged with a crime (as of yet) but she did resign after “considerable thought.”

We have a tourist train, runs from Town A to Town B. It was a particularly dry summer and the train started a fire that spread over 75,000 acres. The town is now suing the train station for loss of income (as we are a tourist town and our income is solely based off of tourism, and no one wants to go tour a smoky town in Colorado).

I'm not sure of the exact number, but I think it's in the ballpark of tens of millions of dollars.

My girlfriend works in a nursery in a medium-sized town.

A knife-wielding intruder broke into the nursery and they had the entire building on lockdown. He didn't actually enter the building. He was spotted nearby. The nursery was still on lockdown and all the staff and children had to be evacuated to a safe room. Thankfully nobody was hurt and the man was quickly apprehended.

A local ahole has been taking people's money to do house repairs and not doing the work. Did it to an elderly lady in her 80s whose daughter is my mom's friend, and the daughter has been telling everyone - and now the ahole wants to sue her for defamation, by... telling the truth. Guy's as bad as his dad, who ran for mayor and lost badly because nobody liked him and was caught telling lies.

Better than last year's scandal - someone was breaking into seasonal homes and was eventually caught with the stuff, drugs, and firearms.

I left my small town years ago but I was home over thanksgiving and got an earful.

The local grocery store was renovated/expanded after 30 years and now “everything’s moved and you can’t find nothing”. I was home for four days and literally every new social interaction with people in town involved the dn grocery store and how awful it is now.

Spoiler: it actually looks quite nice and they hang signs over the aisles telling you where things are. You know, like a grocery store.

Someone frequent at a smoothie shop didn’t pay. She said she’ll be back and went across the street to her workplace.

She never came back to pay. So the shop called the work to be like yo. So she had to do the walk of shame back to the smoothie place.

Got heated on Facebook. The shop had to show security footage. Classic crazy Karen vs inexperienced business owner

Nothing really, other than a few porch pirates. Someone did shoot at one of them, but no one was injured at least. Since then it's stopped for now. There's no police station in town and the nearest one is a half our drive so sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands.

A friend of mine was caught smoking a juul in the restrooms at school and now there is a censor in there that senses all kinds of smoke like pot, cigarettes, exc. and sets off the cameras outside of the doors. Any time the censors go off it notifies the principal and vice principal. Many and I mean MANY have been caught ever since....

We have one homeless guy. Half of the town are clutching their pearls in horror at the very idea. They call the cops on him whenever they see him anywhere in town. The cops had to release a statement in the local paper that it is not a crime to be homeless.

I really don’t get people a lot of the time.

We have a moose warning system, in the form of a Facebook group where you write out when and where you saw the moose. We use it to track the movements of he those bastds so as to warn others of potential moose-on-the-road situations. To avoid traffic accidents. Now some people have been found guilty of ignoring the group. The town is divided. I've seen ugly looks thrown around, whispers behind hands, rumors are spreading, harsh words on the internet. This is growing bigger than the kidnapped trash cans.

Oh and Freddie the Chihuahua broke out of his yard again. His escapades always seem to engage everyone. That dog is God dn Houdini reborn.

A couple months ago someone left their fire pit in their driveway for a few days. They received a mailed letter from an anonymous neighbor shaming them for making the neighborhood look bad. The recipient then posted the letter on the town’s Facebook page. People ran with it and created the first annual front yard fire night.

A group of teachers in my home town had a group chat that got discovered, recorded and distributed to everyone and it shows them being racist, making jokes about students sex lives and quote "This N so dumb he can’t walk and chew gum" talking about students.

Major scandal right now.

Our current scandal is that the current company running our trains hasn’t been doing a good job lately. Basically they decided that the old trains needed replacing with new ones, and that as these new trains would be quicker they would be able to add more services. Trouble is, they added the extra services before they were ready.

The drivers have only just been going on their training to learn about these new trains, and as such they aren’t available to drive them. This has led to widespread delays, in some cases resulting in there being a two hour rather than one hour wait between trains.

It has got so bad that our local MPs have been stepping in and demanding that they get the trains running properly or they will terminate their contract and go with another company.

Bill, long-time and the beloved mayor announced he was done, and even if winning from write-ins he would decline. Jim, a local business owner, is the only one who runs for mayor. Jim isn't well-liked. His employees often speed and don't stop at stop signs (no lights in this town). Well, come election day Jim wins by a small margin against Bill's write-ins.

Jim's first order of business is to revamp the budget. He suggested to fire the one police officer and sell all related equipment. Less than a month after his wish is granted, Jim resigns as mayor. He allegedly (from mouthing off at an illegal "bar" in town) wanted the cop gone because his guys kept getting tickets.

Bill then takes over for another term.

Oh boy. I'll just copy/paste the post from the PD's Facebook page, I don't think I could shorten it and do the story any justice.

*Dogs alert resident to stranger hiding in the bedroom closet. On December 10th, at 7:35 pm a resident on Stelting Street was alerted by her dogs barking and leading her to a bedroom closet. The resident and another family member were unable to open the closet door and noticed fingers sticking out from under the door holding it shut. From inside the closet, a male said “Ho Ho Ho!” and warned they would ruin their Christmas surprise if they opened the door.

The resident dialed 911, at which time the suspect fled and entered a nearby garage, removing some items from the garage before heading to yet another residence. The second resident was alerted by his dog barking, which scared off the intruder.

Responding officers tracked footprints in the snow to another nearby garage on Hill Street. Officers obtained the entry code to that garage. As the overhead door began to open, it was promptly closed by someone inside pushing the close button. This was repeated several times before an officer distracted the suspect and entry was made.

Inside the garage, officers located Kabian B. Coleman, 32, of Rockland. Coleman ignored commands to comply with handcuffing but was quickly taken into custody. Coleman appeared under the influence and later admitted to using drugs. He claimed he was on his way to turn himself in when officers started chasing him.

Coleman had an active warrant for his arrest from the Department of Corrections. He was also booked into the Monroe County Jail for Resisting or Obstructing an Officer and Trespassing. Based on witness and suspect statements, it did not appear Coleman intended on harming anyone. He said he was hiding in the home because it was cold outside. Coleman was checked out at a medical facility before going to jail.*

A 12-year-old girl thought she was pregnant so she went to the school councilor. Councillor called in her father and proceeded to tell the parent what was going on and who the girl said the father of the baby was. As the girls dad is leaving the office the boy who is supposedly the father is standing down the hallway. Que angry dad running up and sucker-punching the kid, then proceeding to get his a beat by a 13-year-old. Good times in small towns.

This was a couple of months ago. She wasn’t pregnant, haven’t heard of any ramifications for the dad.

In my town, there's been a lot of shoplifting in the last month. Shop owners are on high alert. The timing of it coincides with an old man that's been dressing up as Santa visiting the stores and ringing a bell for donations on the corner. I don't think he has a real job. He just does this all day every day. Nobody's ever seen him before this and we're not sure if he lives around here.

I live in a suburb of Chicago, that's like a small town. My bartender is tied up in a legal battle with her brother. It came as a shock to everyone because her brother is deaf and she took care of him a lot. They were thick as thieves. Their dad died and the brother did a 180 and sued my bartender for stealing his inheritance.

My bartender is heartbroken and everyone is shocked. He's a good kid, very quiet and hard-working. Something overcame him and made him turn against his sister. No one can figure out how his brother found a lawyer by himself or thought to sue her in the first place. He won't talk about it with anyone, he's just angry at everyone now. My bartender thinks that his wife is controlling him because she wants the money. It's a mystery.

A schizophrenic man pulls an ax on the park ranger and threatens to slit his throat. Police come and he runs. He’s now wanted, armed, and dangerous. He keeps coming into the gas station I manage. Keep calling the police but they won’t send anyone down to check it out. Claims he’s out of town. I’m scared to work 3rd shift.

Our city council just voted to give themselves a 103% raise. For reference, the pay is low-mid 20k currently, the raise puts the pay at 52k. The support is that more people will be able to get into office with the higher pay, and wages were stagnant from many years ago. So instead of the gradual pay increase over those years with cost of living, it's been adjusted to the current market today resulting in a significant jump. The overall trend from opposers is that they were blindsided and didn't get to vote on it like the last mayor said should happen.

A few days ago, Amber Alert sent out an emergency message about a fellow in a green car who had stabbed his girlfriend and stolen their baby out of San Jose, which is 3 hours north of us. Lo and behold, the guy was caught right at our own downtown gas station when the kidnapper accidentally locked the baby and his keys in his car, which drew attention to him. A good samaritan from an entirely different town, (a tourist), put the puzzle together and put the guy in a headlock until the authorities arrived.

The town went with the lowest bidder for a big roadwork contract, and it turns out they were totally unqualified for the job and were messing stuff up. So the town fired them and hired the second-lowest bidder. Same thing. They're on their third contractor now IIRC, and the project which was supposed to be done this summer will hopefully be finished sometime next year.

High-level employee at a very prominent and well-regarded local indie business is fired. Makes public social media posts confirming that he was fired and claiming it was for no good reason. This person is relatively popular with many friends/acquaintances in town, and succeeds in turning quite a few people against this business and having them proclaim they'll never shop there again for how they treated him.

Fast forward a few months and he is arrested for theft...at this business. It now comes out that he was fired for drug use and suspected prior theft. He now publicly confirms that he was on drugs, but claims he is deeply remorseful and trying to get clean. Loses some support due to the crimes committed, but still has quite a few vocal supporters due to "admitting he has a problem" and "trying to get help."

Over the next several months he has a long continuous public meltdown on social media and it becomes obviously apparent that he is still using and in no way seeking help, due to both logical inconsistencies in his stories and the increasingly deranged content of the posts. Supporters quietly drop away with each passing day and eventually he is left just kinda yelling his drugged up rants into an empty social media void.

At the height of said derangement, a local woman makes a public post with included receipts showing that he's been sexually harassing many, MANY local women (sending them dirty pics and very aggressively demanding sex) and also confirming that he is still heavily using and dealing drugs.

He has now dropped off the face of the (internet) earth thanks to that post, the affected business is still booming, and many, many local people are feeling real goddn stupid for rallying behind him.

Okay, so our last mayor decided to not run this year because he's been in the news a lot for threatening to kill his neighbor's dog, as well as just threatening the neighbor in general. Wasn't faring well for him. So a friend of his who was a very well-known socialite & realtor decided to run in his place. Well, my city is sort of small, & the people who have lived here a while would like to keep the houses from being built pretty much on top of each other.

So she quickly found herself opposed, with the competition's platform built around preserving the natural land we have left & dumping old, earmarked projects that were planned literally 20 years ago that no one wants anymore. Surprisingly, yet not surprisingly, her opponent won. And right after the opponent took office, she began pushing through decades-old earmarked land sales & making new land sale negotiations - the exact opposite of her platform - like "mayor" just means "honorary realtor" or something. People very much badly want her head on a platter. The population here is completely furious.

To give further info in my small town: population of 41,000. That includes kids. The city's main FB page (run by the socialite) only accepts adult residents of the city into the group, & the last I checked, there are about 35,000 members.

Small town cop shot unarmed Native American guy right snack dab in the middle of the town's crowded 4th of July celebration. Fireworks went on as planned.

They finally released bodycam footage and the guy's last words to the cop were "Hey, be cool, man," then pop pop just immediately after while the guy steps out of frame. Cop claimed guy was threatening him with a screwdriver, which was never seen in footage. Prosecutors are deciding whether the cop faces charges.

We had an Aryan Circle gang member hiding in a trailer in an RV park. He was served an eviction notice and when he refused to leave the sheriff was involved and they learned he had warrants. The SWAT team ripped out the side of the trailer to get at him and he wasn't even inside. They found him in the woods a short while later.

About a year ago this woman pulled out in front of a dude riding a motorcycle, this caused the man to go flying and this lead to his death. It’s been over a year and this woman hasn’t been charged with anything, her daughter is in my class and the next day someone told her to drive safe when she was called to the office.

The first one just happened- A well known guy who had worked at the local college for years and was running for mayor had been caught cheating with another lady in town who was also in a prominent family. Well instead of trying to fix things and work stuff out, he drove out to a FAMILY park where kids were playing, and shot himself in the head.

He did this not before calling his oldest son who was like 17, and telling him where to find his body. Son was traumatized, called the cops, as far as I know nobody but the cops saw his body because they got there right after he did it. BEST/WORST part? The mf-er lived. And had to go to a hospital where they quickly realized he was not going to make it. So the whole family had to go and watch him die. His poor wife..... The doctor said though that while he was dying, he was conscious and in pain. So that’s a little consolation for what he did to his family.

Girls from my small town have taken to twitter recently to expose a pretty well-known guy in town. He is notoriously known for being a player and messing around with girls on a daily. He is also known for stealing and being racist at times. We'll call him Martin.

One girl started a massive chain effect my tweeting out of pictures of Martin and her texts with him where he uses the N-word (he is incredibly white, so big no-no). Another girl chimed in by saying that Martin also posed as her uncles son when her uncle was dying in the hospital in order to steal his wallet and all his belongings. Then another girl added on by tweeting that Martin also harasses girls at parties and over the internet, including her.

Over 50 girls messaged her, recounting their stories with Martin. 16 girls came forward to say that he raped them. Only 2 of them went to court, Martin won both times due to lack of evidence. There weren't even rape kits performed on these girls who went straight to the police. So these girls are posting on social media to raise awareness and to get something done about this guy. You can see his overdo karma is clearly coming.

So many people in my small town have spoken up about it, but there's also a lot of people making excuses for him and blaming the girls who are making a stand, saying they're "chasing clout". Kinda hard to watch, but I'm glad that something is being done about it instead of just silence.

Our (now former) police chief was running a "sting" that nobody else on the force knew about. He was posing as a teen boy on Facebook to get the deets on the bad kids in town. Supposedly. That was his defense. In reality, he was pulling over the cute teen girls he connected with on FB, chatting them up, asking for their numbers, and god only knows what else. He got investigated and fired shortly after. New police chief seems like a decent guy.