A mentally ill homeless guy walked onto a high school campus in my suburb, wearing all black, carrying a big duffel bag. Now, it’s reasonable to be concerned about that and want to identify who it is, assure he’s not carrying weapons onto the campus, and so forth.

But the community (as, perhaps, poorly represented on Facebook) is coming completely unhinged.

/1

/2 The cops found him at a local Starbucks, identified him, determined he had no weapons, and gave him a trespassing ticket. The community is OUTRAGED. They’re stalking him around the community and taking pictures of him at Starbucks and McDonald’s and demanding that he be kicked out. They want him jailed or institutionalized.

/3 They’ve found his Twitter and Facebook accounts and are printing out the stuff there - kind of crazy, not notably crazy on Twitter — taking it to the police demanding he be arrested. They’re keeping meticulous logs of his activities.

I am considerably more afraid of my neighbors than I am of this mentally ill homeless guy.

/4 The real question is .. will I keep my mouth shut and stay out of the neighborhood group where people are wigging out? Or will I comment?

/5 It is … not going well.

/6 when people unclear on the concept try to insult me

/7 Still not going well. However, I have worked very hard to be polite. I just had a donut, which I awarded myself for refraining from the phrase “mob of crazed torch-waving Karens”

/8 People have an absolute right to have fears, and voice them, even if the fears are irrational in nature or proposed remedy. But some people seem to thing that fears, particularly about children, should be above dissent or critique, which is weird.