Troopers targeted Good Samaritan

To the editor:

Please allow me to set the story straight.

Tuesday night was a blizzard. There was a bus that got stuck in the neighborhood Mr. Mothershead was arrested in no more than three hours prior. A plow driver literally plowed in the neighborhood, leaving a 3-foot berm so no one could get in or out to Bodenburg Loop, and a small sedan stuck in the berm made it impossible for a plow truck to plow out the roadway.

A bus with several kids waiting to get home along with several cars were held up. A cop witnessed this, yet continued driving and offered no help to anyone in distress.

It was Mr. Mothershead, myself and a few other neighbors who braved the harsh conditions to help this car out. The wind gusts were literally blowing me several feet, and a few times I had to hold onto the car to keep balance.

Upon entry into the neighborhood, it was Mr. Mothershead who waited in the harsh conditions to direct traffic and get everyone, including the bus full of kids, home safely.

An evaluation of the neighborhood showed several neighbors in distress. Many cars were stuck in driveways, a car was stuck in the middle of the roadway and several neighbors had called Mr. Mothershead asking for help out of their driveways knowing he had a plow on his four-wheeler.

Myself, Mr. Mothershead and several neighbors gathered outside on the roadway with a fleet of borrowed snowblowers, shovels and the four-wheeler with plow to determine who needed help and the plan of attack.

Troopers O’Brien and Varys stopped to tell us to get our dogs out of the road. There where no dogs in the road. They did not ask us why we were standing in the road or asked if we were in distress or what we were even doing outside in the middle of a crazy storm!

They went on their way. Mr. Mothershead was on his four-wheeler and they saw this and said nothing about it. The way it is viewed in our neighborhood is that Mr. Mothershead was being a Good Samaritan and trying to help his neighbors in the extreme winter conditions and was harassed by these troopers.

It is a shame when not a single officer is willing to ask if a resident needs help, can clearly see the several people in distress and does not stop to help.

Instead, they feel the need to hinder and not help this small neighborhood that clearly needed all the help it could get. Instead of allowing Mr. Mothershead to continue in the roadway to get to the next driveway to plow, they stopped him to ask what he is doing on the road when it is blatantly obvious and they had seen him earlier that night.

Although I appreciate you waiting to speak to the troopers directly instead of pulling it off the AST dispatch report like some other media outlets, please remember there are two sides to every story, and that this story is actually about a Good Samaritan getting harassed trying to help a small neighborhood in distress.

Claire Mothershead

Butte

Editor’s Note: This letter references a story from Friday’s Frontiersman regarding Gregory Robert Mothershead II, who is accused of assault and drunken driving for allegedly dragging trooper Joshua Varys 100 feet as officers tried to arrest him.