SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities say the 25-hour saga of a man who refused to come down from a giant sequoia tree in downtown Seattle was “an incalculable waste of time and services.”
Cody Lee Miller was formally charged Monday with malicious mischief and assault after he climbed to the top of the 90-foot tree on March 22 and remained there for about 25 hours, ignoring police efforts to coax him down.
He threw apples and branches at responders. The drama sparked intense interest on social media, with new Twitter accounts and the hashtag #ManInTree trending.
Court documents say the standoff caused about $8,000 in damage to the tree. Efforts to find an attorney for Miller were not immediately successful Tuesday.
Miller is scheduled to be arraigned April 11. He’s being held on $50,000 bail. If he makes bail he’s ordered to have no contact with the tree.
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‘Incalculable waste of time and services’? Hardly. Time is easily calculated at 25 hours, and cost in ‘services’ can be calculated by multiplying that number by the hourly salary of whichever officers and city workers were involved in the one day standoff. Plus, of course, the quoted $8k damage to the tree.
The hyperbole on the part of authorities grasping for a sound-bite is ridiculous.
My god! Oh the humanity. Oh the incalculable waste of time, money, and dare I say LIVES? Yes, I said it–LIVES! Not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been an event like, “The Man in the Tree.” He threw…I can’t even say it. Okay, I will. He threw branches and…and…Apples! APPLES! Does he have any idea how overpriced those things are? He did $8000 of damage to the tree–somehow. Even the tree won’t say! Just the psychological damage to the tree could be…dare I say…INCALCULABLE! Do you have any idea how expensive it is to transport a Sequoia to a PTDS meeting? Well DO YOU??? I don’t! After you uproot it and jam the thing into the meeting room, the poor thing will suffer from inane jokes such as, “Tree, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” Then, putting the above mention “patient” in downtown Seattle for all to see…is their no compassion left in the world? It’s incalculable!