You may remember Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was injured last fall after getting in a mysterious fight with his neighbor over yard work.
On November 3, 2017, Paul was mowing his lawn in the gated community outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he lives. Paul had just stepped off of his riding lawnmower when Rene Boucher—a retired anesthesiologist and Paul’s neighbor of 17 years—tackled the Kentucky senator from behind. Paul broke six ribs and suffered bruises to his lungs.
On Tuesday, newly released court documents revealed more details about the motive behind the Rumble in the Suburbs. The altercation began, apparently, with a mound of branches on Paul’s property.
Let’s take this Roll Call story about the incident line by line:
Boucher found the pile of tree limbs and other flotsam “unsightly,” according to new court documents first reported by The Associated Press. Even though it wasn’t on his property, Boucher could see the pile from his back patio.
It sat there for weeks.
Alright, this seems like typical having-Rand-Paul-as-your-neighbor behavior.
In October, Boucher had the branches loaded into portable dumpsters and carried off.
Rude, but also, this type of behavior is perhaps to be expected when you live in a gated community full of rich people with too much time on their hands.
But then, other piles appeared — two of them.
Wait, where is Rand Paul finding all these piles of brush? Are they materializing on his property out of thin air? Did he import more branches to piss off Boucher?
Boucher poured gasoline on the woodpiles and incinerated them, giving himself second-degree burns in the process.
!!!!
But Paul’s autumn yard work was not complete.
!!!!!!!!!!!
The next day, the senator blew leaves into Boucher’s yard with his lawnmower. He made another branch pile in the same spot as the previous ones.
As the youths like to say, “wig!!!!”
Boucher had had enough.
“As Dr. Boucher has stated throughout, he lost his temper and tackled Rand Paul as Paul was carrying branches from another location on his property and placing them on the property line,” the court memorandum from Boucher’s defense team said.
Boucher pleaded guilty to the attack in March, and federal prosecutors are seeking a 21-month prison sentence. A judge is scheduled to sentence Boucher on Friday, which will close the latest chapter in this... turf war. ;-)