Friday, February 07, 2014

PEEING ON THE ALAMO A FELONIOUS OFFENSE

Man faces 18 months in state jail and must pay $4,000 restitution

When you gotta go, you gotta go, but don’t you dare go on the Alamo! Peeing on the Alamo is a great big no no. The charge of criminal mischief of a public monument or place of human burial is a felony in Texas that carries a sentence of up to two years in prison. An El Paso man found that out the hard way.

Daniel Athens, 23, was drunk on April 14, 2012 when he ducked under a barrier chain in front of the Alamo and took a leak on the shrine just to the left of the front door. He was tackled by an Alamo Ranger and charged with two misdemeanors – public intoxication and urinating in public. The District Attorney’s office decided to up the charges to a state jail felony. Athens pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday.

A plea bargain capped the sentence at 18 months and requires Athens to make a restitution payment of $4,000 because that’s what it cost to repair the damage to the limestone front of the 250-year-old mission. The DA’s office has announced that it will oppose probation for Athens. He is due to be sentenced in April.

Athens is only one of a bunch of drunks who have peed on Texas’ holiest shrine. The latest previous pisser was arrested in January 2009.

In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne peed on the Alamo Cenotaph, a memorial to the heroic Texans who lost their lives during the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. He added insult to injury by bragging about it during a concert at San Antonio’s HemisFair Arena. The city council then voted to bar Ozzy from performing at any city-owned facility. He returned to San Antonio 10 years later for a concert at a county-owned facility and donated $10,000 to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to atone for his earlier transgression.

So, when you gotta go in San Antonio, just don’t remember the Alamo!

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