Details are still scant, but…
“I mean, he had a lot of ammunition in that house, and certainly … all of us were strapped, you know, with ammunition, and we were calling for additional ammunition,” Kraus said. “Like I said, we tried to give him every opportunity to come out.”
…I’ll go way out on a limb and suggest that this could’ve been handled better.
Here’s what I read - I do not have the source but it was on a local Pittsburgh news site IIRC. He wasn’t paying rent. House was his deceased brother’s house which he bought in 1998 - not sure if shooter had inherited it or not, but there was something in excess of 15K owed for back taxes on it. An LLC paid the taxes on it and BOOM its their house - he filed paperwork with the state that they were scammers and he was contesting what he saw as an someone stealing his house. The LLC filed to have him evicted. Ultimately he made a bad decision to use a weapon and not a lawyer but he was ex-military and may have seen this as the last straw.
He was a SovCit.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/who-is-william-hardison-suspect-in-garfield-standoff-held-sovereign-citizen-beliefs/ar-AA1fK1nZ
Wtf
Someone else pays your taxes and they own you?
You get a year to pay back the person who paid your taxes + a fee, it’s not something that happens all of the sudden.
If what I read was real, imagine what this might mean. It would be a form a swatting where a scammer could not only steal your property but if they’re lucky get you shot and killed in the process. Some more about this kind of thing: https://www.abc27.com/investigators/could-a-scammer-have-the-deed-to-your-home-without-you-knowing/
I’m going through this process with a property (although it’s just an empty lot in a remote location in my case) and you don’t get kicked out without notice. People can bid to pay the taxes you owe and whatever extra the person bids goes to you.
In my case the person owed 1.7k, I paid 5.3k, they get a check of 3.4k and have a year to pay me back 5.3k + 7.5%, if they don’t the property can be transferred to my name. They still got a whole lot of time to do something about it and received money in exchange for a property for which they didn’t pay their taxes.
Or you could just pay your taxes.
In some US states, yes. If a property does not have it’s taxes paid, the state/county takes possession. Often they will auction it off or sell it for the amount of taxes owed.
What’s preventing the state from just raising taxes on all the properties that a business wants to absurd levels, seize it and sell it if to that business for cheap?
This sounds very undemocratic.
I had some details wrong here’s where I got that from https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/pittsburgh-active-shooter-what-we-know-about-suspect-william-hardison-sr/YBYESACWBJAZDNWKC5RRHSSGY4/