Since March of 2000, Diane Vallade and Robert Benson have been residents of East Fifth Street in Bellwood.
\nIn those four years, they claim they\u2019ve been harassed and threatened by neighbors and to this day, the Bellwood Borough Police Department has done nothing to help them. In fact, they claim Bellwood police are doing more harm than good evidenced by citations for disorderly conduct and harrasment they recently received in the mail.
\n\u201cThis is an outrage,\u201d Vallade said last night at the regular board meeting of the Bellwood Borough Council. \u201cWe have never had a scuff with the law. We\u2019re law abiding citizens and an asset to Bellwood Borough. This should have never happened.\u201d
\nAccording to Vallade, the battle with the neighbors began soon after they moved in. She said she can\u2019t mow her lawn without headphones on because of the rude remarks shouted at her. She said the neighbors would burn \u201cstinky\u201d garbage for 10 to 15 hours straight. She also said the one neighbor runs his plow onto her property, which causes extensive damage.
\nShe said she contacted police on several occasions, but nothing was ever done.
\nVallade and Benson appeared at last evening\u2019s council meeting with Altoona attorney Terry Despoy, who stated that he never approached a borough council on a situation like this, but when he looked into it more, felt compelled to attend.
\nDespoy told council that he was appaled at the police action in the case. He said the borough\u2019s police department filed summary charges of harassment and disorderly conduct against Vallade and Benson after only speaking to the three neighbors. He said at no time did the police department contact Vallade and Benson to hear their side of the story.
\nHe also explained, through his knowledge of criminal cases in the recent past, that the \u201cneighbors\u201d have been on the court dockets in the Blair County Court of Common Pleas. He said the department should take criminal history into consideration when investigating cases such as this.
\nDespoy said he attended the meeting for two reasons. First, he wanted council to know and understand the situation. Also, he wanted council to use this example as a learning experience for council members and as a tool to perhaps look at policing procedures within the borough.
\nAlthough most council members and Mayor James Bonsell, the head of the police force, didn\u2019t comment through much of the meeting, police chief Paul Pfahler was summoned to speak.
\n\u201cWe did the same thing we did for the neighbors,\u201d said Pfahler, although he admitted he was on vacation at the time of the incident and other members of his department handled the case.
\nPfahler claimed the department did speak to Vallade and Benson on different occasions about the problems, but admitted that in this particular case, only the neighbors were spoken to.
\n\u201cIs that a common practice of the police department,\u201d asked Despoy. \u201cto only interview one side and file charges based on those statements?\u201d
\nPfahler nodded, stating that normally, when police are called to the scene, they interview only those present and file charges accordingly.
\nVallade, a professional in the community, said the summary charges filed against her could make her lose her job.
\nShe also said she has looked into having her propery sold and also expressed that the incident is costing her a large sum of money working through the legal aspects.
\nAccording to Despoy, a hearing has been scheduled at District Magistrate Fred Miller\u2019s office on Jan. 21 at 2 p.m.
\n\u201cI\u2019m confident these charges will be dismissed,\u201d said Despoy. \u201cIt\u2019s just unfortunate they had to come this far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since March of 2000, Diane Vallade and Robert Benson have been residents of East Fifth Street in Bellwood. In those four years, they claim they\u2019ve been harassed and threatened by neighbors and to this day, the Bellwood Borough Police Department has done nothing to help them. In fact, they claim Bellwood police are doing more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}