I don’t want to live in a comic book world where everyone has superpowers they can unleash on each other. But every now and then, it’s nice to have a new story and feel like it was ripped straight from a Silver Age comic book. Case in point: cops called them to evict someone in Massachusetts and, allegedly, had a swarm of bees unleashed on them.
The story is set in 2022, but the details are just now being made public. According to a New York Times report, sheriff deputies in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, responded to a $1.9 million home to serve eviction papers. Around the same time they arrived, a beekeeper arrived with a truck full of hives.
The truck was being driven by 59-year-old Rebecca Woods, who did not take kindly to the cops at the doorstep. She allegedly opened the crates and unleashed a swarm of bees on the cops.
A Woman Released Bees on Police During an Eviction. Yes, Somehow This Is Real.
According to court records, which include the video, things escalated quickly from there, as you can imagine. Some of the hives got toppled over in the chaos of it all, releasing hundreds more bees. Several officers were stung, including one who required hospital treatment afterward.
Woods was fully protected as she was cloaked in her beekeeper suit. Though the suit could not prevent her from being tackled by cops and arrested. Unfortunately, the footage isn’t nearly as dramatic as it all sounds, but still wild nonetheless.
Woods later said she wasn’t trying to weaponize the bees and only wanted them to forage on the properties’ “lovely, flowering landscape.” But then, while questioning, she acknowledged that she was trying to delay the officers from doing their jobs, and for a compelling reason.
I’ve purposely withheld a little bit of information about the story: this was not Woods’ house, and she was not the person being evicted. The house belonged to an elderly man who had been undergoing cancer treatment. Her lawyer argued that her bee attack was a desperate move intended to prevent what Woods saw as an unjust eviction. What a hero.
Prosecutors argued that this lady attacked them with a swarm of bees, leading to human hospitalizations and to the deaths of potentially thousands of bees, as many of them were crushed in the chaos or died after delivering stings.
Since all this took place about four years ago, enough time has passed that it’s actually resolved itself, so you don’t need to wait a few years to hear what happened in the end: a jury ultimately cleared Woods of seven felony charges but convicted her on multiple misdemeanor accounts of assault and reckless conduct. She was sentenced to six months in jail, but a lot of that time had already been served while she was awaiting trial and extradition.
All her effort was for naught, as the eviction proceeded as scheduled, this time without a swarm of bees.
The post Beekeeper Filmed Unleashing a Swarm of Bees on the Cops Trying to Evict Her appeared first on VICE.
