Sign battle starts with a zzzzzzzt!

Jay Price, Staff Writer Comment on this story

CHAPEL HILL - After Shawn Turschak saw two sets of McCain-Palin signs disappear from his yard within hours of being planted, he took steps to protect the latest pair.

On Monday, he ran wires from his house and hooked the signs into a power source for an electric pet fence. Then he mounted a surveillance camera in a nearby tree and wired it to a digital recorder.

Tuesday afternoon, the camera saw this: A neighbor trotting up with an Obama-Biden sign, grabbing a handful of volts as he touched a McCain-Palin sign, then fleeing at top 9-year-old boy speed.

A few minutes later, the boy's father, Andrew Noble, was at Turschak's door, demanding an explanation from Turschak's 13-year-old daughter, who called her parents on the phone to say a man was yelling at her. Both families agree on one aspect of the exchange, that Noble chastised her for "electrocuting" his son, then left.

The Turschaks hurried home and received another visitor: an Orange County sheriff's deputy.

Campaign signs are vandalized or stolen so often that many people don't report it, and, when they do, law officers often don't investigate.

This time was different.

The corner of the Turschak's yard where the signs are posted is a prominent point in the Oak Crest subdivision just south of Chapel Hill, so the homeowners association maintains it.

It's far enough from the Turschaks' home that it's not obviously part of their yard, and the boy's mother, Johanna Gisladottir, said she and many neighbors thought it was community property. They were troubled, she said, that someone had apparently claimed the corner on behalf of the Republican Party.

Her son, whom she declined to name, took the Obama sign to the corner on his own, she said, after being inspired by a discussion she had with a neighbor about adding one to the mix.

"I don't know what his intention was when he ran out, or I would not have allowed him to leave," Gisladottir said. "I honestly don't think he had a concrete plan."

Noble told an investigator that the boy had been trying to pull up the McCain sign so that he could see how it was constructed, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Department said Wednesday.

The video, Turschak said, makes clear that the boy was planning to switch the signs, which are essentially sheathes that slip over metal framework. The boy had only brought the Democratic sheath, not the legs.

Not all the thefts, Turschak said, could have been caused by a misunderstanding about the land. One sign had been beside his driveway, and a next-door neighbor lost a McCain sign, too.

Turschak, who has a degree in electrical engineering, said he tested the shock on himself while wiring the signs, and did so again while a reporter watched Wednesday, touching both signs repeatedly without flinching. Under each was a yellow sign warning that they were electrified.

Turschak , it turns out, isn't a member of Orange County's perennially embattled Republicans, who are outnumbered nearly 3 to 1 by Democrats. He's registered as an unaffiliated voter and said he doesn't agree fully with either party.

"This isn't about politics," he said. "This is about my right to protect my property and my ability to display my beliefs."

Capt. James Nida of the Sheriff's Department talked to both families Wednesday. Nida, who as a child experienced the charms of electric fences, didn't feel the need to test Turschak's signs.

"Been there, done that," he said.

Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said he doesn't plan to file charges. The deputy who investigated Tuesday said the pet-fence setup probably was legal, Turschak said, but perhaps more trouble than it was worth. Turschak said Wednesday morning that he would pull the plug on the signs. The camera, though, stayed.

And Wednesday afternoon while the Turschaks were at a daughter's soccer game, it captured an angry-looking woman striding up.

"We got home and both signs were gone," he said. "Broad daylight."

jay.price@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4526

Here's a link to the video:

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