An elderly man spent some time in a jail cell on Wednesday after blocking work on a City of Kamloops construction project that has since eaten up half his garlic garden.
Daniel Schumph, 72, was arrested by Kamloops Mounties on Wednesday afternoon after refusing to get out of the way of an excavator working on a contentious multi-use path project on Sifton Lane.
Schumph and his wife have lived in their Laurier Drive home for five years and he has been growing garlic for four of them.
Last fall, the City of Kamloops broke ground on a $2.5-million multi-use pathway along Highway 5A, connecting Aberdeen Drive with Summit Drive/Hugh Allan Drive. The work has drawn the ire of many nearby homeowners, Schumph and his wife among them.
Part of Schumph’s garlic bed extended out onto city property, where construction related to the project is now taking place.
“They’re ripping up perfectly good vegetation and lawn, and my question is, why did they do it? I asked them that,” Schumph told Castanet.
“They said it’s city property — in other words, eff off.”
'They took me off to jail'
On Wednesday, City of Kamloops crews and contractors were working on the southern end of the multi-use path project, near the intersection of Aberdeen Drive and Highway 5A — right behind a row of homes on Laurier Drive.
In the early afternoon, Schumph took a lawn chair out onto the other side of his property line and refused to budge.
“The excavator was working around there. When I told them I was protesting, they moved it away,” he said.
Schumph said the workers called Community Services Officers, who arrived on scene and told him to get out of the way.
“They said, ‘If you don’t remove yourself, then we’ll have to call the RCMP,’” Schumph said.
“I told them to call the RCMP and that’s exactly what happened. They called the RCMP and removed me from the property and they took me off to jail."
Police said they were called to the area just before 3 p.m., and the Mountie tried to convince Schumph to get out of the way.
“After repeated attempts to convince the person to leave on his own, he told the officer he would have to arrest him to remove him,” RCMP Cpl. Crystal Evelyn told Castanet.
“The officer arrested the person for obstruction without incident. He was lodged in cells briefly to prevent continuation of the offence, then released without process."
Schumph said he was home by 5 p.m. It was his first time behind bars.
“They could have kept me longer if they wanted but they said there was no reason to keep me longer,” he said.
“The officer was quite cordial. He was a nice guy, did his job well. No abuse, physical or verbal. It was a good encounter.”
Land now torn up
The area was dug up on Thursday morning.
Schumph said he would have protested again, but it felt futile.
“If I could have found 20 volunteers to go to jail with me, yes I would do it 100 times,” he said.
“But to do it myself? They just drag you off, come and do the work, then let you out of jail and the work is done.”
Schumph moved most of his garden to another part of his yard — completely within his property line this time.
“It grows good up here — red Russian garlic,” he said. “People love it. I give it away.”
The City of Kamloops said it could not discuss the situation.
