Larry Mattlage
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Larry Mattlage is a neighbor of President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas.
On August 14, 2005, apparently upset with the length of time the anti-Iraq War activists led by Cindy Sheehan were staying in the area, he fired several shotgun shots into the air from his property in the vicinity of the demonstration.
According to Mattlage, "I got a right to fire up in the air, I am getting ready for dove season and you all are messing up my dove huntin', so if you all could please leave and go somewhere else, this whole community would be behind you."
Mattlage was questioned by several Secret Service agents and the local sheriff, and no charges were filed in connection with the incident.
In an interview after the incident Larry is quoted as saying, "When they first came out here, I was sympathetic to their cause, right. They as American citizens have a right to march to protest. It is like this – it's like having company, if you have your brother-in-law at your house for five days, wouldn't it start stinking after a while. You are ready for him to go home, aren't you? Five weeks of this is too much. We live here. It's our community. Apparently we have no respect over here and we have no respect over here. Somebody has got to get together and clear it out. It's a damn shame. The news media has got to solve this dilemma. But we got a dilemma here. We got a battle of the porta-potties. You all got started out going to the bathroom in a five-gallon bucket. Then they moved one porta-potty in here. No we got two porta-potties. And now we have three and if this keeps up, it will be all the way down the road. And they've got more porta-potties over there (pointing at the Bush ranch). The only one winning here is the one cleaning the porta-potties."
