Audio By Carbonatix
Curmudgeonly old men of Florida, meet your new role model. His name is Richard D. Rice, he’s a sprightly 72 years old, and when the punk kids on the block wouldn’t stop with their damn fireworks, he poured gasoline everywhere and told them: “The party’s over.”
Then the coup de grâce: Rice shoved a man out of his wheelchair when he tried to make sure the kids wouldn’t become engulfed in flames.
Rice, who lives in North Naples, apparently wasn’t feeling the patriotic fervor on the Fourth of July when neighborhood kids began shooting off fireworks on his block.
After two hours of bottle rockets and black cats began bothering his dogs, Rice walked out of his house with a container labeled “gas” and doused the street near the kids shooting off fireworks, the Naples Daily News reports.
When news happens, Miami New Times is there —
Your support strengthens our coverage.
We’re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If Miami New Times matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.
Then he warned the kids that if they launched any more, they’d set the neighborhood on fire.
When a neighbor in a wheelchair tried to intervene, the News reports, Rice knocked over the man’s chair and spilled gasoline on the good Samaritan.
Rice’s neighbors called 911, and he was booked on one count of abuse of an elderly or disabled adult.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
