Salesman Mike Barbella did just that to discover that his home has been cordoned off by the Department of Water and Power. Barbella may have made a death threat against one of the DWP employees when they came to shut the electricity off in his house.
Barbella: "It's funny. I didn't think they'd take things so literal. In California they get offended real easy, I guess. They came one day to turn the water and power off. I tried to explain to them that I've got people in the house, we're trying to live there still, give me some time. I'll pay the bill. He said no, I can't do that. I said let me do this. Let me call DWP and make an arrangement. As I'm trying to call DWP, I'm on a cordless phone. They shut the power off. I knew that because the phone died. I'm irate. I run outside. There's two guys there. I kept asking them who are you. I don't know that you're part of the DWP. He shows me this gold-colored badge. He's some investigator or something. Then there was the regular DWP guy. For some reason they felt the need to bring along some extra protection. I guess at some point I threatened the life of one or two of them. I don't know exactly how. It pissed me off that I was trying to make an arrangement and he cut me right off. That was that. They left. About two hours later because it started getting dark, I couldn't see inside the house. I was outside on my balcony. I noticed a group of about five cop cars staging at the end of my block. I live on a dead end.
"I know my neighbors, and generally there's no reason for any cops to come after any of my neighbors. I don't expect cops to come after me, either. I think I've been on probation. I've had situations where I've dealt with police. So when I see cops staging, I got a little panicked. I ran out the back door, I went over the back fence, I ended up in the pool area of the apartment complex behind me. I kept running until I got to a friend's house. As it turned out my next door neighbor told me that about 8 cop cars and a helicopter came looking for me. The charge was terrorist threats. Because the one guy was some sort of investigator for the DWP, they didn't need a recording. He would be their witness.
"The next day I sent a girl over to see what was going on. She was in the house maybe 15 minutes. Five cop cars swarmed on her looking for me. I haven't been back to my house since. I have to send people over there to get my stuff. Slowly I'm getting my stuff out of there. It's a true story. Scarey. Only my luck."
Barbella says he's doing camerawork besidesproduction and distribution for Kings Distributors out of New York. 1-800-28-KINGS. Barbella says he's got titles called, Dirty White Girls and Black Ass Busters 2 which Kings is also distributing
