Don't Shoot The Messenger!

You gotta wonder sometimes about what some people consider funny. Take 47-year old Steve Netschert, for instance.

A Helena, MT police officer say as he cruised by one day last week, he spotted Netschert -- a former Helena commisioner -- standing in a parking lot, pointing a shotgun at a banner-towing aircraft.

Netschert admits he was pointing the gun -- not at the plane, but at the anti-abortion banner it was towing. Oh, yeah, and it was a joke, he told the officer.

Well, he got to tell it to the judge as well. Netschert was arrested.

It wasn't bad enough, officials say, that he was menacing an aircraft -- or its banner. But he was standing near a busy city street, waving a gun around.

On Thursday, Netschert pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct. “It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances that did not necessarily reflect the intent,” he told the court.

For that, the former commissioner gets a $190 fine and a five-day jail sentence -- deferred.

Moral of the story: No matter what you think of the message... don't shoot the messenger.

FMI: www.ci.helena.mt.us/