Houston, You Have a Problem

“Little Napoleon.” That’s what he was called by some of his co-workers. Only a Republican could be this much of an asshat. Reading this list of crimes by this Alaskan Republican who goes by the name of Roger Purcell, it seems obvious that he’s modeling his political career after Don Young.

What started as a cursory read of an article about animal abuse sent to me by Mrs. JP has instead turned in an Alice in Wonderland internet journey of the twisted world of Roger Purcell, mayor of Houston, Alaska.

The story involves a February 2nd euthanizing of four dogs and four cats at the Animal Rescue Shelter in Houston. According to Sgt. Charlie Seidl, Purcell was “outraged” that the eight animals were still in the shelter and he ordered Seidl to shoot each of them in the head after rescue workers refused to put the animals down. The real tragedy is that the shelter’s employees hardly reached out or didn’t reach out at all to animal rescue agencies that wanted to help the animals get adopted. Apparently, Houston had lost $65,000 in appropriations for rescuing and sheltering animals to the now-notorious city of Wasilla. When one reads how neglected the shelter was, one wonders if it was run by the same KBR offshoot that ran Walter Reed Hospital.

So Seidl shot them in the head and soon outraged Alaskans were calling for both his and Seidl’s heads on pikes. Pointed fingers began flying. Seidl claimed he was acting on orders from his mayor, Purcell called him a liar and said he ordered no such thing and changed his story more times than a stoolie with amnesia. Eventually, Mayor Purcell responded swiftly and fairly to the controversy by firing two of the shelter’s workers and, in a Palinesque twist, trying to get Seidl terminated, as well. As of this writing, the people of Houston are working to recall him.

There was an emergency City Council meeting that determined the fate of Sgt. Seidl’s law enforcement career and, in a split vote, they agreed to let him keep his job. Meanwhile, at the same time this was going down, it had come out that Hizzoner had appropriated a police cruiser on a joy ride to Fairbanks and even used the lights on the cruiser to pass people. When Seidl got the car back, he played the dashboard camera tape proving that Purcell had used the lights. That’s when things began to get interesting so I began digging deeper. But even before I began my research in earnest, I knew this putz was a Republican.

It seems this wasn’t the first time that Purcell has been caught impersonating a police officer. In fact, this very strange article about a 2006 murder investigation proves that, while Purcell is a police groupie, he plainly doesn’t know one caliber from another, even though he was briefly a cop in Cordova.

Statements made by the Fire Marshal and Fire Chief of Skagway, Alaska paint Purcell in a rather unflattering light. He was insubordinate, displayed a Type A personality and refused to work with the EMT unit and Fire Department as a team member. In Anchorage, he was forced to resign from a union after illegally funneling union funds into a financial services company for whom he worked without the knowledge or consent of the union workers.

So, bottom line, this A type twit acts like a big fish in a little pond everywhere he goes, steals from unions, lies about his financial solvency (even listing his father as an unsecured $10,000 creditor!), refuses to play by the rules and likes to think he’s Super Cop. How this Republican assclown’s exploits haven’t followed him and how he managed to pop up in one Alaskan town and city after another to makes peoples’ lives miserable is anyone’s guess. But hopefully, the people of Houston will have their day and give this sack of whale blubber the ole heave-ho. They've been trying to get rid of him since at least early summer of 2008.


But let it not be said that bad things never happen to bad people. Purcell got his house foreclosed on (Note the American flag in the snow.) and he’s currently facing bankruptcy as well as recall proceedings.

(Btw, if you want to learn more about him, here’s his Facebook page that lists among his 74 friends the aforementioned Don “Bridge to Nowhere” Young, whose favorite TV program, O irony of ironies, is "The Price is Right.")