Baltimore Couple Throws Garbage with Siege Engine

Medieval Machine Targets Osama, Ashcroft, and Eisner

The City of Baltimore is seeking a court order to stop a local couple from using a scale model of a medieval siege engine to hurl objects from a deck on the back of their townhouse at targets on a nearby hillside.

The request in City Magistrate Court for a cease and desist order names Edward Cotswald, 64, and his wife Gloria, 58, who live in the Castleton area of Baltimore. The complaint accuses the Cotswalds of using a type of siege engine known as a trebuchet to fling sacks of household garbage at a variety of life-size photographs of the notorious and the notable. The targets range from Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Madonna and Michael Eisner, the embattled chairman of Disney.

The latest notable added to the hillside target gallery: Frankie Scarpelli, a Baltimore City Hall political operative. Scarpelli, widely regarded as a City Hall "fixer," gained notoriety last year when he urinated on an exhibit at the National Folklore Museum that he said unfairly depicted Italian immigrant life during the 19th Century in Pennsylvania's coal mines.

Interviewed on his front door stoop, Edward Cotswald confirmed that he had a scale model trebuchet on his rear deck large enough to throw "a respectable pumpkin a hundred feet or so." He also confirmed that he regularly flings sacks of garbage at the hillside just behind his rear deck.

"The city's way out of line here," Cotswald said. "We pick up the garbage within minutes after we throw it. We say we own the land where the targets are located. The condominium's homeowners association says they own it. Go figure."

Siege engines were instruments of warfare used to hurl objects, such as large rocks or flaming vats of tar, at enemy armies or castles. One of the most common forms was the catapult. The engines used a variety of techniques to employ torsion, the energy stored in a springy material like a twisted sinew or a tree limb that has been pulled back, to fling an object when released.

The trebuchet was developed in the 12th Century and was used to fling large rocks at castle walls, battering them down so the invading army could enter.

Cotswald said he began target practice on life size cutouts of the famous after the World Trade Center attacks, with Osama bin Laden as the first target. Next came Saddam Hussein, then the nine Democrats who seek their party's presidential nomination. He said he had recently added Ashcroft, Madonna, Eisner and Scarpelli "just to spice things up."

"All the neighbors thought it was funny. I threw garbage for two years and I was the hero of the condo," Cotswald said. "Then one day the new president of the Homeowners Association said I was 'detracting from the peace and quiet.' Guess who the homeowners president is?"

Cotswald's visitor said he couldn't guess.

"Scarpelli. Robert Scarpelli. Frankie's first cousin," Cotswald said gleefully.

Cotswald said he then put up a target with Frankie Scarpelli's photo on it.

"Bam! Next thing you know, Baltimore wants a cease and desist," Cotswald said. "No problem if you want to throw garbage at Osama or Saddam or even Carol Mosely Braun. But not Frankie Scarpelli. So much for freedom of speech."

Interviewed in a parking lot outside a Target store where she had gone for Christmas shopping, Gloria Cotswald said she was surprised to learn about her husband's target practice. "Eddie's always tinkering on the deck, but I don't pay too much attention," she said.

After years of nagging her husband to take out the garbage, she said, a couple of years ago he suddenly began taking it out without being asked. "He's a model husband now, at least where garbage is concerned," she said.

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