A Hadley woman is facing several felonies after weaponizing honeybees to attack Hampden County Sheriffโs deputies as they, in accordance with state law, enforced an eviction this past week in Longmeadow.
Around 9:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, Rorie Susan Woods, 55, of Hadley, drove her Nissan Xterra with a flatbed trailer in tow into the driveway of 49 Memery Lane in Longmeadow as the Sheriff’s Civil Process Division was enforcing a court-ordered eviction. She quickly jumped out of her SUV and started trying to unleash thousand of bees in manufactured hives as a deputy jumped onboard and tried to stop her.
Woods smashed the styrofoam lid to one hive tower and as the bees escaped, the deputy sustained several stings on his face and head. She then flipped the entire hive tower off of the flatbed, causing the bees to become extremely agitated, and swarm the area, stinging several members of the Sheriff’s Office.
As she donned a beekeeper suit and moved a hive close to the door of the home, deputies swooped in and arrested her. As she was taken into custody, she was yelling for another protester to take care of her dog, which she said was unfed, and left in the SUV with thousands of bees swarming outside of it.
Bee towers
To be clear, Woods does not live in the Longmeadow home, which has been in various stages of the eviction process for around two years.
Woods was attempting to stop the court-ordered eviction, but she failed. She did, however, cause injuries to several employees of the department including one staff member who was hospitalized after being stung. She is now facing seven felonies and one misdemeanor.
While walking Woods to a cruiser, a deputy told her that he and several of his fellow deputies were allergic to bees. โOh, youโre allergic? Good,โ she replied.
“We are always prepared for protests when it comes to evictions, but a majority of the groups who protest understand that we are just doing our statutory duty in accordance with state law,โ said Sheriff Nick Cocchi. “But this woman, who traveled here, put lives in danger as several of the staff on the scene are allergic to bees. We had one staff member go to the hospital and luckily, he was alright or she would be facing manslaughter charges. I support peopleโs right to protest peacefully but when you cross the line and put my staff and the public in danger, I promise you will be arrested.โ
Accosted, but still well protected from her own bees.
In the end, Woods was arrested, arraigned, and released by a judge without having to post any bail. She will appear in court at a later date. Several staff members were stung and thousands of honeybees were killed. People in the neighborhood who are allergic to bees were put at risk for no good reason.
And the eviction, which is a matter decided by the courts. NOT the Sheriff’s Office, is going through its legal process with the bank being in possession of the $1.5 million, 22-room home.
When the Sheriffโs Office gets a first notice relative to an eviction (called a Notice to Quit), well ahead of any actual removal, we reach out to the person and ask how we can help. Our staff offers assistance with everything that can lead someone to an eviction, including job placement, health and mental health issues, as well as substance use disorder, to name a few.
We’ve offered those services to the former homeowner, and the offer for help remains, even after the attack.
And following an eviction, we never leave anyone to be homeless or sleep in a car. Through our All-Inclusive Support Services center in Springfield, we use our relationships with local property owners, housing authorities and landlords to get people into safe and stable housing, and we ensure they have the employment opportunities to be able to pay rent to maintain it.
โNever in all my years of leading the Hampden County Sheriffโs Civil Process Division have I seen something like this,โ said Robert Hoffman, Chief Deputy of the Civil Process Office. โWe truly try to help everyone we are court-ordered to evict and the New York Times even documented the Sheriffโs humane eviction process during the pandemic. Iโm just thankful no one died because bee allergies are serious. I hope that these out-of-county protesters will reconsider using such extreme measures in the future because they will be charged and prosecuted.โ
This story is strange enough on it’s own, but becomes more nuanced once one learns more details about it.
Rorie Woods herself took out mortgages on two of her properties back around 2005 – her home and a rental property.ย Soon after, she fell behind on the payments due to personal injuries and the 2008 recession.ย Woods also claimed that one of her mortgages was a subprime mortgage dressed up to look like a prime mortgage that was designed to lead to foreclosure.
Over the next decade she fought these foreclosures using every legal technique available, until eventually both properties were officially foreclosed on and auctioned off around 2018.ย She would then bounce around, occasionally living homelessly while god knows how the bees were kept at all.
Along the way, she became involved in the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending, which is where she also met the owner of the property, Alton King, where the bee attack upon the police occurred.
King, a 79 year old retiree, first built his property at around 2002 and have lived there since then.ย In 2006, King, ironically a Financial Adviser (and also an entrepreneur), took out a loan to add an indoor basketball court to his house. According to him, the loan came with a negative amortization rate that he was unaware of until he saw his mortgage payments go from $3,200 to $13,400 over the next few years.ย The mess eventually, over the course of many years, led to the foreclosure of the property and his eviction from its premises carried out by the local police, where the bee attack occurred.
There are definitely many lenders out in the US that are predatory, with confusing and unsavory terms in the loans they offer.ย On the other hand, there are also many people in the US who happily take on loans who are too uneducated in finance to properly protect themselves in these matters.ย Together, this is a recipe for much heartbreak.
Lastly, as food for thought, there are often people who help carry out acts of injustice while claiming they are only following orders, or that they, too, have to eat, similar to the police in this story.
Do such reasonings truly absolve them of their responsibilities in whatever matters they were involved in?ย At least in the case of Rorie Woods and her honey bees, they don’t appear to think so.
Temple of Zagan 