John Stossel's Give Me a Break

July 4 -- It's gotten this bad. One man was so angry with his homeowners' association he burst into their meeting in Peoria, Ariz., three years ago and began firing.

The gunman, Richard Glassel, had a longstanding dispute with the board. The trouble started when he refused to let groundskeepers trim his shrubs.

"All of his trees, he wanted to grow like he wanted them to grow. And we went up there with an armed policeman and trimmed his bushes," one of his neighbors said.

Then financial trouble led to foreclosure on Glassel's home. Intent on taking revenge on the board, he stormed a meeting with a pistol in one hand, a rifle in the other. Smokey Stover and other community residents wrestled Glassel to the ground.

"Once we got the M-16 away from him, somebody said he's got another gun in his pocket and the next thing I know they're handing it to me," Stover said.

Two people were shot to death, and three were injured. Glassel was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death.

This Arizona case is extreme, but tensions are high in some planned communities. Fifty million Americans live in them, and while most are happy, the enforcement of association rules is turning some neighborhoods into battle zones. Some rules are picky.

Frog planters were declared a violation by an Arizona homeowners' association. Pink flamingos in Georgia had to go. Some tell you that you cannot park too long in your own driveway. A California board put the kibosh on clotheslines. And finally, in Richmond, Va., Richard Oulton's homeowner's association demanded his flagpole come down. But he said no way.

"To take it down now would be a total dishonor and an insult to everyone that has ever stood for the flag. If that flag comes down now, the next place it will fly will be over my coffin," Oulton said.

He's been raising the flag ever since he was a medic in Vietnam and flew the stars and stripes over his bunker. "I'm just trying to express my patriotism, my love for my country," he said.