Colo. grave digger fired for dancing on grave

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - A Clifton, Colo., man has been fired from his job as a grave digger after he was filmed gyrating and playing a simulated guitar while standing on a burial vault.

The Mesa County Sheriff's Office says 27-year-old Christopher Redd could face misdemeanor charges of desecration of venerated objects after his antics on July 23 at Memorial Gardens.

According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Redd says it was a botched attempt to win tickets for a rock jam festival. He says it was an empty concrete vault and it happened before a funeral service was held at the site.

Redd didn't win the tickets because he did not fulfill a contest requirement of posting the video to Youtube.com.

According to the Sentinel, a Sheriff's Department report said a deputy was provided printed copies from Redd's Facebook page and a CD.

The Sentinel reports the CD allegedly showed a video of Redd standing on top of a casket, using a shovel to simulate a guitar "while he mimicked a rock and roll music video," the report said. "I observed that music had been attached to the video and Redd sang that he was a monster."

[Bojax39]

There's a difference between desecration and being a thoughtless jerk with bad taste. Perhaps a reprimand, but fired? Harsh!

My cousin has his plot and stone already paid for and ready to go with only the date of death, (and of course the occupant), missing. He lives in Colorado.

After reading this story he mentioned making a video of himself dancing on his own grave and sending it to the police to see if he'd be arrested for desecration.

Wonder how a judge would find in that case? Are we allowed to desecrate our own graves? Could my kinsman be jailed for disrespecting himself?

As an aside, he asked me to come have a beer with him when he's gone. That is, pour one on his grave and drink another. I told him he could have both. I don't like his brand.

BUT I reckon if people are going to be crazy about what desecration is and isn't, I'll just tilt one for him at his favorite bar. :-)

[buckn]

If they felt that strongly about it, maybe a write-up or a warning would have been more appropriate than firing the guy. I agree it's in terrible taste, but that seemed a bit harsh.

[ddog88]

Good idea! I'm hiring strippers to dance on my grave. That kid has potential.

[Bojax39]

Wow! You must have SOME mourners section in mind! :-)

Most of the time when a woman dances on a man's grave she's and ex wife or girlfriend.... I like your idea better.

[rf35]

Why does anyone care? Does the deceased care? Please feel free to dance on my grave. Just try not to kill the grass. I think I'd like to be planted just a few feet deep, maybe near a tree, no coffin or anything...naked would be ideal and don't fill my corpse with chemicals. Would that qualify as organic fertilizer? I figure my body might as well do something useful after I'm finished with it. I don't understand all the ceremony surrounding death. If you're religious, you should believe that the body is just a temporary domicile for the spirit or soul or whatever and is nothing more than an empty shell after death. The person who inhabited it has gone on to "a better place." If you're not religious, then what difference does it make what happens to your body after you die?

[WillowSunstar]

Why is this news? Is it that slow of a news day?

Seriously people, most states are at-will. You can be fired for ANY reason your boss wants to fire you. Don't be stupid at your job.

[Imthaid2]

Only in america do the dead have more rights than the living.

[Jaylah54]

I don't think standing in a cemetery playing an air-guitar is illegal.

However, once a plot has been opened (in other words, dug) it's somebody's grave and, yes, dancing on the grave liner playing air-guitar, or shovel-guitar, or whatever, could be seen as desecrating the grave.

Not sure it requires actual charges against him, but it was a really stupid, thoughtless thing to do, and I can sure see why he'd be fired for it.

[Ericwvb]

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

[rwsmith29456]

If nothing was in it, it's just a box.

[erasmus111]

I always tell my neighbor not to worry, that when he dies, I will be sure to plant a cactus on his grave. (so nobody sh*ts on it)

[omded]

Now that would be defication.