At first glance, this story looks pretty funny, just the sort of weird news item I chuckle over a dozen times a day: a would-be Good Samaritan, hearing sounds that he thought came from a woman being raped, armed himself with an antique sword and burst through the door of a neighbor’s apartment ready to face an attacker, only to find that there was no woman. The only occupant of the place was another guy watching a porno DVD all by himself at a ridiculously high volume.

Big laughs, right? So it would seem…

Then I read the coda: the not-quite-a-hero is being charged with three criminal counts, and his sword — a family heirloom, no less — has been confiscated by the police. I can’t believe this situation, an obvious (and funny) misunderstanding, couldn’t have been resolved during a 10-minute conversation between the two men and a cop as intermediary. Instead, it’ll now be dragged through the already-clogged legal system and a guy who was only trying to do the right thing faces jail time. Yeah, the screaming turned out to be nothing, but maybe next time it’ll be the real thing and passersby will choose to ignore it instead of risking this guy’s fate.

Everybody in this country needs to take a deep breath and chill the hell out…