Tree-Sitter Watches as Pine Is Cut Down

Bill Duckett, who planted himself in a tree last week to keep it from being cut down, watched helplessly from the sidewalk in Los Angeles Wednesday as workers buzz-sawed the 50-foot pine into pieces and hauled it away.

Duckett’s neighbor, Jerry Goodkind, won a restraining order against Duckett in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday that prohibited Duckett from interfering with cutting the tree down.

Superior Court Judge David Rothman ruled that even though the tree hangs over Duckett’s property, the trunk grows from Goodkind’s property, and therefore, he has the right to cut it down, according to Martin Gold, Goodkind’s attorney.

Goodkind had to cut down the tree because he just sold his home on Walsh Avenue east of Marina del Rey. The buyer feared that the tree would fall over and made its removal a condition of escrow, Goodkind said. Duckett climbed past tree cutters and refused for hours to move from his 30-foot-high perch.