Why Walter Peck was wrong?

[drewder]

Why would he bring a Geiger counter?

He has no idea they are using unlicensed nuclear accelerators, and if he DID know that would actually undermine his belief that they are just a bunch of scam artists.

Well, no one's seen the containment grid, but they have seen them walk around with the proton packs. Seems entirely reasonable to suspect just from witness description the things might kick out radiation, and a responsible regulator would be prepared to test for that.

As noted upthread, while we can suggest that the filmmaker's political views are *why* Peck was depicted as petty and irresponsible, within the film itself he absolutely is those things. He brought what seems to be a regular technician from Con Edison to turn off what by all evidence was a nuclear reactor, and even that guy was like "I have no idea what this is and we shouldn't touch it"!

The Ghostbusters absolutely needed to be regulated and quite possibly shut down. But Walter Peck wasn't equipped to handle the job.

Edit: It's telling that in the video game, which uses a lot of the core concepts from potential Ghostbusters 3 scripts that had been kicked around at that time, by the early 90s when it takes place the Ghostbusters were more or less on the city's payroll, because "A ghost-free city is a tourist-friendly city".

Peck believes the Ghostbusters are frauds. He thinks they are using nerve gasses to cause hallucinations and that the proton packs are just a light show. He has no respect for the intelligence of their clients who he considers gullible and even stupid, which he flat-out says when Egon tries to warn him how dangerous turning off the equipment is ("Don't patronise me! I'm not GROTESQUELY stupid like the people you bill!").

The electrician is there to shut down what Peck thinks is a bunch of fancy special effects tech. Peck honestly believes they are a bunch of con artists and he doubles down on that belief when confronted with evidence to the contrary since he can't accept he is wrong.

If true then he works for the wrong department, he'd need to work for the justice department or consumer protection or something. Shutting down scams is not under the authority of the EPA. As to them creating hallucinations in their clients by use of some sort of chemical he should really have a sample of the chemical with a lab report showing such.

[CrypticMirror]

Tackling scams is the responsibility of all responsible citizens, government regulators are just people who are paid to devote their full attention to that responsibility. If Peck, or indeed anyone, sees what they think is a scam and they have the time to follow it up then it is one hundred percent proper for them to do so. That way we keep each other safe. Peck saw something, did enough of an investigation to get material to convince a judge and thus was a responsible [if unpleasant] citizen, right up until the point he ordered the unit shut down.

Peck is still a dick who ignored all good sense, and procedure, when he ordered the containment unit turned off without understanding what it does. Quite apart from anything else, given what Egon had said and the reaction from his own technician, he could quite easily have stacked some more public safety charges against the Ghostbusters for having something so rickety as that once the full assessment had been carried out.

Things like malicious prosecution and so on, those are after the fact countersuits and reasons to dismiss, all for the GB's own attorney to deal with. Once he gets de-helldogified, of course. I think given what happened between movies one of the real problems is that they just didn't have an attorney. Venkman being pugnacious was no substitute for him telling Peck, when he first showed up, to take a seat and wait while he contacted their attorney to come over and speak with him. Then the attorney could have found out what the concerns were and worked out an action plan to address or assuage them, if possible, and also develop their own plan to counter Peck's investigation if they couldn't placate him. At very least they should have had Janice hit the yellow pages to hire an attorney them second Peck stomped away angrily. Him returning with some sort of court order should have been anticipated, they shouldn't have just blown him off and not bothered to follow up on thei situation. Flying by the seat of your legal pants, no matter what business you are in, is highly inadvisable.

But then the movie wouldn't happen, so....

[Edit: One thing to quickly add, regulatory bodies have a lot of areas of overlap and their scope is seldom strictly limited to their agency title. It is conceivable that Peck could have found some legitimate way for his own agency to take an interest. Once an investigation starts, the old saying is "the investigation goes where it goes". Heck, they are doing up that firestation and working on an old car in it, that could be enough on its own if there is a complaint from a member of the public about improper disposal of materials. I know someone who got prosecuted here in the UK for pouring old engine oil down a drain instead of taking it to a disposal facility.]

[Jonathan101]

Why would he bring a Geiger counter?

He has no idea they are using unlicensed nuclear accelerators, and if he DID know that would actually undermine his belief that they are just a bunch of scam artists.

Well, no one's seen the containment grid, but they have seen them walk around with the proton packs. Seems entirely reasonable to suspect just from witness description the things might kick out radiation, and a responsible regulator would be prepared to test for that.

As noted upthread, while we can suggest that the filmmaker's political views are *why* Peck was depicted as petty and irresponsible, within the film itself he absolutely is those things. He brought what seems to be a regular technician from Con Edison to turn off what by all evidence was a nuclear reactor, and even that guy was like "I have no idea what this is and we shouldn't touch it"!

The Ghostbusters absolutely needed to be regulated and quite possibly shut down. But Walter Peck wasn't equipped to handle the job.

Edit: It's telling that in the video game, which uses a lot of the core concepts from potential Ghostbusters 3 scripts that had been kicked around at that time, by the early 90s when it takes place the Ghostbusters were more or less on the city's payroll, because "A ghost-free city is a tourist-friendly city".

Peck believes the Ghostbusters are frauds. He thinks they are using nerve gasses to cause hallucinations and that the proton packs are just a light show. He has no respect for the intelligence of their clients who he considers gullible and even stupid, which he flat-out says when Egon tries to warn him how dangerous turning off the equipment is ("Don't patronise me! I'm not GROTESQUELY stupid like the people you bill!").

The electrician is there to shut down what Peck thinks is a bunch of fancy special effects tech. Peck honestly believes they are a bunch of con artists and he doubles down on that belief when confronted with evidence to the contrary since he can't accept he is wrong.

If true then he works for the wrong department, he'd need to work for the justice department or consumer protection or something. Shutting down scams is not under the authority of the EPA. As to them creating hallucinations in their clients by use of some sort of chemical he should really have a sample of the chemical with a lab report showing such.

Yes, he's certainly very sketchy.

He's probably on okay-ish legal grounds when he first shows up since he is only asking questions, but he goes way overboard and the list of issues on his warrant seem wholly...well, unwarranted, and even implies he lied to the judge.

I imagine he's a hardcore supernatural skeptic who works for the EPA and is frustrated with all of these stories he's hearing about the Ghostbusters since he's convinced that ghosts don't exist and they must be frauds, yet nobody seems to be doing anything about them, so one day he takes it upon himself to go round there and do some snooping using his limited authority as pretext (although I did mention earlier that some of the things he says about the EPA and the law are actually false in the real world, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he's a legit EPA man).

Then Venkeman rubs him the wrong way and convinces him even more that these guys are frauds, frauds who scam gullible people out of thousands of dollars, and yet STILL nobody has done anything about them. So he's just angry enough to cross the line and sell the judge some b*llshit to get a warrant, reasoning that it's okay since he's basically in the right and these con artists need to be stopped and that he's the only one who seems to give a damn.

To be fair, if something like the Ghostbusters showed up in the real world, he'd probably be lauded as a hero whether it was his remit or not, and there probably would have been questions about why the proper authorities didn't deal with them earlier.

Then things turn south when it turns out there equipment is real and he's just released a bunch of actual ghosts on the city...but no, he can't accept that, so it must be that they had genuinely dangerous equipment down there that they shouldn't have (technically true), and he is still in the right and they are still scam artists, just much worse than he thought (although again the law he accuses them with breaking doesn't actually exist in the real world). He's obviously freaking out at this point as well of course.

I don't see Peck as just some bully picking on small businessmen. He probably really thinks he is in the right here. But yes, he's obviously got issues and is kind of a jerk even if he really thinks he's the good guy here.

[CharlesPhipps]

Sfdebris really went on with this. What happen with all his talk about how people should treat people better and all be more humane? He should put all aside for the sake of stupid nostalgia, he ignore the ideology of this movie and the director, says nothing critical, and then bash the character that actually have some sense, I really disappointi of Sfdebris, all his talk was just that, talk, he doesn't believe in anything of it, and science fiction is introspection of the present, exploring social, economic and political issues, that why science fiction exist, and Sfdebris refuse to do anything about it. And he dares to call himself professor, professor teach, not make excuses for the people that endangering other people.

The ideology of the movie is that the Ghostbusters sacrifice their material gain ambitions to heroically stand up to a foe that threatens New York. Whatever the Pro-Reagan ideology some of its creators may have, it fundamentally is about individuals rising to become heroes for the people of New York.

[Jonathan101]

In a way he's like a more aggressive Frank Grimes, and the Ghostbusters are his Homer Simpson. In his own mind, everyone else has to be stupid or crazy not to see what is wrong here.

[PapaPalpatine]

Peck also accuses the Ghostbusters of using hallucinogenic gas to make people think they were seeing ghosts. The problems with that accusation is as follows:

1) How pray tell would they get it? You can't just go down to Walmart and pick up a couple of canisters and, even back in the day, the attempt to acquire something like that would get you on ALL THE WATCH LISTS.
2) They would have little if any control over what people see when under the effects of the gas; people could be seeing scary, giant spiders or a purple unicorns farting rainbows for all they'd know.
3) If the Ghostbusters really were doing such a scam, you'd think they'd have the good sense to wear gas masks or even full hazmat suits when gassing the unsuspecting public. Because if that stuff blows back in your face, have fun tripping balls until the effects finally wear off.

[CrypticMirror]

Peck also accuses the Ghostbusters of using hallucinogenic gas to make people think they were seeing ghosts. The problems with that accusation is as follows:

1) How pray tell would they get it? You can't just go down to Walmart and pick up a couple of canisters and, even back in the day, the attempt to acquire something like that would get you on ALL THE WATCH LISTS.

They live in 1980s New York, they probably could have had their choice of hallucinogens from the local bodega. Brooklyn 99 wasn't joking that much when they said New York in the Eighties was basically the purge. Also, they used to work in a University dealing with exotic materials, I assume the movie just didn't show all the scenes of lowlifes hitting the GBs up for hallucinogens from a university connection. And even if they were incautious, maybe they did end up on a watchlist and that is why Peck was there?

[Thebestoftherest]

Peck also accuses the Ghostbusters of using hallucinogenic gas to make people think they were seeing ghosts. The problems with that accusation is as follows:

1) How pray tell would they get it? You can't just go down to Walmart and pick up a couple of canisters and, even back in the day, the attempt to acquire something like that would get you on ALL THE WATCH LISTS.

They live in 1980s New York, they probably could have had their choice of hallucinogens from the local bodega. Brooklyn 99 wasn't joking that much when they said New York in the Eighties was basically the purge. Also, they used to work in a University dealing with exotic materials, I assume the movie just didn't show all the scenes of lowlifes hitting the GBs up for hallucinogens from a university connection. And even if they were incautious, maybe they did end up on a watchlist and that is why Peck was there?

Give it up already.

[Thebestoftherest]

Sfdebris really went on with this. What happen with all his talk about how people should treat people better and all be more humane? He should put all aside for the sake of stupid nostalgia, he ignore the ideology of this movie and the director, says nothing critical, and then bash the character that actually have some sense, I really disappointi of Sfdebris, all his talk was just that, talk, he doesn't believe in anything of it, and science fiction is introspection of the present, exploring social, economic and political issues, that why science fiction exist, and Sfdebris refuse to do anything about it. And he dares to call himself professor, professor teach, not make excuses for the people that endangering other people.

If you have a point don't be afarid to share it.

[bz316]

Walter Peck was in the wrong, but Venkman's response to his initial presence was, to put it bluntly, stupid. When an agent of the state, whether a police officer, a member of some regulatory agency, whatever, approaches you, the smart thing to do is not dick around with them and make dumb, sarcastic comments (ex. "You forgot to say the magic word..."). The smart response is to say "Do you have a warrant or legal authority to carry out a search?" followed by "What is the name and contact information of your superior?" and/or "I must confer with legal counsel." There were a thousand better ways Venkman could have handled the situation in order to head Walter Peck off at the pass. Instead he jerked him around, told him to "fuck off" and proceeded not to think about him until it was too late. Peck was wrong, but Venkman could have handled the situation a LOT better than that, if only for his own self-preservation.