Today’s quandary of morality, localism and overreaction stems (unsurprisingly) from the South Orange County coast of Dana Point.

Yesterday, at Salt Creek, a kid mouthed off to a longtime local–a daily occurrence. The man reached his threshold and dunked the kid. His mom, who was watching from the sand called the police. Crime is rare in Dana Point. Police don’t have much to worry about other than teenage kids getting stoned in parking lots and the occasional stolen iPad, so the cops responded in droves.

“We had a cop boat in the lineup, cop helicopters flying overhead and a dozen more lining the waterline headed up by our misguided youth ‘London’ scanning the lineup to get back at the elder that dunked him,” wrote life-long Salt Creek surfer, Ryan Divel. “Add up the manpower and fuel costs and I’m pretty sure we’re into the tens of thousands of dollars range.”

Times have changed, no secret there. However, on both sides, this response is ridiculous. Nobody’s innocent, that much is clear, but it doesn’t sound like it was the grom’s first offense. Based on the hundreds of comments on the thread, the kid has a reputation. Since the Polynesians first started whittling koa wood wee keikis have existed at the bottom of the pecking order. It takes years to earn a respectable spot in the lineup. Granted, Orange County lineups aren’t getting any less crowded.