Thanks for the community shout out :D always appreciate it!
This is wild and sadly not unexpected. I want to think that these things always happened but they were much more nebulous and local instead of widespread on the internet. Neighbors would complain to each other all the time but actually moving the barriers is pretty wild and excessive.
Your friend has the right to do what he did but I think people want to have the space to be heard and complain. I wonder if addressing the people in a sit down conversation would help at all - a small town hall of sorts. Might not but knowing a lot of people just wanting to be heard, it might.
It may have once upon a time, but it's not so much that people want to be heard these days, they want to be right. Even when they are not. They will burn the entire place down just to try and prove that they are.