Bob Ford's Call The Cops!

NOT the last laugh

2011-07-04T10:47:00.002-04:00

I'm sad to say that Bob died June 19, 2011. We'll miss him lots, but
we're all glad his struggle is over.

http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Robert-Ford&lc=6906&pid=152110014&mid=4713628&locale=en-US

However, the legacy of laughter that he left for his family will live
on. When the Fords gather, fun is had!

-- Betsy

Thanks for a great run

2011-05-30T00:37:00.001-04:00

Dear friends,

I am sorry to report that "Bob Ford's Call the Cops" column is being suspended due to Bob's failing health, effective immediately. I offer one of his more popular columns from the past, as a send-off. This will be the last column posted. You may be interested to know that two collections of the columns are currently available for Kindle, and will soon be available for Nook.

We greatly appreciate your loyalty, your friendship and your interest over the many years you have read "Bob Ford's Call the Cops." Thank you for a great run. -- Betsy Ford

After that, everything's gravy

2011-05-30T00:35:00.000-04:00

The 67th anniversary of D-Day is upon us, and at this time I like to remember my late friend, Jack Truluck.

Anybody who saw the movie “Saving Private Ryan” should have known Jack Truluck. On June 6, 1944, Jack piloted one of the landing craft that dropped our guys on Omaha Beach at Normandy. After he offloaded his “passengers” and before he could back away from the shoreline, a German artillery shell blew up his Higgins boat.
Jack’s only choice was to swim ashore. Unarmed and with bullets flying everywhere, Jack crawled over dead bodies in the surf. From behind him, he heard the familiar high pitched whine of another landing craft engine.
Turning around, he saw a friend piloting a Higgins boat, getting ready to pull away from the beach. The friend signaled Jack to swim out toward him. Jack did just that but as he boarded his friend’s landing craft, another German shell blew that boat into little pieces.
Here’s Jack, for the second time that day, making an impromptu landing on the beach at Normandy. “Nobody should have to do this thing more than once,” Jack thought of his bizarre wartime experience. Eventually he was evacuated to a hospital ship. His wounds (a fractured arm) proved to be non-life threatening.
Back at home, after the war, Jack pursued a career as a newspaperman. When I knew Jack he was an investigative reporter for The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. By then his hair was white and there was less of it. But what a guy was Jack Truluck. His instinct for getting to the heart of a news story was unparalleled.
Jack retired from The State paper in the late Eighties, then took a job as a public information officer at the State Police Academy. During his later years, before cancer got him, Jack rarely spoke of D-Day. But when he did, he’d give you a great big Truluck smile and tell you that he never worried about anything anymore.
Hinting at that terrible day on the beach at Normandy, Jack would say: “After that everything’s gravy.”

Look for Call The Cops! e-books in Amazon’s Kindle book store, and coming soon for Barnes & Nobles' Nook.

Metal entrepreneur gets fried

2011-05-22T19:55:00.000-04:00

This week’s story takes place in the town Colton, in San Bernardino County, California. It’s a medium sized town with a population approaching 50,000. Incidentally, Colton is California’s favorite nudist resort — although that has absolutely nothing to do with this story.
  In the pre-dawn hours of April 29th, Colton Town Police notice that traffic lights, street lights and business store lights were all out. Then a call comes into police headquarters saying there’s a dead body behind one of Colton’s business buildings.
  Sergeant Alan Koahou decides to check out that tip, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. What the sergeant finds behind one of Colton’s businesses is a dead man.
  The corpse is lying next to an electrical transformer. There’s no identification on the man’s still smoking body, but Colton police are pretty sure the guy was trying to steal copper from the electrical box. Apparently the guy touched the wrong component and was electrocuted.
  Copper theft has been sweeping the country for more than a year because of the high cost of copper. But what the metal thieves know is, the price of copper on the underground market has been falling.
   The reason copper prices are falling is the glut on that particular market. There are so many copper thieves working overtime that buyers of stolen metals have a super-abundance of material to dispose of.
  The thieves don’t seem to understand that the stolen metals market works the same as legitimate markets of any type — when there’s an oversupply of a product, the demand is less and the sales potential takes a nose dive!
  The guy who got fried April 29th in Colton apparently did not consider that fact, otherwise he’d still be reading the business pages of his daily newspaper.

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Be kind to small critters

2011-05-15T20:51:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press reports that Chad Alvarez, 23, a University of Wisconsin student, plead guilty in an unusual criminal case. The crime was committed when the young man reportedly stole his roommate’s pet Parrot named Lago.
According to the fraternity’s code of honor, that’s not the sort of thing one does to a collegiate brother. But wait, it gets worse. While the colorful South American bird was in Chad’s custody the bird passed away. You knew the plot would thicken, didn’t you? This is a lesson in life. When we do bad things it always gets worse. Now Chad has a corpse to deal with.
In court, Circuit Judge William Foust said actions of this kind demand a response. True, Chad admitted his crime and appeared to be truly repentant. He said there wasn’t a day went by that he didn’t regret his actions. He apologized for the anguish his misdeed caused both his roommate and his parents. But Chad never did explain why he did it.
On the day of the trial Chad entered a plea of “no contest” to charges of felony theft and mistreatment of an animal resulting in death to the animal.
Judge Faust shook his head in disbelief as he sentenced Chad to 250 hours of community service and levied a $1,000 fine to be assigned to the Dane County Humane Society. Chad was also ordered to continue with psychological counseling sessions.
The court still doesn’t know if Chad really understood that placing a live parrot in a microwave oven—four minutes on high power—would be harmful to the bird’s health.
KIDS--DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!
We hear that Chad is looking for another roommate, hopefully one that doesn’t have pets.

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Cops, coffee and doughnuts

2011-05-08T21:46:00.001-04:00

Is it true what they say about cops eating doughnuts? Or did some cartoonist just make that up? We’ll have to dig into the history of police work to find out why, but cops and doughnuts are a definite item.
When I say “doughnuts” I’m talking about Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Mister Doughnut, and all the independents. You can accept as fact that cops love doughnuts — but then so does everybody else.
The reason for cartoons showing two cops sitting car-to-car in front of a doughnut shop is that’s about the only place cops had to eat while on duty back in the forties and fifties. That’s how the legend of cops-and-doughnuts got started. Most cops walked foot-beats until the late fifties when patrol cars became more numerous in police inventories.
Doughnut shops were about the only place street cops could afford to eat. Many restaurants were too expensive for everyday meals. Fast-food stores didn’t come on the scene until the early sixties when McDonald’s and Hardee’s began showing up.
When fast-food stores started dishing out food, cops flocked to them. As good as doughnuts are, cops knew a more balanced meal is better — if you call a burger with fries balanced.
When gasoline service stations converted to convenience stores, cops started showing up there for mid-shift snacks. Convenience store operators started giving cops free coffee with the hope of encouraging them to come around more often. A police car in front of a business is a pretty good deterrent to crime.
Nowadays, free coffee is considered a no-no because of mandated police ethics regulations. In some jurisdictions, accepting even a small free goody can get a cop suspended. Some will get fired for accepting handouts. Much of this policy resulted from the public perception that free anything will unfairly encourage favors from law enforcement.
So, were food and beverage freebies good or bad? It no longer matters. Today they’re illegal in many jurisdictions.
Replacing the free meal today is the “police discount” which brings patrol cars to the parking lots of restaurants.
Mostly that’s a good thing.

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Tattoo tells it all

2011-05-01T22:18:00.000-04:00

  Tony is a member of the Rivera-13 gang. He’s serving time in a California prison, according to CBS News and the Associated Press.
  Now he has a cellmate, but not just some ordinary con. This cellmate (Kevin) is actually a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide investigator working undercover.
  What’s a cop doing in Tony’s cell? He’s in hopes of getting a confession to a major crime Tony is suspected of — the 2004 murder of a 23-year-old man in a liquor store. A major link between Tony and the murder is a photograph of a huge tattoo police have in their files.
  The tattoo depicts the murder scene including many details, like Christmas lights in the liquor store, a street sign outside, even how the body of the murdered man fell to the floor. At the top of the tattoo are the words, “Rivera kills,” which is the name of Tony’s gang. There’s also a sketch of a helicopter hovering above with bullets shooting down. “Chopper” is Tony’s gang name.
  Cops first examined the tattoo in 2008, but were unable to develop any substantial evidence connecting the tattoo with the suspected murderer. Now, with the aid of an undercover cellmate, it’s hoped the detective will be able to extract a needed full confession of the eleven-year-old crime.
  With the patience of the undercover cop, the plan works! Detective Kevin gets a full confession and Tony, alias “Chopper,” is convicted. He now awaits sentencing which should keep him in prison for an additional 65 years to life.
  All of this was made possible because of the killer’s arrogance in having the murder scene tattooed on his own chest for all to see. How brilliant!

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Drug smuggling with ancient technology

2011-04-24T20:53:00.001-04:00

The drug smugglers mentioned in this column are real entrepreneurs. Their plan to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to Arizona was ingenious, even though it failed. Had they applied this type of thinking to a legitimate business, they’d probably be operating a thriving business and employing dozens of workers right now.
It’s January, 2011, and the marijuana business across the Mexican-Arizona border is in high gear. There’s a fence at the international border at Naco, some 80 miles southeast of Tuscon, but smugglers have figured out a way around that.
According to news reports from KVOA-TV in Tuscon, American National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco border report they saw people — on the Mexico side — building a CATAPULT from which they were launching packages of illegal drugs over the border fence into the U. S.
Can you believe it? A catapult! The same weapon the ancients used to hurl rocks and huge balls of fire at their enemies. These fierce weapons date back to the 10th Century when they were used by the Chinese, Greeks and Romans. Catapults were introduced to the western world in the early 1200s when the French assaulted English castles with huge rocks and balls of fire.
After spotting the Mexican catapult operation, American authorities notify Mexican police and soon (maybe hours later) Mexican cops “disrupt the catapult operation.” The smugglers, already alerted that the cops are coming, have abandoned the launch site area and are nowhere to be found.
Mexican cops seize 45 pounds of boxed marijuana, an SUV, and the makings of a catapult in good operating condition.

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A clue cops love

2011-04-17T19:48:00.001-04:00

It’s the end of March when two young men force their way into a home in East Charlotte, North Carolina. They separate the man and woman and force the man through one room after another to locate valuables.
One of the invaders, we’ll call him Johnny, takes jewelry and a wallet, but neither the man or woman is hurt. Something strange about the apparent leader of the two invaders. He’s wearing a black tee shirt with a large picture screen-printed on it.
After the two intruders get all they want they leave. Many times this type of crime is difficult to solve -- but the cops are going to get help from a source they don’t expect.
Less than a week after the home invasion, WBT-TV news reports that Charlotte police have arrested the lead invader and charged him with the home invasion. How did the cops find him so fast? From the photograph on his tee shirt -- the one he took off and left on the floor during the East Charlotte home invasion.
According to the website “SmokingGun,” Johnny had his prison mugshot silk-screened on a black tee shirt.
Johnny had been released from a North Carolina prison several months before the Charlotte home invasion. In prison he had served seven years for armed robbery and breaking and entering.
At the time of his arrest for the Charlotte home invasion, he’d only been out of prison for four months.
One more detail: the caption with Johnny’s mug shot read: “Making money is my thang.”
Maybe Johnny should get a new tee shirt printed with a new caption: “Back in the slammer is what I do!”

Fighting gamecock

2011-04-10T22:13:00.001-04:00

Deputy Jeffcoat had an uncanny way of dealing with rowdy prisoners. Jeffcoat was a big guy, but he didn’t rely on his bulk to handle those he arrested. Instead, Jeffcoat dealt with rowdy prisoners by using imagination and common sense, blended with a fine-tuned sense of humor.
Old time jailers say it wasn’t unusual for prisoners to thank Jeffcoat for his courtesy after the booking process. Here’s what made Deputy Jeffcoat so different.
Everybody in the county knew Jeffcoat was a fierce University of South Carolina sports fan. Frequently, on game days, the deputy would drive around with a chicken on the front seat of his patrol car. A bit messy at times, but he kept his patrol car spotlessly clean.
Jeffcoat’s chicken was a rooster—a Rhode Island Red. Now, this was not a true “fighting gamecock” like the USC football team’s mascot, but it was “close enough for government work,” the deputy would tell people.
If a prisoner was inclined to be a bit on the combative side, Jeffcoat would flip the rooster onto the back seat. This was before protective metal security screens were used in patrol cars. Jeffcoat would tell the prisoner that the chicken was special—a purebred “fighting gamecock.”
Having gotten the prisoner’s attention, Jeffcoat would go on to explain: “He doesn’t know you—so if you move around too much, the little guy will probably peck one of your eyes out.”
After that disclaimer, the prisoner would scarcely move, except to breathe—and then ever so gently. The prisoner would remain quiet for the entire ride to the county jail, hoping to arrive at the lockup with both eyes still in his head.
There’s no telling how many patrol car skirmishes Jeffcoat’s would-be “fighting gamecock” may have averted.

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Bullying—not a new problem

2011-04-03T20:40:00.001-04:00

Morris is 10 years old and in the fourth grade. One day he comes home crying but refuses to talk over his problem with his mother. Later that evening when daddy comes home the boy runs up, hugs his daddy's legs and cries out in unintelligible words.
  Dad takes the boy into the bedroom so they can talk in private. The problem is—bottom line—bullying! Young Morris is the victim of a schoolyard bully.
  Apparently this has been going on for a week. The bully catches Morris walking home from school, teasing him and punching him at will. "What can I do?" asks Morris, tearfully.
  Dad looks Morris square in the eyes saying, "Here's what you do! The next time he walks up to you, don't wait for him to hit you. Haul off and punch him in the nose as hard as you can."
  Young Morris seems unsure of himself, but Dad reassures him, "You can do it. Don't wait until he hits you. Sock him first—square on the nose, as hard as you can."
  The next day Dad comes home from work to be greeted by a joyful Morris. "Daddy, I did it. Just like you said, right on the nose—and he cried and his nose started bleeding and he ran away."
  It appears the problem may be solved. Several days go by until Dad gets a call from the principal's office asking for a conference.
  Turns out the former bully is now the victim of a new bully, young Morris, who is misusing his new-found power against his former nemesis.
  It's difficult to teach a 10 year old to use restraint with recently discovered power, but Dad tries. A brief lecture seems acceptable and young Morris stops with the fisticuffs.
  But the problem continues elsewhere, every day in many schools. Sometimes the bullying is physical and sometimes it's psychological. The latter seems to be the domain of the girls. The solution will have to come from the home and at an early age.

                                                        Look for Call The Cops! e-books in Amazon's Kindle store

Are we having fun at the wedding?

2011-03-27T18:26:00.001-04:00

A Cajun wedding in Houma, Louisiana, turns into a riot when the groom and the bride's brother have too much to drink. Family members call 911, and an ambulance is dispatched to the neighborhood outdoor wedding melee.
Some of the wedding party guests mistake the ambulance EMTs for cops and start swinging fists at them. The EMTs call for backup and within a few minutes several squad cars arrive and cops jump out to calm the outrageous marriage festivities.
That's when the party really gets rolling. The bride's brother, we'll call him Boudreaux, does not take kindly to cops interfering with his sister's wedding, so he starts swinging at the uniformed lawmen. That's when the cops haul out their tasers. Boudreaux gets zapped and goes down for the count.
That encounter stirs up more trouble and other members of the wedding party begin advancing on the cops. As the party action escalates, more police backup is called for on the radio. This time a police K-9 unit arrives as part of the backup.
The crowd begins backing away from the growling police dogs. About that same time, brother Boudreaux awakens from his taser slumber.
Now he's really upset and charges the cops once again. You guessed it -- Boudreaux gets zapped in the chest for the second time and goes down and out. This time the bride's sleeping brother gets to wear a pair of shiny police bracelets and is carried to the back seat of a police cage unit.
It takes a while, but eventually everybody calms down. Maybe that’s because half the wedding party is being carted off to a Louisiana jail.

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Late night till-tapping

2011-03-20T22:14:00.001-04:00

A government office in a small town in South Carolina is having trouble — money is missing from the cash registers at city hall.
  A town detective, we’ll call “Bulldog,” is asked by the mayor to work on the problem. Two ladies in the mayor’s office have access to the cash register. Dog talks to both of them and learns nothing substantive.
  Dog even goes so far as to do a stake-out, sitting in the mayor’s recliner all night, but nothing happens. The next morning money in the cash register balances.
  Dog explains all this to the mayor who asks, “Well, what about the $120 that’s missing?” That’s a good question, so Dog promises to look into the discrepancy further.
  Dog borrows a surveillance camera from an electronics dealer he knows. This particular camera is set up for night vision. Dog lets it run all night long for three consecutive nights.
  At the end of that time the cash register is short by $60. Dog runs the tapes but not a single person is in view. He runs the tape several more times. Then he sees movement. “What the heck is that?” he thinks.
  A closer look reveals a rat jumping up on the table, scampering over to the cash register, pressing on a key and opening the cash drawer. Then the rat grabs a $20 bill from the end slot and runs with it to the floor.
  The rat edges through a small opening in the baseboard and disappears. Dog checks around the floor and soon finds tiny pieces of chewed up U.S. currency on the floor.
  An exterminator is hired and after the rodent problem is solved, Dog learns the rest of the story. Rats learned to penetrate the cash register and soon discovered that U.S. currency — chewed up into tiny pieces — makes excellent nesting material.
  These particular nests built behind the walls in the mayor’s office are probably the most expensive nests imaginable. On a positive note, the ladies who work in the mayor’s office are relieved they are no longer considered suspects.

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Late night till-tapping

2011-03-13T18:23:00.001-04:00

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Slip & slide on the high seas

2011-03-06T23:11:00.001-05:00

  You’ve been reading about Somali pirates raiding world shipping in the West Indian Ocean. Pirates hold ships and people for huge ransoms. Often the pirates collect, and sometimes victims are slaughtered. This story is about a pirate band that got outfoxed.
The Somali pirates shadow their prey from a mother ship, which is usually a highjacked vessel. Once the pirates select their prey, they launch small skiffs that trail the intended victim. The pirates are armed with guns, including RPGs—rocket propelled grenade launchers.
This particular target is the APL Hong Kong, loaded with huge container cranes that are designed to move the shipping containers that are used on cargo ships and docks worldwide. We see these shipping containers running up and down the highways, pulled by trucks. They hold merchandise that will end up on store shelves all over America, a necessary part of our commerce.
  In this story, the APL Hong Kong is steaming along, carrying her load to a western port. The pirates fire warning shots across her bow, then skiffs pull alongside. The pirates toss grappling hooks atop the deck and begin scaling the bulkheads like monkeys.
  The captain of the crane ship orders all hands into locked compartments. As the pirates climb aboard, the ship’s captain flips a switch that sets his plan in motion. Nozzles on the open deck begin spraying a gooey substance, covering the deck. The substance is so slippery it’s impossible to stand up on the rolling deck. Not only do the pirates fall down, they slide overboard. Some of the pirates are picked up by their skiffs. Others, less fortunate, are claimed by the sea.
  What is this gooey stuff? It’s unrefined castor oil, the kind of thing your grandfather was forced to swallow as a kid whenever he got sick. Castor oil may not end the Somali pirate threat, but it does take care of this raid. Three cheers for the captain of APL Hong Kong.

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The case of the interrupted burglar

2011-02-27T18:08:00.001-05:00

  It’s late January in suburban Washington, D.C., as a vicious snowstorm batters the entire Delaware Valley from Northern Virginia to New England. Traffic is a nightmare, but that’s only part of the problem police are having in suburban Maryland.
  In Montgomery County, next door to Northwest Washington, there have been 40 burglaries, all committed during the snowstorm. So far cops are clueless. But that’s about to change.
  It’s late afternoon as a young man returns home only to hear strange sounds upstairs. As he runs up to the master bedroom he finds a window open with the screen laying below in the snow.
  Running downstairs to try to get a glimpse of the burglar, he sees a guy with a red stocking cap dash by the kitchen window. The young man gives chase but there are only snow tracks to follow. The burglar gets away, but not entirely. Clues have been left behind.
  Forensic cops photograph the frozen snow tracks which reveal sharp images of boot tread, including cuts and nicks which make the prints unique.
  One more important clue is found inside the house — a Cricket Sanyo cellphone plugged into a charger. The phone does not belong to anybody in the household. A cop wonders: “Could we be that lucky?”
  The phone is recharged in a car charger and its phone-list is studied. One listing has possibilities, so a detective makes the call to a woman named Barbara who answers the call with, “Hey, Clayton!”
  The cop takes a chance and identifies himself, then asks for information about her boyfriend, “because he’s involved in a police incident.” The ruse is true, but not in the way the girlfriend thinks. Now the cops have Clayton’s address — right nearby in Silver Spring.
  When the cops arrive, Clayton is attempting to flush some of the booty down the toilet. He’s busted for 10 cases of burglary and bond is set, in Montgomery County Court, at $1 million.
  Detectives expect to close more cases, but with Clayton’s arrest the number of burglaries in suburban Maryland dramatically decreases.

Carter’s foolproof plan

2011-02-20T22:28:00.001-05:00

Carter has a scrap book of news stories about bank robberies. It contains clippings from newspapers and notes from TV reports. He plans to benefit from the mistakes of other bank robbers.
Carter considers his plan foolproof. He's forgotten the old saying, "Make something foolproof and they'll build a better fool."
The day of Carter's bank robbery arrives. He parks his gray Buick across the street and down a few doors from the bank. He hangs a towel out of the trunk to cover the license plate.
Carter enters the bank wearing a red t-shirt, light blue slacks and a white sailor hat. There isn't a bank teller in town that can forget that combination of clothing.
Once inside, Carter hands a note to the teller: "I have a gun — give me the money." The teller studies the note but Carter's handwriting is so bad she can't read a word of it. Quickly, Carter grabs the note and reads it to her. She complies by stuffing money into a plastic bank bag.
Carter runs from the bank, darts across the street to his car and climbs into the trunk to change clothing. That's Carter's plan. He'll change from his distinctively flashy colored clothing into something drab so he won't be recognized as the bank robber.
His plan is working. Well, almost. Carter's heart sinks when he hears a "click." That's the sound of his trunk lid closing — and locking. Remember I told you Carter had a Buick? This model has a feature that allows the trunk lid to close and lock once you lower it to within a few inches of the closed position. It's automatic.
Carter's frantic banging and yelling finally attracts the attention of a cadre of police officers — the same guys who are out looking for the bank robber — the bank robber dressed exactly like Carter.

That your ringtone?

2011-02-14T00:44:00.001-05:00

“Give me the money or I’ll cut you,” the man with the machete says to the clerk. It’s 3 a.m. and we’re in a neighborhood convenience store.
There’s one customer in the store, but he’s hunched down low behind the potato chip rack. The mere sight of a machete makes this witness try to become invisible.
There’s only $15 in the cash drawer. The clerk bundles it up in a bank deposit bag and tosses it on the counter.
“Down on the floor and if you call the cops I’ll come back and cut your heart out,” growls the bandit, who then turns and runs from the store. Moments later the clerk calls 911 to report the robbery.
The clerk tells police the bandit is a white male about 25 years old, six feet tall, wearing a camouflage hunting vest and white New Balance shoes. He is, of course, armed with a machete.
The witness, hiding behind the potato chip rack, tells police the suspect got into a Checker-Yellow cab. A call to the cab company dispatcher reveals the cab took the suspect to the midtown area and that’s where the trail ends.
By now there’s a half dozen cops spread out over the main drag of the downtown business district. Even at three in the morning the area is well lit. The city leaves the Christmas lights in the trees all year long. It’s cheaper than taking the lights down and storing them.
Suddenly Officer Monroe calls out on his radio: “I think I’ve got our man.” When the other cops join Monroe, he shines his Mag-Lite up into a tree. “See that shoe?” says Monroe, “looks like a New Balance to me. I’ll bet our man is plugged into that shoe.”
It turns out Monroe is correct. The machete bandit is hiding out in the tree, high above the search party. What made Officer Monroe look up? Why, he heard the bandit’s cell phone ring.

Slip and slide bank robber

2011-02-06T23:04:00.001-05:00

Dwayne owes several thousand dollars on three credit cards and his car payments are almost two months behind. He needs money. Now.
He decides the best way to raise money is to rob a bank. That’s what the famous bank robber, Willie Sutton did. Dwayne seems to forget that Sutton spent most of his adult life in prison.
Dwayne makes plans. He selects a bank that’s far away from the nearest police station. He’ll hit the bank at four in the afternoon. That’s shift change time for the cops. He doesn’t have a gun but he’ll use something more effective than a firearm--an explosive!
Dwayne visits the bank several times around four in the afternoon, as what he considers a “dry run.”
Now it’s the appointed day. Dwayne parks close to the bank. He closes the car’s trunk on a bath towel so part of the towel hangs over the rear license plate. He saw that once in a movie. He doesn’t remember that the bank robbers in that film were all killed or captured.
Into the bank goes Dwayne, marching up to a teller window holding a glass vial in his hand. “This tube contains nitroglycerin,” Dwayne announces, “anybody make a false move and I’ll blow up the bank--you hear me?”
The nervous teller replies, “But you’ll blow up with the rest of us!”
That response isn’t part of Dwayne’s plan. Unnerved by the teller’s smart-alecky remark, Dwayne realizes he’s not cut out for bank robbery. The frustrated bomber says, “Okay, then we’ll all blow up,” and he tosses the glass vial on the marble floor.
Everbody cringes--but there’s no explosion. There’s only the sound of breaking glass as a pale yellow liquid spreads across the floor.
Dwayne decides to make a run for it. His mistake is running through the spilled nitro, except it’s not nitro, it’s canola cooking oil. Of course the fleeing would-be bank robber slips and falls, hitting his head on the marble floor, knocking himself unconscious.
And that’s the way the cops find him--unconscious and smelling like a salad. Failed attempt or not, it’s still bank robbery and Dwayne will do time in a federal pen, just like Willie.

Call the Cops Book 1 is now available

2011-02-05T16:21:00.002-05:00

The first full-size collection of Call the Cops stories is now "live" on Amazon for Kindle or to read directly on your computer. Bob Ford's Call the Cops Book 1 has 30 classic Call the Cops stories, most of them funny and a few that'll make you say, "Hmmm." Some of my own favorites in Book 1 are, "When do I get to arrest somebody?" and "Caught red-handed" and "That can't be MY fingerprint!" And there are 27 more.

The new Bob Ford's Call the Cops Book 1 is in addition to the Bob Ford's Call the Cops Sampler, which gives you a ten-story taste. And also on Amazon, you can subscribe to this blog, to get the newest Call the Cops story sent automatically every week to your Kindle or computer. BTW, if you don't have a Kindle (I don't, either), you can read Kindle editions on your computer with Amazon's easy, free, downloadable reader.

Click on the title of this blog post to see all of Amazon's Bob Ford's Call the Cops items.

Deadly stickup

2011-01-30T22:15:00.002-05:00

Several years ago two dirt bags with handguns walked into a Shoney’s Restaurant in Anniston, Alabama. At gunpoint they herded employees and customers into a walk-in refrigerator in the back of the restaurant.
Did I say all of the customers? Actually there was one customer who managed to stay behind. He was Thomas Glenn Terry who, rather than allow himself to be locked in the cooler, decided to hide under a table while he made other plans.
As one gunman forced the manager to open the cash drawer, a second gunman patrolled the restaurant’s aisles.
It was the patrolling gunman who discovered Mr. Terry’s hiding place. Waving his pistol, the robber ordered Terry to stand up. Terry stood up, as ordered at gun point, but as he stood he drew his own pistol and shot the gunman dead.
The sound of the gunshot caused the first robber to check out the scene. When he saw Terry he fired but missed. Terry returned fire, mortally wounding the remaining bandit.
So, what have we got here? Two gunmen——one dead and the other dying. We have two dozen hostages released unharmed from a walk-in refrigerator where they could have died. Finally we have a private citizen who just happened to have a state permit to carry a concealed weapon.
When you read the newspapers or watch television and are deluged with news stories about senseless killings, there’s usually one common factor——the victims were not armed. The only thing that was different at Shoney’s in Anniston that day was that Mr. Terry, also a victim, had a firearm——a lawful firearm. He defended himself, as is his right.
What’s the point? Before we disarm the entire population you should know that bad guys don’t buy guns from licensed dealers. They steal guns. And if one day we, the good guys, are the only ones without guns then we’ll be in a world of hurt. But you already understand that, don’t you?

Busted in a Skyjack

2011-01-23T17:11:00.000-05:00

Olin leaves the jobsite to get lunch for the other guys. He goes to the convenience store in a Skyjack aerial lift—a vehicle similar to a fork-lift except it has a platform which the operator can lower and raise to a desired height.
   Olin has purchased lunch for the guys back at the jobsite, including a case of beer, and is returning to his workplace when a deputy sheriff flags him over.
  “What’re you doing riding on a public road in that thing?” asks the deputy.
  With impaired speech, Olin replies,”I’m just going back to the job with lunch for my buddies.”
   “Does that include the beer?” asks the deputy.
  Frustrated, Olin says, “Oh man, can’t you just leave me alone? I ain’t hurtin’ nobody. I’m just going back to the job.”
  “Step down out of the Skyjack!” the deputy orders.
  “No, sir!” is Olin’s response. “I ain’t comin’ down.”
  The deputy is insistent and again orders Olin to “come down from the Skyjack.”
  Now Olin becomes belligerent saying, “I ain’t comin’ down,” as he raises the Skyjack platform to its highest level. “Why don’t you just come up here and get me.”
  The deputy repeatedly orders Olin to lower the Skyjack but the intoxicated operator keeps refusing as he comments, “I know my rights. I pay your salary. What do you think of that?”
  Meanwhile, the deputy is on his two-way radio calling for backup. Minutes later a technician shows up with a wrench. At the base of the Skyjack the tech loosens a bolt and drains the hydraulic fluid out of the vehicle and the platform makes a gradual decent.
  The deputy climbs onto the platform, turns Olin around and handcuffs him. Olin moans, “Careful you don’t spill my beer! Oh man, what’d you do that for—them things hurts my wrists.”
The deputy answers, “That’s because they’re new. They’ll feel better as they get older.”
  Of course, Olin does not drive the Skyjack back to the jobsite and the work crew does not get their case of beer. Olin is busted for DUI.

The nose knows

2011-01-16T15:34:00.001-05:00

Jimmy Cooper is a deadbeat dad who hasn’t sent money home for nearly a year. He owes over $5,000 in child support. We already know he’s hiding out somewhere in New Jersey.
This day the cops have tracked him to Egg Harbor where he’s living in a flea-bag hotel with his girlfriend. Two detectives, warrants in hand, knock on the door but get no answer. After hearing a window fly open they kick in the door just in time to see Jimmy climbing down a fire escape wearing nothing but undershorts and a pair of socks.
There’s a wooded area two blocks away and that’s where Jimmy seems to be headed. The detectives call the Breakers Hotel where, luckily, there’s a convention of K-9 cops at a training session. The K-9 teams are from all over the East Coast. Jimmy really picks the wrong place to hide out — so close to dozens of bloodhounds that love nothing better than to go sniffing for fugitives.
Soon two dog teams are at the edge of the woods where Jimmy was seen last. Matching Jimmy’s scent from a pile of his dirty laundry, the dogs quickly strike a trail. Tracking dogs have cow bells attached to their harnesses so police handlers can keep track of where they are.
Both of these dogs are a combination of Redbone and Bloodhound. That special breed gives them tremendous stamina (Redbone), plus an incredible ability to detect odors (Bloodhound). These dogs have a far greater sensitivity to odors than any human can detect. These dogs have some 300,000 sensors on their wet nose.
It doesn’t take long before the dogs have Jimmy up a tree, literally. They’re barking and baying at him like he’s a treed raccoon.
Eventually the medics at the emergency room sew up the cuts and treat the abrasions Jimmy got running half naked through the woods.
Next he’ll face a family court judge to answer a charge of “contempt of court.” This episode will cost him at least a year in jail. That won’t help Jimmy’s children, but it’ll make the “system” feel better.
What about the dogs? Will they get extra points in the weekend competition for catching a real, live fugitive?
“No points at all,” says a K-9 officer. “The competition and training is more for the officers. The dogs are natural born experts at catching bad guys.”

Speeder “gets even” for traffic ticket

2011-01-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

Newberry County Sheriff's Deputy stops a 34-year-old driver, we'll call him Herkimer, for speeding. This is a rural road with a posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour. Herkimer is driving 88.
Not surprisingly, the deputy issues him a $450 speeding ticket. Herkimer is really upset by the citation. But that's only the beginning of this story.
Herkimer hangs out around the sheriff's office until the deputy who wrote the ticket gets off duty. Then Herkimer follows the deputy home. Now that he knows where the cop lives, Herkimer starts cruising back and forth in front of the house.
The deputy writes an additional report stating he warned Herkimer to stop his low-level harassment and should tell the traffic court judge about any objections he might have to receiving a citation.
Later, according to investigator reports, Herkimer goes around telling friends and others about his $450 ticket, saying he'll "get even" with the deputy and with Newberry County for citing him for speeding.
What kind of revenge does Herkimer have in mind? Well, according to sheriff's reports, an abandoned house in the nearby town of Silverstreet was torched several days later.
The abandoned house had no power connected to it, which made the incident a "suspicious fire." Also, investigators learned that Herkimer was bragging to people that he had finally gotten even with the deputy and the county because they had to spend at least the amount of his $450 fine to send fire trucks and emergency personnel to the burning house.
A warrant was issued and Herkimer was arrested. At a magistrate's hearing investigators testified that because of Herkimer's behavior toward the deputy and his demeanor after the speeding ticket was issued, he posed a danger to himself and possibly to others. Herkimer was ordered held in the county jail without bond until a trial is set.

Call the Cops is now available for Kindle

2011-01-03T11:12:00.009-05:00

Good news - The Call the Cops blog is now available for direct delivery to your Kindle every week. And coming soon: A “sampler” collection of Call the Cops stories as a Kindle e-book.
When you subscribe to the Kindle edition of the blog, you'll get the blog stories you see here, delivered direct to your Kindle every week, with no searching or remembering required. To subscribe, click on the title above. Or take yourself to Amazon.com, select “Kindle store” as your search area, and type “Call the Cops blog” in the search field.
You don't even have to have a Kindle to read Kindle publications. Amazon's got a way for you to read them on your computer.
It's too bad that Amazon is megalomaniac about pricing for blog subscriptions. They decide the price, based on some top-secret formula. They sometimes change the price, for reasons they refuse to reveal. And the publisher (that would be me) has absolutely no input on the price. *I* want you to have the Kindle subscription to Call the Cops for 99 cents a month, but Amazon in its secret wisdom has declared that it will cost $1.99 a month. Unless they change their minds.
Of course, you can read each week's Call the Cops story here for FREE, and even subscribe here for FREE to have the blog delivered to your email inbox.
Keep an eye out ... or BOLO, in cop-speak ... for the soon-to-launch Call the Cops “sampler collection” e-book on Amazon for 99 cents, and for a longer Call the Cops collection for $2.99.
And be careful out there, crazy crooks are liable to make you laugh yourself silly.

Find “most wanted” on Facebook

2010-12-26T23:23:00.001-05:00

Facebook has become one of the more popular tools for socializing. Sure, it was the kids who got Facebook started but today practically everybody does Facebook. There's a downside to report this week. A family in Washington, D. C., recently was burglarized by a guy you could characterize as both bold and stupid.
According to The Washington Post, Webster's basement door in Northwest Washington was kicked in and the entire house ransacked. Webster was upset mostly by the theft of his laptop which contained all of his prized photographs — no backups had been made, not even on a thumb drive.
What's amazing is the crook took Webster's brand new winter coat out of a Christmas gift box, put it on and then took a picture of himself wearing Webster's new coat. How do the D. C. cops know about that if the laptop was stolen? Because the crook posted pictures he took of himself on Webster's Facebook page.
Will the cops nail this burglar? I believe you can count on it, although recovery of the stolen items is never certain. Why do I think he'll be arrested? First of all they have his picture — full front view. They also know he's both stupid and vain. They lifted dozens of the burglar's fingerprints from all over the house. His photograph will very likely appear in other places on the internet. With facial recognition software available, cops will eventually obtain an ID.
The Post also reported that another crook was arrested in New York City several days after he mugged a guy on a subway platform. How did the cops make that arrest? They spotted the mugger on his own Facebook page wearing a Scottish family plaid scarf and signet ring which belonged to the victim of the mugging a few days earlier.
Cops everywhere are learning to pay close attention to the internet — especially Facebook and MySpace which some bad guys seem to find irresistible.

Nosy neighbors are crime stoppers

2010-12-19T22:21:00.001-05:00

The area is full of Christmas cheer as we move into the holiday season, but at the same time, the bad guys are hard at work trying to remove Christmas cheer from the neighborhoods.
  TV-13 in Houston reports that a Harris County family of five was robbed at gunpoint last week just as they arrived home from a shopping spree at a local mall.
  The victim, Henry Rodriguez, said he, his wife and three daughters had just finished shopping at Best Buy and purchased some expensive electronics. The armed robbery occurred in the driveway of the Rodriguez home just as they pulled in.
  There were three men, two armed with handguns. The robbers blocked the Rodriguez car in the driveway then demanded all five family members get out of the car, place packages on the driveway and open the trunk.
  “It was like they knew everything we had purchased,” said Mr. Rodriguez. The family was ordered to lie face down on the driveway as the bandits grabbed the goodies, backed out and sped away. The whole incident took place in less than two minutes.
  A Harris County constable said the robbers very likely watched Rodriguez at the checkout stand to determine what he’d purchased, then followed him home where the robbery took place.
  These kinds of crimes are becoming more common across the country at this time of year when people are spending money on expensive gifts.
  Most police agencies recommend active neighborhood watch programs as a possible deterrent. “When you hear a car pull into your neighbor’s driveway, look out the window. If you see something that doesn’t look right, call 911 and report it,” said a police official.
  A police chief, long retired from a small department in the South Carolina Midlands, once observed, “The best crime deterrent is a nosy neighbor!”

Egbert’s Mom is a squealer!

2010-12-12T22:48:00.000-05:00

A guy breaks into an elementary school in Georgia, according to the Athens Banner and Herald. The burglar is rummaging around in a classroom full of laptop computers when the cops arrive in response to an alarm.
  The burglar takes of running. Racing through the cafeteria he dumps large pans and utensils on the floor to slow down the cops chasing him.
  The burglar eventually escapes through a window, runs into a nearby wooded area and escapes. During cleanup, the cops find a cell phone on the floor along the escape trail run by the vandal.
  A detective thinks it'll be easy to identify the owner. All he has to do is contact the cell phone provider. Turns out it's not that easy — the cell phone is a "prepaid" phone, purchased for cash and activated with no identification required. It's the same kind of transaction terrorists use in buying cell phones. The owner remains a mystery.
  Not easily discouraged, the detective looks at the contacts listed on the cell phone. One of the listings is "Ma." The detective figures it's worth a try and calls Ma's number.
  "Hi, this is Tony out at the mall," says the detective in a light hearted manner. "I found this cell phone on the floor in front of the pizza place here at the mall. I figured you might know who the phone belongs to."
  The woman says, "That's probably my son Egbert's phone." Then she gives the caller her son's address without realizing she's talking to a police detective. Several hours later, when Egbert returns to his residence, there's a reception committee of cops waiting for him.
  Later, the detective notices that the ring tone on Egbert's cell phone is, "Bad boy, bad boy — whatcha gonna do."

Over the fence for a dollar!

2010-12-05T23:30:00.001-05:00

A retired Trooper told me one of his favorite “war stories” during a breakfast meeting recently. Back in the old days the Highway Patrol worked security during the annual football clash between the University of South Carolina and Clemson University.
The event was called “Big Thursday” and occurred every November during Fair Week. The game was played at Carolina Stadium, directly across from the State Fairgrounds. You'll recognize the playing field today as Williams-Brice Stadium.
One of the reasons — probably the main reason — the annual clash was changed to alternate back and forth between Columbia and Clemson on a Saturday was the parking problem. That change was made in 1963.
The Highway Patrol committed lots of Troopers to the Big Thursday clash. Troopers were housed Wednesday night in barracks at Fort Jackson, then bussed over to the stadium in time to control the inevitable crowds.
Back in the sixties, scammers worked, as now, to free people of their money. One particular scam was the “ladder team.” Two men would have an eight foot ladder leaning up against the cyclone fence surrounding Carolina Stadium.
The scammers would offer a deal to fans: “Use our ladder to get over the fence for only $1 per person.” They’d also promise, “If a SLED agent (State Law Enforcement Division) kicks you out, we’ll give you back you’re dollar.”
“That routine went on outside the fence at every game,” said the Trooper, “and some of them got away with it. But if a fan got caught without a ticket by a SLED agent, they’d kick him out of the stadium.” Carolina-Clemson tickets were $10 to $12 back in the early sixties, compared to $50 to $60 today.
“Even though the ladder climbers had not purchased tickets, they wanted their dollar back,” said the Trooper, “but by the time they got kicked out the trick was — find the ladder guys! They were long gone.”

Cops looking for purple people

2010-11-28T16:12:00.001-05:00

Breaking up late night beach parties requires creativity on the part of law enforcement. Take the Florida beach town several summers ago where college kids simply ignored police announcements on the bull horn to “go home!”
One cop had a compact disk in his patrol car which he hooked into the police public-address system, then played a selection for about 20 minutes and turned it off.
By that time all you could hear was the gentle sound of the surf. Police went on to patrol other areas of the town because the kids had cleared out. Did I mention the title of the CD? “The 101 Strings of Montavoni,” that’s a 1950s collection of semi-classic instrumentals.
During the late 60s and early 70s some East Coast beach towns had difficulty dealing with college kids on spring break. Adolescent hormones, combined with pot, booze and other drugs, resulted in special kinds of chaos.
In Florida the highway patrol has a unique tool for dealing with these near-riots. Troopers call it “The War Wagon.” It looked like an armored car covered with steel plates. Tires are solid rubber reinforced with steel radials.
At first, student protesters try to overturn the War Wagon, but its underside is lined with steel spikes and shards of glass embedded in an epoxy-like cement.
Mounted on the top of the War Wagon is a turret from which troopers are able to film crowds and, on a few occasions, actually fire the “k-gun.” No bullets! Read on. The K-Gun looks like a cannon, but its ammunition is a stream of dry purple chemical power. As a cloud of purple-k begins settling, it removes oxygen from the air. Unruly students quickly disperse in search of fresh air.
Purple-k has another property which the cops love — the powder sticks to the skin and doesn’t wash off. It wears off. After the riot is over, the cops simply drive around looking for purple people to question.

Bird feeding gone wrong

2010-11-22T18:17:00.001-05:00

  Stefan has a mynah bird named Gilberto who has a vocabulary of nearly 100 words. Gilberto lives in a fairly large parrot cage in Stefan’s apartment in Mississauga, Ontario.
  Mynah birds are natives of the Amazon region and are about the size of a large crow. Most Mynahs are black with orange bills and a yellow stripe around their shoulder.
This particular day Stefan is preparing to feed Gilberto his regular ration plus a quarter of an orange as a special treat. As Stefan goes into the kitchen area to get the bird feed, Gilberto is out on the balcony saying repeatedly, “Time to feed Gilberto.”
  Stefan returns to the balcony with a teacup full of feed and begins talking to Gilberto. Stefan chirps a few times and asks Gilberto, “You ready for your supper?”
  The bird acknowledges Stefan’s antics by repeating everything his master says to him. Then Stefan reaches up to the feeding cup which is attached to the inside of the cage.
  What happens next is unfortunate, as reported by the Reuters News Agency in Ontario. Stefan, who is only 5’ 6” tall, stands on a chair so he can reach the birdcage.
  Did I mention that the chair is actually Stefan’s wife’s wheelchair and the wheels are not locked? That fact, coupled with the location of the wheelchair, make for a terrible accident.
  The wheelchair moves and Stefan loses his balance. I did tell you the birdcage was situated on the balcony? When Stefan falls, he falls over the edge of the balcony. What can be worse? Well, Stefan’s apartment is on the 23rd floor.
  The coroner reports that Stefan died instantly when he fell onto a concrete patio on the ground floor.

Justice is served

2010-11-14T20:48:00.001-05:00

Michael Anderson Godwin was convicted of a 1978 murder and sexual assault in South Carolina. He was charged with committing the crime while on work release from prison, where he was serving time for an earlier robbery conviction.
  In the murder-sexual assault case the 28-year-old inmate was sentenced to die in the electric chair — the method of execution at that time. But in 1981 he was found not guilty of the sexual assault part of the charge, so the death penalty was reduced to life in prison.
  Sitting in his cell at CCI (Central Correctional Institution), in Columbia, in 1981, Godwin is permitted to have a small television set but prison officials prohibit the use of speakers — only earphones are allowed.
  Godwin’s earphones are not working, so he decides to repair them. Now, picture Godwin sitting on the metal toilet in his cell — naked. Never mind, I’d rather not picture that scene either.
  Godwin needs to connect the speaker wires to two terminals inside the television set — he’s not sure which terminals.
  First he needs to strip the insulation from the earphone wires, but he has no electrician tools. Improvising, he bites the insulation with his teeth and strips the insulation. That works. Next Godwin searches for the proper terminal inside the back of the television set.
  Remember, Godwin is naked as a Jay bird, sitting on a metal toilet seat, playing with electrical wires. You guessed it! He finds a terminal, but it’s high voltage. Michael Godwin is electrocuted by his own hand.
  This year Godwin placed number five in the “Darwin Awards.” For those of you unfamiliar with these awards, they are named in honor of the famous scientist, Charles Darwin, noted for his “theory of evolution.” The awards recognize those who improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it -- permanently! The Award is generally bestowed posthumously, as in Michael Godwin’s case.

The burglar on Facebook

2010-11-07T20:39:00.001-05:00

Curtis is shopping with his wife at the mall when his cell phone rings. “This is Fire Captain Maddox, I’m at your house and smoke is pouring out from under the garage door,” says the caller.
  Startled, Curtis asks, “Who is this?”
  “This is the fire department—your house is on fire—give me the remote number for your garage door or we’ll have to chop it down!”
  Curtis answers, “The number is 8-3-2-5—how bad is the fire?” There’s no response. Curtis and his wife head for home, some 40 minutes away.
  When they arrive at their house everything appears to be intact. No fire trucks in sight. The garage door is open, although Curtis always closes the door when he leaves home.
  The kitchen door adjoining the garage is standing wide open. Inside, Curtis and his wife see their home has been ransacked. It’ll take days to take inventory of what’s missing.
  Curtis tells the cops about the phone call. Obviously there was no fire captain. His real name would be “burglar.” What about the sound of a fire truck in the background during the phone conversation?
  “A tape recording of a fire truck,” says the investigator.
  “How did he get my cell phone number?” asks Curtis.
  “Maybe it was someone you know,” says a cop, “are you on Facebook?”
  “Yes, but I only give my phone number to my friends,” answers Curtis.
  Curtis made several mistakes here. The kitchen door is always unlocked. A locked door won’t stop a thief, but it’ll slow him down or make him think.
  Also very important, Curtis listed his cell phone number with some friends on Facebook. It’s important to know that although Facebook is lots of fun, your Facebook page can be hacked into very easily.
  You should consider anything you write about yourself will be available to the public. There are few secrets on Facebook.

We’re talking “big money” here

2010-10-31T17:55:00.001-04:00

A woman in Lowell, MA, tries to exchange a $10,000 bill for smaller change, but the bank employees will have none of that.
  The bill is presented at a teller station and is instantly questioned. First of all, there are no $10,000 bills still in circulation.
  There were 4,000 of those big bills in circulation long ago. Banks used them to pass large sums of money between each other. Today most of those bills are in the hands of private collectors, although there's one $10,000 bill safely locked in a vault at the U. S. Treasury in Washington, D. C.
  Do you know whose face appears on the $10,000 bill? Here's a clue: He's not even a past president, although he once held high public office. The answer is Salmon P. Chase, a former Secretary of the Treasury. The only non-presidents ever to appear on U. S. currency are Chase and Benjamin Franklin, whose face appears on the $100 bill.
  Back to the lady at the Lowell bank. The Secret Service is called into action because that federal agency is in charge of any funny business with U. S. currency. They do not comment on the bill that was submitted or identify the woman. She is not arrested. Authorities hint that perhaps there are "mental issues" involved.
  While we're on the topic of dead presidents' faces on U. S. currency, you may find it interesting to know who appears on other large U. S. bills: Ulysses S. Grant is on the $50, Benjamin Franklin on the $100, William McKinley on the $500, Grover Cleveland on the $1,000, James Madison on the $5,000, Salmon Chase on the $10,000, Woodrow Wilson on the $100,000.
  As a fun fact, the head of the Statue of Liberty is on the $1,000,000 bill—but there's only one of those and it's a promotional print—also safely locked in a Treasury vault.

Power to loot

2010-10-24T23:50:00.000-04:00

  When it comes to the qualities required to be contemptible, these two guys win an Oscar. First, let me tell you that a detective who deals exclusively in cases of “elder abuse” recently told me that when it comes to senior citizens, a “power of attorney” can easily be transformed into a “license to loot.”
  In the following case, family members are “too busy” to help Auntie manage her finances. She’s in her late eighties and suffers from a form of dementia. One-on-one communication with Auntie is nearly impossible.
  Frustrated, the family hires a lawyer and a certified public accountant to deal with Auntie’s finances. The lawyer and the CPA are given full power of attorney to manage the old lady’s affairs.
  Incidentally, the size of the estate at the outset of this episode is $6.5 million — a dandy sum of money. I’m sure you’ve already figured out what’s happening here. With the expertise of charlatans, these two villains, over a period of about two years, bilk Auntie nearly bone dry.
  With the dastardly deed committed, these evil mercenaries disappear into the darkness like a pair of jackals. The remains of the six-point-five mil fortune is spent down to a mere $2,000.
  With such a small sum of money remaining in Auntie’s account, the evil caretakers feel they can no longer afford to pay for a live-in nurse. What to do about the bedridden old lady? They do the only thing their evil minds can think of.
  They remove all of Auntie’s identification and take her, in a wheel chair, to a hospital emergency room. They pay a kid $10 to wheel her into the ER lobby, leave her, and run away.
  This woman now lives on public assistance. The lawyer and the CPA who stole her fortune are spending the money in parts unknown, and with the likelihood that they will never be called to answer for their crimes — at least not here on earth.

Sports car in the bayou

2010-10-17T20:01:00.001-04:00

  A Lufkin, Texas, man drove his very expensive luxury sports car into a salt marsh near Galveston. We’re all familiar with the qualities of salt water on the undercarriage of automobiles — no matter how expensive the car may be.
  Speaking of expensive cars, I think we should put our story on pause for a moment while we consider this particular vehicle.
  It’s a French-built Bugatti Veyron Super Sport — the world’s fastest production car, valued at more than $1 million. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is capable of driving at a top speed of 267.8 miles per hour, although few drivers will achieve that speed because race tracks are not long enough for the cars to build up to top speed.
  At the speed of 267.8 miles per hour the driver will have difficulty breathing. The scenery will be little more than a blur. The Bugatti Veyron approaches the speed of Shanghai’s Maglev train and the TGV train to Paris.
  Okay, let’s get back to the guy from Lufkin, a Cowboy with mega-bucks who can afford such a classy set of wheels. The Cowboy tells La Margue, TX, cops that he was driving along when a low-flying pelican distracted him. He veered off the road and drove into the salt marsh.
  The cops investigated the Cowboy’s story after they towed the half-submerged car out of the marsh about 20 feet off the road. But when they inventoried the Veyron they found a cell phone on the floorboard. The qwerty keyboard was extended, so the cops subpoenaed the cell phone provider whose records revealed the Cowboy was “text messaging” at the time of the accident.
  Confronted with that information, the Cowboy confesses, “I dropped my cell phone when the pelican swooped down in front of me. I was fishing for my cellphone on the floorboards and lost control of my car.”
  Guess the Cowboy has figured out that pelicans and text messaging are not compatible while driving — even in a $1 million super sports car.

Expensive cigarettes

2010-10-10T21:58:00.001-04:00

  There are so many news reports about criminals getting off with light sentences, while oftentimes there’s little relief for the victims.
  A criminal case reported last year down in Waco, Texas, tells the story of a 55-year-old bad boy named Lenny Willis who stole a carton of cigarettes.
  This isn’t the first time Lenny has been in trouble with the law. According to the cops, the man’s criminal records reveal a history of eight felony convictions plus 12 misdemeanors.
  What got my attention to this case was the sentence Lenny got for stealing 10 packs of cigarettes — 99 years in The Big House!
  Seems like 99 years is a might stiff penalty for the theft of some smokes — but wait, there’s more. After snatching the cigarettes from a tobacco shop, Lenny tries to run. That’s when a nearby public-spirited citizen attempts to capture the fleeing criminal. Lenny simply knocks the guy down and gets away, but only for a little while. Too many people saw Lenny’s misdeed and his mug shots are in every cop shop in the Lone Star state.
   The good citizen who gets knocked down is injured in his fall — that makes it an assault. The assault raises the seriousness of Lenny’s crime from simple larceny to robbery.
  So when the McLennan County jury considers Lenny’s case they factor in several things: The defendant has a history of 20 criminal convictions, which makes him an habitual criminal; and he caused physical injury to an innocent bystander who attempted to stop a crime in progress.
  Given these facts, Lenny will be 154 years old before he gets out of a Texas prison, unless he is able to make parole before July of 2109.

Shot nine times — and lives

2010-10-03T19:40:00.001-04:00

  Becky Gibbons is rookie cop in a big city, but she has less than a year working the streets. Her field training officer says the 22-year-old female officer is a quick study, but no amount of training can really prepare a young cop for what's about to happen.
  The year is 1998. Becky is patrolling Pennington Avenue when she's flagged down by Moe Toomey, 39, who is standing in the median holding a large boom-box. Moe is a known crack-head but because Becky is new in the precinct he's a stranger to her.
  Becky lowers the driver's side window as she pulls up to check out Moe's problem. The moment the police car comes to a full stop Moe throws the boom-box against the windshield, then levels a semi-automatic pistol at Becky's midsection. Four shots hit the female police officer in the lower abdomen.
  She slumps behind the wheel as the shooter opens the patrol car's door. With one foot against her shoulder, Moe shoves the gravely wounded officer across the front seat to the passenger side.
  Then he fires five more shots, this time striking Becky in the upper part of the body. He jumps in, behind the steering wheel of the patrol car and speeds off. Becky, her body now riddled with nine bullets, tries to gather up what little strength she has left. She is certain she has only minutes to live.
  Needing both hands to make a sharp turn, Moe puts his 9mm pistol down on his lap. Becky seizes the opportunity and slips her service revolver out of its holster. She shoots Moe twice in the head. The second bullet enters the same hole made by the first bullet — about a half inch in front of Moe's right ear. It's doubtful that Moe ever heard the blast.
  Becky Gibbons does not die. But she spends more than two years in various levels of rehab. Her recovery is described by doctors as "amazing." Becky says she wants to get back on the streets as a police officer. Doctors and cops all agree, Becky may have to settle for just the miracle of survival.

Show Boudreaux some ID

2010-09-26T23:41:00.001-04:00

It’s the middle of the afternoon on a hot summer day. There are no customers in the small country store when a bandit points to a bulge under his tee-shirt and says to the store’s clerk, “I’ve got a gun, give it up and nobody gets hurt.”
Boudreaux hands over $17 which cleans out the cash register. “Is that all you got?” asks the bandit.
“We never keep much in the register, sir,” Boudreaux answers, almost apologetically.
The bandit sees a bottle of wine on a shelf behind the clerk. “Gimme that!” he demands.
“Sorry, sir, I can’t do that, the law says you’ve gotta be 21 before you can buy alcoholic beverages.”
The bandit snaps back, “The law says I’m not supposed to hold up your store either, but I’m doing it. Just gimme the dang bottle, you old twerp!”
Nervously, Boudreaux says, “Sir, you don’t look 21 years old to me. Before I can turn this bottle over to you, I’ll need to see some ID or I could get in big trouble.”
The bandit is obviously frustrated. He puts the gun down on the counter right in front of Boudreaux as he nervously fingers through his wallet for a driver’s license.
“By golly, you’re right,” says Boudreaux. According to your driver’s license you’re 22 years old. Would you like a bag for that?”
The bandit snatches the bottle out of Boudreaux’s hands and quickly leaves the store. You can write the end of this story yourself. But when you write your ending, remember, whether the holdup guy had a gun under his shirt or not makes no difference. The “threat of violence” is enough to make it “armed robbery.” That’ll get you seven to 10 years almost anywhere. There’s usually no “time off” for stupidity.

Driver training isn’t for everybody

2010-09-19T16:46:00.001-04:00

You've got to admire people who set a goal and pursue that goal even when the chances of failure appear overwhelming.
Such is the case with Cha Sa-Soon, a 68-year-old South Korean lady who needs a car to run her fresh-vegetable business. Trouble is, she doesn't have a driver's license, nor does she have a clue about how to operate a motor vehicle.
That's just a small detail in the life of Miz Sa-Soon. She goes to the South Korean Motor Vehicle Department and applies for a driver's license. This is in 2005. She fails the exam which disqualifies her for the road test.
As I said earlier, this lady is persistent. She goes right back to the DMV the following week and takes the test again -- and fails again. Many people would be embarrassed following a failure of the driver's written test. But not Miz Sa-Soon.
Each time she returns for a retest she fails -- again, and again, and again. She started taking the driver's tests in 2005. Now it's 2010 and she's still taking the same written test -- and she continues to fail.
This lady spends $5 million Won (that's $4,200 U. S. dollars) trying to earn the right to take a road test. It's not that the individual tests are that expensive. The problem is she takes the driver's test so many times -- 950 times to be exact. That's more than three times each week for five years.
So, she finally passes the test earning a 60 out of a possible 100. Sixty is the minimum passing grade to qualify for the South Korean driver's road test.
Now she's eligible for a test drive. Heaven help the poor guy giving the test. I've lost touch with Miz Sa-Soon's progress with the South Korean DMV, but I'm not the least bit hopeful.
You'd think one of the guys down at the DMV would suggest that she consider delivering vegetables on a bicycle.

Test questions for sale

2010-09-15T00:26:00.001-04:00

Now that school is back in session, middle school kids in one North Carolina town must be delighted with a new fund-raising project, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.
    News reports claim middle school students can improve their test scores by 10 points on each of two tests. A middle school student can purchase the answers to 20 test questions for only $20.
     This will enable a student to raise a test score from a “B” to and “A,” or in a worst case scenario, the student can salvage a failing grade and turn it into a passing grade. Where were these people when I was in school?
     The newspaper did not say, but I’m certain the fund- raiser was canceled after the superintendent's office heard about the bizarre plan.
A bit of fund-raising history might help readers to understand how a thing like this could happen. Last year the Parent Advisory Council at this school mounted a fund- raising campaign by selling chocolate candies.
     The chocolate sale turned out to be a colossal failure, in fact, the Parent Advisory Council lost money on that ill- conceived venture. Poor marketing strategy, I suppose. Following last year's fiasco, some of the parent leaders came up with the brilliant idea of selling answers to test questions. Do you suppose this represents a kind of parent role modeling we've never heard about? The parents tried not to overdo it. Not too many questions were for sale, only 10 questions from each of two tests. That’s to insure fairness to all of the middle school kids.
Wish I had access to the minutes of the next meeting between the Parent Advisory Council and the school board. I don’t think THAT will make it into the newspapers. Sorry kids, what a magnificent plan to keep your grades out of the failure column.

Facebook to the rescue

2010-09-15T00:24:00.001-04:00

There’s a love/hate/or don’t care relationship going on among many internet users of Facebook. Some say it’s too invasive while others post something on their Facebook page every day.
I know some parents who only learn about the activities of their adult children by looking each day on Facebook. In this report you decide if Facebook is a positive thing or not.
Rodney is a 19-year-old New York City guy who gets himself arrested for robbery in October of last year. NYPD locks him up on charges of mugging two other people in the public housing complex where he lives in Brooklyn.
Rodney’s lawyers interviewed him in jail where he keeps protesting his innocence. At some point in the conversation Facebook is mentioned. “Sure, I use Facebook all the time,” says Rodney to his lawyer.
The internet-savvy lawyer checks Rodney’s Facebook page and finds a message posted at 11:49 a.m. on the same day the robbery occurred.
The posting, intended as a joke for Rodney’s girlfriend says, “WHERE MY IHOP?” The innocent message is in reference to Rodney’s love of pancakes. Who knew this would become a major piece of evidence that would eventually free Rodney from jail and clear him of all criminal charges?
Rodney’s lawyer is able to prove that the message was posted from the IP address at the home of Rodney’s father in Harlem -- 13 miles from the crime scene -- at the same time the robbery was supposed to have occurred.
Rodney could not have committed the crime. The message is too stylized for it to be posted by anybody else and the IP address is the clincher.
I’m guessing the first thing Rodney did after being sprung from Riker’s Island was to gobble up a stack of IHOPs.

Stupid pills: Take two with water

2010-08-29T20:31:00.001-04:00

Langston is charged with possession of crack cocaine, but he’s claiming that the search which yielded the illegal drug was unlawful.
Deputy Andrews, the arresting officer, tells the court his search was valid because the defendant had a “bulge in his coat that looked like it could be a weapon.”
Deputy Andrews explains to the court: “It was 2 a.m. The defendant was in an area frequented by drug dealers. When I spotted this ‘person of interest,’ he looked like he was getting ready to run.”
Under such circumstances the law generally allows a pat-down of a person of interest for a possible concealed weapon. That same law, used primarily for the safety of officers, has been successfully tested many times in court.
Deputy Andrews searches his suspect but finds no weapon. Instead, the bulge that got his attention produces a stash of crack cocaine with a street value of $4,000.
Now Langston, the defendant, is on the witness stand telling the court, “No way my jacket looked like a bulge from a gun.” He’s patting a side pocket of the jacket he’s wearing on the witness stand — the same jacket he wore the night Deputy Andrews busted him.
Langston takes off the jacket and hands it up to the judge saying, “Check it out, your honor — no way was I carrying a gun.”
The judge, with an open mind, reaches into the jacket, fishes around a bit and comes out with a plastic bag -- that later proves to be crack cocaine. For a moment, the courtroom falls stone silent. Everybody is thinking a collective, “Oops!”
Then the judge breaks out with a chuckle, a reaction that’s followed by everybody in the courtroom. A brief recess is called to give people a chance to calm down. Just before the court re-convenes, Deputy Andrews leans over the bar and whispers to Langston: “I see you remembered to take your stupid pills this morning.”

Madame Cassandra’s mistake

2010-08-22T22:37:00.001-04:00

This is Antonio's greatest challenge. In spite of his really bad situation with the law, he's standing tall. He's the picture of self-confidence. His forehead is bone dry and he blinks not once. He is the Pictionary version of "Mr. Kool." Everybody in the courtroom is wondering: "What has this guy got going for himself?"
Yes, we're in a courtroom watching Antonio face off with a circuit court judge. Earlier, this 26-year-old drug dealer was offered a plea bargain that would have given him two years, instead of the expected ten years behind bars. But for reasons known only to Antonio, he turns that offer down, refusing to cooperate.
Why would he do such a thing? The evidence is textbook perfect. Antonio's lawyers know that he will almost certainly get sent up for a minimum of 10 years.
But the solicitor has promised Antonio a comparatively light sentence of two years in exchange for his cooperative testimony. Antonio's defense team recommends that he accept the prosecution's offer. Antonio's refusal to negotiate borders on pure arrogance.
Standing in front of a circuit court judge the defendant boldly states: "I will serve no time in your stinking prison. I have it on the highest possible authority that not one of you can touch me!"
Deputies later learn that the "high authority" Antonio refers to is "Madame Cassandra," a psychic who promised him that "the pigs have no case. You will serve no time whatsoever — I absolutely guarantee you!"
Antonio gets ten years.
Madame Cassandra later tells Antonio she will put a curse on the narcotics officers involved in the case, plus the prosecutor and even the trial judge. All Antonio has to do is pay her an additional psychic fee of $5,000.
Soon after that message Antonio has Madame Cassandra removed from his authorized visitation list at the prison.

Launching Eddy

2010-08-15T21:28:00.001-04:00

Eddy is having a party on the rear deck of his home up in the foothills. There’s dip and chips, grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, and kegs of beer.
One of the party boys spots a raccoon rambling in the back yard and decides to use the critter for target practice. Other party boys join in the fun and within a few minutes they fire nearly 50 rounds of pistol ammo, all with the express purpose of shooting this small, hapless critter.
Somehow, though, the raccoon manages to flee into a three-foot-wide drainage pipe at the back of the property. The situation becomes a challenge to Eddy, the host and owner of the property.
Eddy vaults over the deck railing into the back yard and heads for the drainage pipe. Did I mention that he makes a brief stop at the tool shed to pick up a plastic jug of gasoline? He plans to force the critter out of the drainage pipe so his friends can have “fair shots” at the furry little guy.
He pours most of the gasoline down the drainage pipe. While trying to flick his lighter, Eddy slips on the gasoline- soaked pipe and slides feet-first down the inside of the tube. You guessed it — now the lighter decides to light.
An instant later Eddy comes sailing out of the drainage pipe much like a Polaris missile launched from a nuclear submarine.
Three dozen guests gaze in awe as a fireball hurtles over the back yard and makes an awkward landing in the grass near the deck where the guests are assembled.
Eddy’s wounds are amazingly minor. He’s got a few second degree burns, a couple of cuts and bruises, but no broken bones. After Eddy has a few minutes to recover from his impromptu flight he says he’d do it again if he knew he wouldn’t break his neck. He’s exhilarated.
Eddy’s adventure provided enough cover for the raccoon to make good his escape. You can be sure the small creature knows better than to ever come back onto Eddy’s property.

Clown forensics - not science

2010-08-08T20:49:00.001-04:00

“Wherever you go you leave behind a trace of yourself; but you also take with you a trace of the place you’ve just been.” That’s true! It’s what CSI cops know for sure. Of course, canvassing the crime scene, interviewing suspects, and following up leads are still the lifeblood of police work.

Then there’s “clown forensics,” involving creative investigative techniques that work only if the detectives can keep a straight face.

For example, two detectives interrogate a suspect by putting a spaghetti strainer on his head as a “lie detector.” He believes it works — so it does.

Another creative tactical deception I once heard about is “neuron skin particle testing,” used occasionally in some small towns between Charleston and Spartanburg. The chief says he “needs leverage” to get suspects to confess, so he invents this lab test: Early in the interview, the chief tells the suspect, “Humans lose about 10,000 particles of skin every day. That’s where house dust comes from.” That is scientific fact!

The chief shows the guy blowups of partial fingerprints, blood matching, DNA testing, and, of course, “neuron skin particle testing.” The latter makes real good fiction. Most criminals get their legal education from television. This suspect probably sees television shows about police science and he believes nearly anything is possible in the laboratory.

Says the chief, “Preliminary lab results indicate that you were in the room where the body was found.” In truth: There are no lab results, but the criminal suspect doesn’t know that. Tiny beads of sweat appear on the suspect’s forehead. He’s thinking they’ve found his “skin particles.” He challenges the chief, asking how the test works.

“I’m sorry, ” says the chief, “it’d be a departmental violation to reveal that process outside of the courtroom.”

Most suspects roll over in a couple hours. But you might wonder, “what about innocent people?”

The chief explains with a smile: “The test has no effect on innocent people. If they weren’t at the crime scene, their skin particles will not be present.” Sounds reasonable to me.

Blog: http://BobFordsCallTheCops.blogspot.com

NOTE: While Bob Ford is "on vacation" recovering from recent surgery, we offer one of his most popular columns from the past.

Battlefield skills on I-95

2010-08-01T22:10:00.001-04:00

Battlefield skills on I-95

A U.S. soldier, we’ll call Army Specialist Donald Duncan, is on his way south along I-95 with his wife and mother-in-law. They are in two vehicles with Duncan in the lead car towing a U-haul trailer. Duncan’s wife and her mother are following in a second car.
Duncan’s car develops mechanical trouble so he signals his wife to pull over in the emergency lane. They’re at the McLeod Road exit near Walterboro. Duncan plans to switch tow vehicles because of mechanical trouble.
It’s near midnight as the two women are standing in the emergency lane with Duncan working on the U-Haul emergency light hookup. That’s when a silver sedan pulls up with three men inside.
One man, wearing a cloth over his face, gets out brandishing a large silver-colored pistol which he points at the older woman, calling her “pretty lady.”
Duncan, just back from a tour in Iraq, pulls his own pistol and fires several rounds at the gunman. The masked man falls to the ground.
The other two men jump out of the silver sedan and fire a volley of shots at Duncan’s family as the bad guys drag their wounded cohort back to the silver sedan. None of Duncan’s family is hit although there are several bullet holes in both of their cars.
Colleton County Sheriff’s deputies find the bandit’s gun on the roadside. It’s a .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol which is found to be stolen. Deputies check nearby hospitals and find 19-year-old David J. Jakes of Smoaks at Colleton Regional Hospital where he is being treated for multiple gunshot wounds. The two accomplices apparently dropped him off and fled.
The cops say Army Specialist Duncan (not his real name) holds a Concealed Weapons Permit and acted in self-defense. There are no plans for charges against the soldier. Police are hunting for the two other accomplices.

http://bobfordscallthecops.blogspot.com

Your credit card handy?

2010-07-25T19:09:00.000-04:00

Marty gets a call on his cell phone about his credit card account. “This is Henry Day from the Security and Fraud Division at VISA. My badge number is 72935.”
Mr. Day continues, “Your account has been flagged because of an unusual purchase pattern on your VISA card number (and he gives Marty his correct card number). Did you make an electronics purchase for $494 from Jerry’s Big Box store recently?”
Marty answers, “No!”
“Then you’ll be issued a credit to your account which will be mailed to you at (caller gives Marty’s correct address). We will be initiating a fraud investigation concerning this purchase.”
If the call was legitimate, the charge would be reversed, not credited by mail. That should be a RED FLAG!
The bad guy continues, “If you have any questions, you should call us at 1-800-VISA and ask for security. You will need to refer to this control number...” and he gives Marty a meaningless long number.
Next comes the meat of the scam: The Scammer says, “I need you to verify that you are in possession of your VISA card. Please look on the back of your card and tell me the three numbers to the right of your signature line.” After Marty reads the three-digit security code, the Scammer says, “That’s correct.” He makes it sound like he already knew your security number. He did not! That’s why he called you.
You’ve now freely given information that enables Henry the Scammer to commit havoc with your credit card account.
When is it okay to give out security information on the telephone? Only when you, personally, initiate on-line or telephone contact. NEVER answer security questions when someone calls you. NEVER!
Please note that crooks use the same pattern of lies to scam Mastercard holders. You’ve got to be on guard at all times.

Rookie deputy locked up

2010-07-18T22:11:00.001-04:00

It’s early spring and still a bit wintry in the mountain country of Kentucky when Deputy Provence makes a serious mistake.
Fresh out of the police academy, Provence is checking out the jail where he hopes to lock up lots of bad guys. The deputy even checks out the view from inside the cell. That turns out to be a serious mistake.
While handling the steel door, the deputy swings a bit too hard and the cell door slams shut. WHAM! Sadly, Deputy Provence is on the inside of that cell.
This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. This is the weekend of the High Sheriff’s grand public viewing of the newly constructed $12.4 million judicial center, including the refurbished detention center.
Deputy Provence is sweating bullets trying to figure out how to get out of jail. Of course, that’s the same thought millions of inmates before him have pondered.
There is no graceful way for Provence to extricate himself from the jail cell. He could try screaming bloody murder hoping somebody with a cell door key might hear him.
The thought of other deputies knowing about his embarrasing plight is more than the deputy can stand. He must get out now! But how? The rookie deputy takes his brand spanking new Glock 9 mm pistol and aims it at the cell door keyhole.
Provence realizes, almost instantly, that he’s lucky he isn’t shot by a ricochet from his own gun. The cell lock is left with only a scratch. The frightened deputy holsters his weapon.
The sound of the gunshot alerts officers from the jail staff who notify the sheriff who insists on unlocking the jail cell himself. That moment is the end of Deputy Provence’s career in law enforcement.
No charges are filed on the condition that Provence pays for a paint-over of the scratch marks left by the bouncing bullet.

The invader can’t swim

2010-07-11T18:15:00.001-04:00

Let's go to Capetown, South Africa, for this story. It's worth the trip just to meet such a guy as Phil Haggerty, although that's not his real name.
According to the Cape Times, Phil arrives home in time to surprise a cadre of nine home invaders pillaging his house. When Phil yells, "Police," seven of the invaders run into the wooded area beside his house.
Phil, being stout of heart, shoves the remaining two into the pool in the patio behind his house. One of the soaked invaders is attempting to climb out of the pool when Phil notices that the other raider is flailing in the water yelling for help. He's drowning!
Humanitarian that he is, Phil dives into the pool and rescues the drowning invader. Once safely out of the pool, the invader expresses his gratitude toward Phil by pulling a knife and calling out to his nearby raider companions, "Come back -- let's finish the job."
So outraged is Phil at the raider's ungrateful attitude, he once again shoves the raider back into the pool, this time at the deep end.
The bad-natured pirate, still unable to swim, begins thrashing about in the water and gasping for air. Phil, a deacon in his church, can't help his benevolent nature, so he dives back into the pool and again rescues the bad guy.
By the time the pair climb out of the pool the cops have arrived and the drama comes to an end. The score is two saves for the good guy and jail time for the bad guys. Phil simply explains his actions by saying, "The poor guy just needed to be saved -- twice."

Stolen cargo highlights this trip

2010-07-05T14:03:00.002-04:00

Truckers are naturally friendly folks. Some years ago CB radio was popular with the “knights of the road.” CB radio is still used by many truckers to keep tabs on road conditions, but cell phones and thousands of apps have taken the place of CB radio.
The favorite gathering place for truckers still is, of course, the truck stop. There drivers can get a free shower, a bunk for a few hours sleep, and a good rib-sticking meal. Most drivers also enjoy the fellowship of other drivers. Most truck stops have special dining areas cordoned off for “truck drivers only.”
Sam owns his own truck and hauls all over the eastern seaboard. He’s on the road about 60 hours a week, starting on Sunday and arriving back home by late Friday.
On this particular run in March, Sam finds himself driving from Pittsburgh to Miami. He pulls into a truck stop in Rock Hill, SC, for a quick shower and a meal.
Sam is away from his truck for less than two hours, but when he gets back to his rig he discovers that his entire cargo, valued at $28,000, is missing.
Sam talks to people who work around the station to see if anybody saw anything unusual, like somebody unloading his truck! He calls the cops so he’ll have a police report to cover the 6,000 items that have been stolen.
“Describe the items for me,” a cop asks.
“Each one is about five inches long and as big around as your thumb,” says Sam. “You’ve seen 'em in stores all over everywhere. But how in the heck is somebody going to fence 6,000 green highlighters?”

A bucket of quarters & a belly laugh

2010-06-27T19:26:00.001-04:00

There’s a story told about a woman playing the slot machines in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The evening is still young when the woman wins a bucket full of quarters.
What happens next is told to David Letterman on his late night show. It’s a true story: The woman tells her husband she isn’t comfortable carrying around the bucket full of quarters. She tells her husband she’ll take the bucket up to their room at the hotel and meet him in the dining room.
When the elevator doors open there are only two passengers on board -- two black men, one medium sized and the other a giant of a man.
The woman freezes! Fearing to make eye contact, she thinks, “I’m not a bigot. These men look like perfectly nice gentlemen -- they’re not going to rob me.”
The silence is broken with the smaller man saying, “Hit the floor!” Instantly the woman obeys. She spread- eagles on the floor of the elevator as quarters fly everywhere. Following a moment of deafening silence, the smaller man says, “Ma’am, if you’ll just tell us what floor you want, we’ll hit the elevator button.”
The woman slowly tilts her head upward and sees the two men trying very hard not to burst out laughing. The men help the embarrassed woman to her feet, then all three gather up the quarters.
When the elevator arrives at the woman’s floor the two men accompany the woman to her room. Overwhelmed with embarrassment, she apologizes for making a spectacle of herself. Nobody is laughing out loud, but both men are biting their lips to suppress belly-laughs.
The woman prepares for supper, secures her quarters in the room safe and goes down to the dining room to join her husband.
The next day a dozen roses are delivered to the woman’s room with a crisp $100 bill folded around each stem.
There’s a note attached: “Thanks for the best laugh we’ve had in years.” The note is signed by Eddie Murphy and Michael Jordan.

Spider in the neighborhood

2010-06-20T21:40:00.001-04:00

Ted and Joyce are at their condo at the beach. There is a cluster of condos where the couple vacations. Each has two stories with a balcony on the second floor. Each cluster is six stories high. Ted and Joyce live on the top --fifth and sixth floor levels.
This particular Sunday night the couple is watching television on their lower level. It’s about 9 o’clock at night.
Without detection, a burglar, with the skill of a Spiderman, scales the walls on the outside of the condo. He enters Ted and Joyce’s condo at the balcony level which is six stories up.
The burglar takes money and credit cards from Joyce’s purse. Ted’s money is in his wallet -- in his pocket only one floor below. A gold colored cameo ring is also taken from a counter in the bathroom.
About the time Joyce discovered her money is gone, maybe an hour later, there’s a knock on the door. It’s the police! They were called by the people on the first floor who saw a man wearing a backpack slide down a nylon rope and run.
The first floor neighbor is the only one who saw the burglar and they got only a glimpse of him. Dressed in all black, medium everything, blonde hair and a short trimmed beard.
The balcony levels of all three condos were hit by the Spiderman. This isn’t the first time the cops have heard about this. Motel guests with balconies have also been reporting loss of money and property. Some blame defenseless maids for the losses, but the cops believe it’s the balcony bandit.
Nearly all beachside motels now have balconies. I’ve always felt safe with the room door locked. The one in the hallway. Now it’s time to begin locking the sliding glass door to the balcony. Some guys just aren’t afraid of heights.

Money To Go

2010-06-13T19:09:00.000-04:00

Darrell and his other brother, Darrell, are facing the summer with a shortage of cash. Some brothers might approach such a dilemma by looking for yard work. I’ve even seen signs in my newspaper box that advertised, “Two boys and a mower.”
But these two are not nearly industrious enough to look for actual work. This day they’re considering gangsterism as a substitute for enterprise in order to obtain emergency funds.
The Darrell brothers, who live in Bridgeport, Connecticut, telephone the Community Bank in nearby Fairfield. The brothers, alternating on the telephone, tell a bank official that they want a plastic bag filled with unmarked bills -- “and no tricks! We’ll be in to pick up the money at exactly 3 o’clock.”
Even though Darrell and Darrell have a history of never being anywhere on time, they manage to arrive at the bank at exactly 3 p.m. Darrell is driving and his other brother, Darrell, is riding “shotgun” as they say in the underworld.
The boys wheeled into the Community Bank parking lot in their 1978 Toyota Tercel only to find themselves blocked -- front and back -- by a cadre of cops.
Let me point out that no firearms were found in either brother’s possession. The only guns in the parking lot were those in the hands and holsters of the police department.
The police sergeant in charge of the team of cops surrounding the bank parking lot tells a reporter from The Connecticut Post that the brothers did not appear to be very bright -- or dangerous. It took the sergeant a few minutes to get the boys to hush up long enough for him to advise them that “they have the right to remain silent.”
It’s unclear what charges, if any, the cops plan to file against the boys. Darrell and Darrell did tell the cops they planned to pay the bank back all the money as soon as they get jobs. Anybody want to make these young boys a job offer?

Without emotion

2010-06-06T15:51:00.001-04:00

This story comes to me from Calibre Press, one of the country’s leading trainers in law enforcement.
A prisoner has just been sentenced at the county courthouse. Wearing an bright orange jailhouse jumpsuit and bound with steel handcuffs and ankle-irons locked onto belly chains, the man is loaded onto a van for a 15 mile ride to the state prison.
Seconds before the van crosses over a bridge, the inmate kicks out the window glass and dives from the van onto the highway. Although injured from the fall, he struggles to his feet and vaults over the side of the bridge where he plunges 65 feet to his death in the rocky shallows below.
Officials find a note in the inmate’s personal belongings: “Stars surround me and peace and love are mine. They cannot be taken or touched. I win.”
This was written by a middle-aged man who made his living stealing antiques and then selling them. Over a period of several months before his trial, he confessed, one-by-one, to killing five men “as coldly and deliberately as an executioner,” Calibre Press quoted an investigator as saying.
Some of the dead inmate’s acquaintances remember him differently. “He was a quiet, gentle, caring man — a sympathetic listener,” Calibre Press quoted a friend of the inmate. “He liked to draw mountains and write poems about freedom and the stars and pure love.”
A psychiatrist from Yale Medical School studied the suicide report and concluded: “People like this are incapable of feeling human emotions,” he said. “Their seeming kindness and empathy are as cold and calculating as their violent crimes. They may appear to be caring, but it is a practiced deception.”
Think about that the next time a cold blooded killer claims he was mistreated as a child. No doubt he was a victim while growing up — but does that give him the right to make victims out of others?

Attention from airport security

2010-05-31T00:33:00.001-04:00

Returning from St. Louis this weekend I aroused the curiosity of a trio of TSAs -- airport security cops. As an older dude with gray hair I’m sure they’d profiled me as an Arab terrorist.
The source of their curiosity was my Kubaton, a 5.25” by 5/8” diameter ribbed, nearly unbreakable, stick-like thingy used mostly for holding a ring of keys.
I’ve had mine for more than 30 years and have always used it to carry keys with the stick part tucked under my belt with keys dangling outside. Passing by dozens of TSA since 9-11, my set of keys had never before attracted attention.
Suppliers call the Kubaton a “hand-held personal defense weapon with keyring holder -- comes in all colors.” With the Kubaton in hand, swinging a set of keys at an aggressor, each key has razor blade capability to inflict serious damage to the bad guy’s face.
I first learned about the Kubaton from a night nurse at a downtown Columbia hospital. She went off duty at midnight and was walking to her car when a predator hiding under her car grabbed her ankle.
The nurse, with her “pink” Kubaton in hand, began striking the guy’s face as he climbed out from under the car. By the time the cops arrived, the nurse was standing over the whimpering mugger threatening him with more strikes with her pink-handled Kubaton.
Back to my challenge from TSAs at Lambert Airport in St. Louis. My suitcase was screened and everything seemed okay. But a trio of TSAs had my Kubaton in hand and were wondering, “what sort of thing is this?”
Finally, a lady TSA walked over to me asking, “Exactly what is this?” I told her it’s called a Kubaton which I use to hold my keys. I could tell she wasn’t really satisfied but I chose not to go into detail about the potential use of this tiny martial arts stick. The TSA handed it back to me with a smile. "Have a pleasant trip," she said.
The Kubaton was first developed by the Monadnock Company, the same folks who invented the PR-24, the two-foot side-saddle police night stick.

Not the best hiding place

2010-05-16T12:10:00.001-04:00

Nathan, known by his buddies at Nat, is on the run from the cops in northeastern Indiana. This was last week. He’s been operating a meth lab -- that’s a clandestine laboratory that manufactures the deadly drug, methamphetamine.
Nate’s car gives out and now he’s on foot trying to outrun the cops and K9s. Not an easy thing to do. But Nate does manage to find a pretty good hiding place, although it’s not one I’d have picked.
The pursuing deputies are almost ready to give up the chase when one of the dogs bays near a barnyard. Deputies move into the area and after a careful search a sergeant spots Nate under a wooden ledge.
Actually, what the sergeant spots is Nat’s head. The rest of Nat is not visible because he’s standing in a five foot deep pile of liquid cow and hog manure. Yuck!
Details of how the cops got Nate out of that odoriferous pile are not clear, but I’ll bet several of the cops had to go home and take a shower soon after Nat’s arrest.
Even after he was arrested Nat was fisty and difficult to handle so deputies tasered him and the electrical shock knocked him down and momentarily paralyzed him. At that point he was handcuffed. The report did not identify the deputy who managed to put the cuffs on him.
Appearing before a magistrate in Steuben County, Nate is ordered held without bond because he’s already missed court dates in February and March.
Finally locked up in the town of Albion, the jailhouse crew refers to their newest stinky prisoner as “Nasty Nat.”

Wrong place & wrong time

2010-05-09T12:23:00.001-04:00

Burke and Sammy are headed for the Lexington Market in Baltimore. They’re planning to rob some hapless citizen and pick up a couple of bucks -- maybe $100 or so.
The twosome accost a man just outside the Lexington Market and demand his wallet. The man, startled and scared, screams, “Robbery, help, police!”
Here’s what Burke and Sammy don’t know when they launch their mini crime wave. This is the day of the “Diamond Standard” training program for the Baltimore Police Academy.
Some 40 cops are participating in this unique training program which is modeled after methods used by U. S. Special Forces in Baghdad during the early days of the Army and Marine occupation in Iraq. Mostly this technique requires involving local residents to be eyes and ears for the police. Many cities call this type of pro-active policing, “community policing.”
Long story short, Burke and Sammy are busted by a cadre of rookie cops. One citizen complained, saying the cops didn’t have to use so much force. One of the robbers got knocked to the ground. Poor dear -- what a pity. Here are two guys threatening the life of a guy on the street for the sake of a few bucks.
Maybe the observer thought the cops should have said, “Pardon me, sirs, but I am placing you under arrest for your act of criminal behavior.” Sorry, it doesn’t work quite that way in the trenches.
One thing police trainers will tell you: “You can take a man’s freedom away by an arrest and he’ll accept that as part of the deal. But if you try to take away his pride, he’ll kill you to keep that.”

Super tracking device

2010-05-02T21:26:00.000-04:00

Ivory Ed is a mob boss up in the northeast. They call him that because of his broad, radiant smile. Right now he’s not smiling in jail awaiting trial in federal court for “racketeering.”
Before he got busted, Ivory Ed developed a keen dislike for a DEA agent we’ll call “Harry.” This narc had the uncanny ability to know Ivory Ed’s whereabouts at any given moment — or so it seemed.
This was in 1996, the year that Ivory Ed Terwilleger got caught in the crossfire of a gunfight up in Philadelphia. He was shot once in the posterior.
ER doctors removed the slug with no complications. About a month after he was released from the hospital, Ivory Ed and Harry had a chance meeting downtown on Walnut Street. The narc whispered the following message to the mob boss:
“When the medics dug that slug out of your butt, we installed a sterile tracking device no bigger than your little fingernail. It’s made of ‘selnadium’ which cannot be detected by any known electronics. Using a GPS (global positioning satellite) I can find your butt anytime of the day or night. You can’t hide. Not from me. See you in court, buddy-boy!”
And that’s what Harry the Narc told Ivory Ed the mob boss that day in Philadelphia. The narc’s story was totally made up -- a boldfaced lie, but who knew?
Should Ivory Ed believe the narc or not? After more than a year, Ivory Ed could stand it no longer. He ordered his lawyer to ask the federal district court to force investigators to tell the truth: “Did they or did they not surgically implant a tracking device in the buttocks of Ivory Ed Terwilleger?”
The judge said it sounded like some DEA agent was playing a joke on Ivory Ed. But the judge signed the order anyway.
Federal investigators denied they’d do such a thing. “You gotta be kidding,” said one fed, “what judge in his right mind would give us permission to plant an electronic bug inside somebody’s body?”
There’s no way we can answer that question because we’ve got it on professional authority — there’s no such element as “selnadium,” the narc just made the whole thing up.

Grass is greener over there

2010-04-18T20:46:00.001-04:00

Jarvis and three of his friends are out joy-riding after helping themselves to a Mercedes Benz parked in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, according to the Columbus Dispatch. It isn’t long before Jarvis realizes a black & white is following close behind him. After the cops get radio confirmation of a stolen car, on goes the blue light and a chase begins.
Jarvis handles the car pretty well, but his passengers are nervous because Jarvis doesn’t seem to be shaking the cops who are in hot pursuit. By now the chase has led into Garfield Heights, a suburb of Cleveland.
Up ahead Jarvis sees what looks like a wooded area just beyond a cyclone fence. Jarvis yells, “You’re all on your own,” as he skids the car to a sudden stop and jumps out. Jarvis and his buddy both head for the wooded area ahead. But first there’s this fence.
No problem, both young men easily scale the fence and continue running -- until they come face-to-face with three big guys. Turns out they are prison guards. What Jarvis doesn’t know is that after he scaled the fence he jumped onto turf owned and operated by the State of Ohio Women’s Prison system.
You can look at this incident in several ways. Some folks might call this the result of a “speedy trial,” while others might laud the cops for saving lots of paper work and taxpayer money. The other passengers, the two who didn’t climb the fence or run from the cops, are whimpering in the back seat of the Mercedes. They know what’s ahead for them. Even though Jarvis is the one who stole the car, the others are willing confederates. As the saying goes, in the commission of a crime, “The hand of one is the hand of all.”

Google Earth -- crime solver

2010-04-11T20:29:00.000-04:00

Deputy Greg Barnes in Santa Rosa County, Florida, found an abandoned boat dumped in a subdivision that was in the early stages of development in the Florida Panhandle. Dumping a boat on private property is a crime. The question is, “Who committed the crime?”
Deputy Barnes, an enterprising young cop, is also skilled in the use of the internet. Using his computer know-how, Deputy Barnes set out to track the unlawful boat-dumper.
First he made a sketch of the abandoned 18-foot boat. Next he went to a program called “Google Earth,” a program made up of many thousands of satellite and aerial photographs of practically every square inch on Planet Earth.
Using Google Earth imaging, the deputy began a systematic search outward from where the abandoned boat was dumped.
It took some time, but Deputy Barnes, a patient cop, managed to spot a fuzzy outline of the boat on a property not too far away from where the craft was abandoned.
The scanned photographs were mostly taken weeks or even months before the deputy’s scanning project. That enabled the cop to see where the boat was before it was abandoned.
The deputy made a print of the map, showing the outline of the boat in the suspected dumper's yard, and drew a red circle around the boat in the satellite picture.
With the map in hand, the deputy drove out to the suspect’s residence and confronted the boat owner with the photographic evidence. The boat’s owner readily admitted that the boat was his.
The fee at the county landfill for dumping an 18-foot boat is $1 a foot or $18. The fee for the illegal dumping of the boat on somebody else’s private property is a $5,000 fine and possibly up to five years in prison.

The night of the boulder

2010-04-04T22:52:00.001-04:00

It’s a peaceful but rainy night in Eastern Tennessee in the small town of Rogersville near Kingsport. Marge, a 75-year-old woman, is sound asleep in her first floor apartment after coming home from the hospital where she’d been treated for a broken hip.
Suddenly, she’s awakened by a thunderous crash! This isn’t your ordinary crash like a kid’s baseball flying through a broken window. This is more like a train slamming into your house.
“It sounded like a train crashing into my room,” Marge tells the cops, emergency medical technicians and firemen who come to the rescue. But it wasn’t a train that struck Marge’s wall, it was a boulder about the size of a Jeep. The boulder didn’t roll directly into Marge’s bed but rumbled across the room. Although the huge rock didn’t strike Marge, her bed was battered by fragments of the imploded apartment building wall.
Today Marge is back in the hospital, but this time with only minor injuries, and for close observation.
The Kingsport Times-Union reports that the boulder, which had probably laid in its original position for thousands of years, was apparently loosened by recent continuous rainfall. We all can identify with that -- the rain, that is, not the boulder.
As a footnote, rock slides along Interstate 40 near the Tennessee/North Carolina border have caused problems since last fall. Blockages on I-40 have made it a difficult drive getting to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, two popular tourist destinations.
Makes you wonder if Marge will risk a drive along I-40 after she gets out of the hospital.

No luck for this Irishman

2010-03-28T22:26:00.000-04:00

A leprechaun walks into a bank on Saint Patrick’s Day in Gallatin, Tennessee. A reporter from The Gallatin Newspaper says witnesses described the figure as, “A wee lad wearing a tall green top hat, a long dark jacket and a fake beard. We were all staring at him and figured he had come to rob the bank. It looked like he had a gun under his jacket.”
Seeing too many observers, the leprechaun does an about face and marches a few doors down the street into The First State Bank on Nashville Pike.
Moments later the leprechaun comes running out of that bank carrying a canvas bag. Somebody from inside the bank runs out yelling, “We’ve been robbed.”
The naughty leprechaun jumps into a waiting car with a getaway driver and the twosome speed off. Two Gallatin Police cars and Sumner County deputies are soon in hot pursuit. The robbers fire shots at the cops and blow out one of the tires in a patrol car.
A few miles out of town the bandits ditch their car and begin running, with the money-bag, across an open field near Cambridge Farms. The bank robbers turn and repeatedly fire back at the pursuing cops.
Bullets fill the air, and within minutes two bank robbers lie dead -- one from a police bullet and the other from a self-inflicted gunshot. None of the cops is hurt and all of the bank money is recovered.
The getaway driver is a young man from nearby Brentwood and the would-be leprechaun turns out to be a student from Western Kentucky University.

Cell phone monitors crime

2010-03-21T17:57:00.001-04:00

It’s almost time for spring break at “The World’s Most Famous Beach.” That’s what Daytona Beach calls itself. Since the Sixties college kids have flocked to the 11-mile strip of white sandy beach in the springtime.
Most of the kids are law-abiding although some do get rowdy -- some even play fast and loose with the law. That faction usually ends up calling home for help with bail money.
The trio of problem makers in this week’s story -- we’ll call them Larry, Moe and Curly Joe -- get into trouble attempting to steal property from a parked car, according to a story published in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
We’re at Daytona Beach Police Headquarters when a 911 call comes in. The operator listens to the call and passes the information along to the desk sergeant.
Nobody is talking directly to the cops, but the phone talkers are discussing how to bust into a car. Once inside the car the callers begin talking about which items to take. There’s the Tom-Tom GPS, the entire panel of electronics, plus a checkbook and a handgun in the glove box.
Meanwhile, a patrol car is dispatched to the beachside area where two cops spot three young people looting a BMW. One of the trio tries to run to a nearby car and get away but the cops nab him.
Within minutes Larry, Moe and Curly Joe are on the sandy soil with their hands cuffed behind their backs. One of them -- must have been Curly Joe -- has a cell phone in his side pocket. The phone is still connected! One of the cops determines that the Daytona Beach 911 operator is on the other end of the line. Back at headquarters, cops figure that Curly Joe had, without ever touching the keys on the phone pad, “hip-dialed” 911.
For those unfamiliar with "hip-dialing," any teen will tell you a speed number can be dialed accidentally on an open-faced cell phone simply by pressing the phone up against a hard object like the door post of a car.

Texting while driving

2010-03-14T20:59:00.000-04:00

It’s late on a Friday night when a city cop on patrol in Southern California sees a car weaving, back and forth, between two lanes of traffic.
The cop flips on the blue lights and taps the siren for a brief blip. The driver, we’ll call him Chester, doesn’t pull over immediately, but eventually decides to pull to the far right lane.
The cop asks Chester for his driver’s license, registration, and insurance card. “I noticed you were weaving across two lanes as you drove just now,” says the cop.
“Of course I was weaving,” says Chester. “I was texting my buddy in Santa Monica -- there’s no way you can text anybody without weaving some.”
“Step out of the car,” the cop orders.
Getting out of the car Chester stumbles slightly but continues with his rant about the problems of texting. “I know you people don’t like us to text message, but as far as I know it’s not against the law to text message,” says an indignant Chester.
The cop tries to give Chester a field sobriety test, but the guy is too drunk to follow simple instructions: “Close your eyes and put your index fingers together.”
At the jail Chester is booked, then put in a detoxification cell where he’ll be under close watch for his own safety. The cop gets Chester’s cell phone number then secures a court subpoena to determine if Chester was texting at the time of the arrest. Records reveal Chester was texting.
The cop makes a copy of the content of the text message for court in case the judge wants a laugh. The message read: “LOL i am so @#%@& up....”

Flash of a camera

2010-03-07T17:40:00.001-05:00

Graystone has recently moved to the west coast. He’s new in town and not at all familiar with how seriously the city takes the running of red lights and other accident causing violations in its traffic code.
Friends have warned him that the city uses overhead automatic cameras as an aid to enforcement of traffic offenses.
On this particular afternoon Graystone is driving downtown in the busy commercial district. He’s driving perhaps five miles over the speed limit when he notices the flash of an overhead camera.
Graystone thinks, “That’s odd, I was only driving five miles over the speed limit.” So he circles the block and drives through the same intersection, this time driving at exactly the posted speed limit.
Flash! The camera gets him a second time. Somewhat annoyed, Graystone circles the block a third time -- now driving ten miles below the speed limit. Again the camera flashes as he passes.
Graystone is a hard-headed individual, and drives around the block a fourth time. This time he’s barely creeping through the intersection. Nevertheless, the camera gets him for a fourth time.
Graystone drives home steaming over what he considers unfair enforcement. “It’s nothing but a speed trap,” he’s thinking.
Impatiently he awaits his traffic tickets and has already made plans to hire a lawyer and go to municipal court to challenge what he considers unfair traffic charges.
Finally, the envelope arrives. Nervously, Graystone opens the manila folder only to discover he has been charged with four counts of “failing to wear a seat belt.”

Technology to the rescue

2010-02-28T17:26:00.001-05:00

Heard an interesting story on “The Huckabee Report” the other day about a guy whose cell phone was stolen from his car parked in a downtown area.
Thornton, the victim of this theft, remembered he had a GPS feature in his phone. He drove straight home and got on his computer. Using the GPS software he got with the cell phone, Thornton was able to pinpoint the exact location of his stolen phone -- within 10 feet of it, anyway.
With that done, Thornton went to Google maps and entered the address where the stolen phone was pinpointed, at least for the moment.
Using Google, Thornton saw the aerial view of the house but opted, instead, for the street view which showed the house as anybody would see it driving by. He printed the “street view” map.
Back in his car, Thornton headed for downtown and the city police department. He finally got an interview with a detective who seemed interested in Thornton’s technology.
Thornton was able to provide the cops with his cell phone model number and service provider plus GPS information.
He explained to the detective exactly how he had followed the electronic trail of the purloined cell phone.
Armed with the address where the cell phone was now located, together with a street-view picture of the house, police were able to obtain a warrant and then raided the place.
The raid was successful. Thornton’s cell phone was recovered and the thief was arrested on the spot. There was a bonus for the cops. During a search of the house they found cell phones and other identifiable stolen property that lead to the eventual closure of six additional criminal cases.
Note: The “street view” feature is not yet available in all areas.

What did the burglar look like?

2010-02-21T18:12:00.000-05:00

Edward the happy homeowner is awakened by the sound of a door closing. It’s the middle of the night. Edward grabs a flashlight and heads downstairs but by then whoever closed the kitchen door is gone.
No, wait — there’s a guy in the driveway. He throws two filled pillow cases into the back seat and closes the door. All the movement in the driveway activates the motion-detector security lights and Edward gets a good look at the burglar before he climbs into the front seat of his car and drives off.
Soon after that the cops arrive. Edward gives them an approximate inventory of what he thinks was taken. When a detective arrives, Edward hands him a hastily-drawn sketch of the burglar.
“I got a brief look at him when the lights in the driveway flipped on,” Edward says to the detective.
Before daylight, police have arrested a suspect and telephoned Edward to come down to headquarters to view a lineup. From among five men, Edward picks the suspect out of the lineup with no problem.
Not only do police now have a positive identification, they’ve also recovered two pillowcases filled with articles from Edward’s house.
There’s also a bonus! When the cops inventory the suspect’s car, they find other items, some of which are easily identified as property stolen in other burglary cases. Before this case goes to trial, police are able to close more than a dozen burglaries committed during the last six months.
All this is possible because Edward, the homeowner, was able to spot the perp and make a rough sketch. Well, the sketch wasn’t really rough. It was more like a professionally-drawn sketch of a real-live criminal suspect.
Is Edward an experienced sketch artist? You can bet your next three paychecks on that. I guess I forgot to mention, Edward is a sketch artist for the local police force.

Visitor’s day at the big house

2010-02-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

A teen gets mixed up with the wrong crowd, gets in trouble with the law, and is now serving time as a youthful offender. Now It's visitor's day at the prison and our young criminal, we'll call him Junior, is hoping his Mama will show up with some goodies.
What Junior doesn't understand is that most goodies are considered contraband by the prison. Junior has been writing home telling Mama how terrible the food is.
Actually the food at the prison is planned by a state- certified nutritionist and is far healthier than most of the inmates ate at home. But by Junior's standard a meal isn't worth eating unless it includes well-done meat, mashed potatoes and gravy. Junior considers gravy a beverage and consumes it by the pint.
Outside the prison gates, friends and parents are lined up waiting to see their incarcerated kin. Junior's Mama is near the front of the line. She appears to be quite buxom and more than a little bit pregnant.
Standing with the prison guards are two drug dogs. These K-9s are trained to intercept drugs and nothing more. The dogs are insurance that no unlawful drugs will enter the prison compound.
This day the dogs are acting strangely. They're not "hitting" on Mama for drugs. But they're wagging their tails and drooling in happy recognition of her arrival.
Mama is questioned and soon admits that she's hiding "some of Junior's delights." She follows a female guard into a room where she removes from concealed places under her dress are two pork loins and one baked ham.
Mama is not arrested and she is permitted to visit Junior but without the goodies. Not sure what happened to the pork loins and ham.

Shillinglaw’s folly

2010-01-30T22:54:00.001-05:00

There are no professional bungee jumping places in the foothills near Shillinglaw's home, so he decides to make one.
The railroad trestle he selects for a jumping platform crosses over a river which is almost bone dry. The county has a rain deficit of nearly a foot. The river is all the more dangerous because of large rocks jutting out from under the water.
A sporting goods store in town does not sell bungee cord by the yard, so Shillinglaw goes to several discount stores and buys out their entire stock of short length elastic straps. These straps, with metal hooks on each end, are used to strap cargo on luggage racks.
Shillinglaw spends an entire Saturday piecing together his makeshift bungee jumping system. He connects the various lengths with hooks, then secures the hooks by bending them with pliers and sealing them with duct tape. The day after Shillinglaw builds his bungee outfit, a man fly-fishing downstream from the railroad trestle uses his cell phone to call 911. He tells the sheriff he saw a skinny kid in a red tee shirt standing on top of the trestle. The fisherman says the kid tied something to one ankle then took a swan-dive off the trestle into the river -- or assortment of rocks.
The coroner says the distance from the platform to the riverbed is 73 feet. The pieced-together bungee cord is 60 feet long. To that add the boy's height of 5-feet, 10-inches and weight of 137 pounds. Perhaps Shillinglaw figured the "stretch" factor would work in his favor. It did not. Deputies doubt that Shillinglaw even thought about "elasticity" in planning his very unremarkable feat.
Using a physics formula recalled from high school days, a deputy estimates that Shillinglaw was probably falling at the rate of 48 to 50 miles per hour when he reached the end of his rope — literally.

Jewelry store window smashed

2010-01-24T21:05:00.001-05:00

The ABC television station in Houston recently reported that Triplett’s Jewelry store was broken into and dozens of gold rings taken. The rings were on display in a street-front window and in display cases inside the store.
A detective tells Mr. Triplett that many jewelers store gold rings in the store’s safe overnight. Mr. Triplett nods in agreement but doesn’t seem too disturbed.
“People stop and look at my rings in the window late at night,” Triplett says, “it makes for good merchandising.” The detective grunts disapprovingly at Triplett’s idea of doing business.
After crime-scene photos are taken and fingerprints lifted, the detective sits down in a back room with the jeweler. “Can you give me the number of rings stolen?”
Triplett looks at his books for a moment than says, “Somewhere between 60 and 65 rings.”
“And what do you estimate the value of those rings?”
Triplett answers, “I can’t be exactly certain but my loss would be no greater than 25 cents for each ring.”
The detective puts down his pen and looks up. “I’m trying to be serious here. Now give me the estimated value of the stolen gold rings.”
Triplett laughs, “Hold on a minute, detective, the value is exactly what I said it was -- less than 25 cents for each ring!”
Before the detective can recover from his shock, Triplett goes on to explain, “Those were base-metal rings made to look like real gold rings. I use them only for display purposes because of the risk of theft. The real gold rings are locked up in my safe. The greatest expense will be in replacing the plate glass window and a dozen shattered display cases.”
The detective mulls over that information for a moment then smiles and says, “Wouldn’t you love to have a front row seat when the burglar tries to sell those rings?”

Cops harassing the innocent

2010-01-17T22:10:00.001-05:00

Cops in some states run an e-mail exchange on the subject of community policing. A disgruntled civilian recently hacked into the e-mail forum posing this question: “How is it possible for cops to continually harass people and get away with it?”
Cops can’t pass up an opportunity to answer such a well thought out question. Sergeant Stedman -- a cop with a delightful sense of humor -- responded in this way:
Harassment isn’t easy. In our town we average only one cop for every 600 citizens. Consider that only 60 percent of our cops are assigned to patrol duty where harassing usually takes place. The rest of the cops are on administrative duty where there’s little direct contact with citizens, making harassment a challenge.
The harassment problem is compounded by the fact that only one-fifth of the 60 percent of patrolling cops are on duty while the other four-fifths are off-duty.
Go figure -- each on-duty cop is responsible for harassing 5,000 innocent civilians. If you do the math, a cop on a 10 hour shift has only one second to harass an innocent followed by three-fourths of a second to eat a doughnut and then go find another innocent to harass.
It’s an impossible task, but we do have tools to narrow the field of whom to harass. We receive 911 calls like, “There’s a guy breaking into my house!” That sets a harassment team into immediate action.
We have automotive harassment teams hunting for people running red lights, driving drunk, and other such behavior that can result in serious injury or death to others.
There are people who start running at the mere sight of a cop. Nothing gives our harassment teams greater pleasure than chasing them through alleys and over fences. Once the runners are cuffed, we get to harass them for hours.
When we run out of harassment ideas we have books containing thousands of tips on whom to harass. I’m referring to books such as, “Criminal Statutes” and “Motor Vehicle Codes.”
Next time you’re in my town, give me one of those priceless finger-waves which sends the message: “You can’t harass me, cop!” That one is my personal favorite.

Walking home from school

2010-01-10T18:05:00.001-05:00

It’s Lars and Edna’s sixtieth wedding anniversary. The couple, now in their eighties, has just moved back to their old neighborhood. As a special treat, Lars arranges a visit to their old schoolhouse which is about to be converted into an apartment building for retirees.
Wandering through the aged building the couple finds their old sixth grade classroom. In the attached cloakroom Lars scans the woodwork until he finds an old carving he made in 1939 -- “Lars loves Edna.” Lars captures that nostalgic carving with his tiny digital camera and the couple leave their old school.
As they walk along Lebanon Avenue, an armored truck is paused at a traffic light. The light turns to green and as the truck vaults forward one of the back doors swings slightly open and a canvas bag falls onto the asphalt.
Edna picks up the bag as Lars yells out, “Hey, you dropped this!” but the truck continues on without ever slowing down.
Back at home the couple opens the bag and finds it contains money -- lots of money. $50,000 is the final count.
Lars wants to call the police right away and return the money, but Edna claims, “Finders keepers,” and hides the moneybag in the attic.
The next day a detective, canvassing the neighborhood, knocks on the couple’s front door asking if they know anything about a money bag that fell out of an armored truck near their house.
“Don’t know a thing about any money bag,” says Edna.
“That’s not true,” interrupts Lars.
Edna counters with, “Don’t pay any attention to my husband. He’s getting old and his mind plays tricks on him.”
With his suspicion aroused, the detective turns toward Lars, asking, “Sure, mister, tell me what happened yesterday. I want to hear all about it, from the beginning.”
Gleefully, Lars begins to explain, “Well, sir, Edna and I were walking home from school yesterday....”
Turning towards his partner in the doorway the detective says, “Thanks a lot, sir, but we’re outta here.”

Not a toy gun

2009-12-13T22:12:00.001-05:00

It’s Saturday night when Dewey walks into the local convenience store with partying on his mind. He shops around the store and finally picks up a six-pack of beer.
This particular store has been robbed so many times the owner tells friends he runs the local “Stop & Rob.” Because of the history of armed robberies, the owner has built a booth for the clerk which is surrounded by bulletproof glass.
As our local bad guy approaches the clerk’s booth he places his beer purchase on the counter. When Lucy tells Dewey the amount of the purchase, he pats the front of his shirt.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks.
“It means I got a gun,” says Dewey as he reaches under his shirt and pulls out a scratched up .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver.
“That’s not a real gun,” says Lucy, “I’ve seen real guns and that’s a kid’s toy.”
“You wanna bet,” says Dewey as he slides the gun through the money slot under the bulletproof glass.
Lucy picks the gun up and looks it over. “You know, this sure does look like the real thing,” she says. “But you don’t look old enough to own a gun — I need to see some I.D.”
“What you talkin’ about?” says Dewey as he tosses his driver’s license through the money slot.
Lucy picks up the phone and Dewey, startled at the girl’s response, turns and runs. About an hour later Dewey calls the store using what he considers a “disguised” voice. “Can I come back now and get my gun and ID?” he asks.
“Of course you can,” says Lucy, “I knew you were only kidding.”
A short time later Dewey comes back to the store to reclaim his gun and I.D. As promised, Lucy is there waiting behind the bulletproof glass.
Also waiting, on Dewey’s side of the glass, are two plainclothes cops. Busted!

Come to Fantasy Island

2009-12-06T16:40:00.001-05:00

A team of city cops, county cops, deputy sheriffs and U. S. Marshals get together at a Fraternal Order of Police Christmas party and decide to hold a party for some missing bad guys.
Invitations are mailed out, ads are placed in weekly newspapers, and telephone solicitations are made.
The invitation list is exclusive. To qualify a guest must be a known criminal who skipped bond, is an escapee, or otherwise wanted by the law.
These cops call themselves the “Deerg Prize Group.” A closed-down hotel banquet hall is used for the party. The Deerg group announces free prizes including cruises to Cancun, the Caribbean Islands and Alaska’s Inland Passage. Guests have only to show up to claim the free prize of their choice. There are also consolation prizes such as flat-screen TVs and iPhones with pre-paid service.
The guests come in droves. The cops hosting the party are dressed in plain clothes. When the room is filled the doors are closed -- and locked!
The master of ceremonies, dressed in a tuxedo, is a U.S. Marshal who steps up on the stage, flashes his badge and announces, “You’re all busted!”
The cadre of cops are well prepared with police vans as criminal party guests are handcuffed and escorted, one by one, from the ballroom to the waiting fleet of Paddywagons.
Something none of the guests seemed to realize -- Deerg, the name of the party-givers, is the word GREED spelled backwards.

A conscience to be admired

2009-11-29T18:14:00.001-05:00

Two Audubon Society books were recently returned by mail to the library at Camelback High School in Phoenix, AZ. The books were returned by a former student who wished to remain anonymous, although librarians could certainly search records to find the student’s name if they cared to.
What’s unusual about this incident is the student with a conscience who returned the two books also included a money order to cover the late fees. The current librarian at Camelback H. S. says the books have been returned to the stacks and the fine money will be used to buy additional books for the school’s library,
How much good can a fine do toward the purchase of new books? Did I mention that the money order to cover any incurred fines was in the amount of $1,000? The former student checked the books out in 1959, and estimated that a fine of 2 cents per day for each of the two books will come to about $745. Why the extra $255?
That’s to include additional fine money in case the fines increased during that past 50 years since the books were taken out.
It appears that the now senior citizen who borrowed the books forgot about the books when the family moved in 1959. The two library books, along with everything else, were packed up with all of the household possessions when the boy’s family moved out of Arizona a half-century ago.

The ancient moonshiner

2009-11-22T20:04:00.001-05:00

When people talk about Eddy, they sometimes refer to him as “Old Pinebark.” During a noon time recess at his latest trial, I asked Eddy how he got the nickname.
“Look at my face,” Eddy says. “I look like a train wreck. Not a pretty sight. You want to know how I got to look like this? Because of the revenuers (Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agents).”
Eddy explained that back as far as the late fifties, agents raided his liquor stills, mostly in the middle of the night. “Naturally, I’d run,” he said. “But you can’t run in the woods at night without slamming headlong into pine trees.
“What you see on my face is a pinebark map of the woods.” He laughs. It’s clear to me that this old man had no intention of changing his ways. Not ever.
Once again Eddy is found guilty of operating unlawful stills. As the judge prepares to pass sentence, he fixes his eyes intently on “Old Pinebark.”
“You’ve come before me five times now,” says the judge, “Each time I give you probation, sincerely hoping that you’ll find a better way of life. But you ignore my warnings.”
“You keep coming back with the same lame brained excuse that you’re an old man. That doesn’t work anymore. Not in my courtroom. Therefore, I sentence you to 25 years in prison -- without parole.”
Eddy is stunned. The sentence is totally unexpected. He pleads: “Judge! I’m an old man, I’ll be 80 my next birthday, There’s no way I can live long enough to serve out that big of a sentence.”
The judge lowers his bifocals. Glaring at the ancient moonshiner across the top of his silver rimmed spectacles the judge quips: “Well Eddy, just do the best you can.”

People empty their pockets

2009-11-15T22:37:00.001-05:00

As a rookie cop fresh out of the police academy in Washington, D.C., I’m given an unusual assignment. I’m placed on a security detail for a public event at Washington, D.C.’s National Guard Armory on a Sunday afternoon. The year is 1952.
Why on earth does the armory need a security detail while some guy talks on a Sunday afternoon? I’d soon find out. There are about ten of us, mostly rookies, at the armory this afternoon. The auditorium fills up quickly to standing room only.
I’m thinking, “This guy must be pretty good.” Turns out he was. He has a way of speaking that makes people pay attention and want to hear more. And there’s singing -- lots of really good singing.
The sergeant comes around once while I’m enthralled by the speaker and taps me on the shoulder, “Heads up, officer, remember why you’re here.”
Then a platoon of ushers passes plates around throughout the audience. That’s when I realized why cops are assigned to this detail. From the rear of the huge auditorium I can see people freely dumping money into the plates. I see no less than three men empty their wallets into the collection plates and I have only a limited view.
Later the ushers gather in a room beside the auditorium where the money is banded and placed in canvas bags. A Brinks security truck is waiting outside and the money is carried to the armored truck under the watchful eye of a cordon of D.C. cops.
As you can imagine, traffic is a zoo for nearly an hour after the event ends. At that moment I have no idea I’d just witnessed one of the early crusades of then 34-year- old evangelist Billy Graham.

The dancer who couldn’t walk

2009-11-08T11:32:00.001-05:00

Rollie is not 5 feet 9 inches tall as he claims. He's so skinny that his friends call him "Runt." He's also a serious drunk. Here's one incident Rollie will never forget.
He gets locked up for selling dope. As a drunk and a troublemaker he fights both inmates and jail guards. Such conduct gets him put in restraints. That means manacles around his wrists and his ankles.
Rollie is real quiet for a couple days, so the jail captain goes up to his cell to check him out. Rollie says he couldn't walk because "the chains are too tight."
Rollie is taken for a medical exam and the doctor says he can't find anything wrong with him because he refuses to stand up.
A few days later the detectives in charge of Rollie's case say their primary witness left the state. Charges against Rollie are dropped and he is released.
That isn't the last the cops will hear from Rollie. Several weeks later Rollie's lawyer has the sheriff served with the notice of a lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of money (meaning big bucks). Rollie alleges that because of the manacles, he is no longer able to stand or walk.
A few weeks later the sheriff gets a call from one of his narcs. The narc is in a surveillance van and spots Rollie outside a bar. The sheriff tells the narc to go ahead and videotape Rollie's antics.
A few days later the sheriff telephones Rollie's lawyer and invites him to the screening of a special video. The lawyer accepts the invitation.
The videotape made from the narcotics van reveals Rollie and a couple of his buddies leaving a bar. Rollie, the young man who claims to be permanently crippled by manacles when he was in jail, is seen dancing an Irish jig with great skill while his friends laugh and applaud.
Rollie's lawyer thanks the sheriff and quietly excuses himself from the conference room. Following that screening there is no further mention of Rollie's lawsuit.

What’s for supper?

2009-11-01T19:15:00.001-05:00

There's a young couple living in Texas who still have a lot to learn about give-and-take in an adult relationship. It's too late now to repair the break-up because the cops got involved in the couple's dispute.
A few years ago Gordon gave Natalie a diamond-encrusted bracelet and matching earrings. I don't have to tell you how pleased she was with her new sparkling jewelry. She even visited her mother, proudly saying, "Look what Gordon gave me!"
That was all very nice until the couple had a serious dispute. Gordon got so angry he repossessed the expensive jewelry in a rather sneaky way. He grabbed the jewelry while Natalie was in the shower. Then he took his girlfriend's jewelry to a friend's house and asked him to hide it in his apartment.
When Gordon got back home Natalie was gone but so were his exotic tropical fish. Gordon calls the cops and reports the theft of his "pets." A report is taken along with Natalie's full name and address.
Soon two cops show up on Natalie's doorstep asking about Gordon's missing fish. "Come right in, officers," says Natalie, "I've got something to show you." She leads the cops down a hallway into the dining area where she points to a pair of fish filets on a plate with asparagus tips and a small sweet potato.
"Are those your boyfriend's tropical fish?" one cop asks.
"That's only two of them," Natalie responds. "I've already eaten three, but the other two are out in the kitchen on the chopping block. I'm really not that hungry tonight."
The cops have an interesting dilemma. Although they've recovered Natalie's jewelry, Gordon's stolen tropical fish are not returnable. Do the cops charge the ex-lovers with larceny, or just stamp the case "cleared?"
Is there a moral to this intrigue? Search me!

Eye witness on the telephone

2009-10-25T16:19:00.001-04:00

This story comes from a cop friend who swears it’s true: The phone rings during suppertime and Glen, my retired cop buddy, picks up the phone.
The caller asks, “Is this Lamar Rosen?”
“Who’s calling?” asks Glen. The caller, a telemarketer, says he’s from Ajax Pharmaceuticals.
Next Glen asks the telemarketer, “Do you know Lamar Rosen personally? Why are you calling him?” Then Glen says, away from the phone, “Be sure to get photos of several angles of the body and don’t forget to spray Luminol for blood stains.”
The telemarketer responds in a trembling voice, “What, sir? I don’t understand about photos and...blood.”
Glen is now back to the telephone conversation when he advises the telemarketer he must remain on the line because he has entered a murder scene. “Stay on the line because we’ve already traced this call to you and you’ll be expected to testify at a murder trial as a material witness.
Then Glen demands the caller’s full name, address and cell phone number. Then he asks the caller -- whose voice is very shaky -- if he can account for his whereabouts during the past 12 hours.
Then as a coup de grace, Glen adds this: “Through the use of our Global Positioning Satellite system we’ve located your position and 12 members of our SWAT team are preparing to enter your building. Drop your weapons and place your hands on top of your head!”
On the other end of the line Glen hears only the sound of a phone bouncing on the floor. Returning to the supper table to cold soup, Glen’s wife asks, “Who was that?”
“Nobody. Just a wrong number.”
Editor’s note: I don’t recommend that you try this at home. If you’re getting annoying phone calls, register your telephone number with the government’s do-not-call registry, on the internet:
https://www.donotcall.gov/
Within a month your telemarketing calls should stop.

Fatal honeymoon

2009-10-18T20:32:00.001-04:00

The subject of this week’s column is a macho man of major proportions. He is admired by his closest associates and feared by the rest. How he loves his reputation. Today you’d say he was the kind of guy who believed his own press clippings.
Is he a hero or a scoundrel? Pick your favorite macho character and you’re probably close to Our Man’s public persona. He is the image of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Jack The Ripper, all rolled into one character.
This interesting part of his story isn’t so much about his exploits, but about his wedding night. This is a huge event. Our Man usually just snacks at public affairs, but not on this night. It’s his wedding celebration! Our Man gorges himself with as much food and drink as his body will allow — and then he eats some more.
It’s not known for certain, but apparently the bride gets little attention from the groom on the couple’s wedding night. Hubby is too busy celebrating and feasting with his buddies and good old boys to take notice of his newly acquired “old lady.”
Sometime during the night Our Man develops a nosebleed. But there’s so much revelry going on that nobody notices. Worse still, nobody comes to his rescue. There’s not even a 911 call. Our Man is too drunk to realize that he’s in very serious trouble.
That’s where the story ends. The next morning Our Man is found dead at the scene of his wedding feast —drowned in his own blood.
There’s no network coverage of his rather bizarre death. At this particular point in time there are no news reporters covering the activities of the Mongol hordes. I should have told you -- the year is 450 A. D. And this is the record of the rather unceremonious end of the life of Attila the Hun.

Give this guy plenty of air

2009-10-11T22:50:00.001-04:00

The bank robber is described to the San Diego cops as “fairly tall and thin as a rail.” Cops are told the bandit wore a tam o’shanter cap, argyle socks and checkered knickers with a button-up vest sweater.
“He had to be at least seventy years old -- probably older -- he looked like a fugitive from a retirement home or a clown from a golf course,” a bank employee says to the cops. “I thought he had a bomb in the cloth bag he was carrying over his shoulder,” says a teller.
Bank officials refuse to disclose the amount of money taken in the bank heist, but one of the bank’s employees tells a news reporter, “off the record,” that the old guy got away with “at least six figures.”
Detectives are still trying to figure out what the bank robber used for a hold-up weapon. Nobody saw any firearms, but all of the bank’s employees were “scared to death of the guy because he kept touching that black bag hanging over one shoulder.” All of the employees agree, “We think he had a bomb in that bag.”
Finally, when police view the bank’s video tapes of the robbery they realize the black bag everybody was afraid of was really nothing more than a carrier for an oxygen tank.
“The proof of that was the plastic tube stuck in the guy’s nose,” a detective says. “Nobody noticed the tube until we saw it in the close-ups on video. The old guy was on oxygen.”
Detectives plan to canvass retirement homes with photos scanned from the video tape. “If we describe him as wearing a tam and argyle socks we’ll have the guy in custody within 24 hours,” says one cop.

Shoot or don’t shoot?

2009-10-04T19:47:00.001-04:00

Last week we talked about my friend Pastor Randy's visit to the weapons range with his friend the chief of police. A few weeks pass and Randy is again invited out to the weapons range.
This visit is to experience some of the shoot-don't-shoot course. The range is out in the country, far from any densely-populated areas, and all the targets are backed up by a suitable berm which will stop any projectile that might be fired from a handgun, rifle or shotgun.
A different sergeant is driving the chief this day. We'll call him Sergeant Smith. The sergeant parks the chief's car near one of the pop-up targets. The metal man-sized targets are mounted with a mechanism that will make the target pop up suddenly, forcing the officer to decide whether to shoot or not.
The targets vary -- some will picture a man with a pistol or a shotgun, others will be an elderly man with an attache case, or a woman with a bag of groceries or a baby in her arms. The officer has only a slit second to make an analysis and decide whether to "shoot or don't shoot."
In this exercise Sergeant Smith is the first to demonstrate. Sarge is crouched behind the driver's door of the patrol car as a target pops up. It's a man wearing a mask and carrying a shotgun. Sarge calls out, "Police, drop your weapon!" Sarge repeats the command two more times.
The chief explains that sarge will shoot if the man with the gun makes an aggressive move. "Now you try it," Chief says to Pastor Randy as he hands the clergyman a .40 caliber Glock.
Randy crouches down behind the door of the patrol car and waits a few seconds. Suddenly a target pops up. It's a masked man pointing a handgun.
The pastor has rehearsed the police command over and over but one thought keeps interrupting: "but I'm not really the police."
Randy raises up, points his pistol at the bad-guy target and nervously calls out, "PASTOR -- DROP YOUR WEAPON!"
Everybody on the weapons range is now rolling on the ground with laughter. Sheepishly, Randy explains, "What was I supposed to say, after all, I'm not the police, I'm just a pastor."

Out on the weapons range

2009-09-27T22:36:00.001-04:00

When my friend was a pastor of a church up north he’d made friends with the local police chief. They’d meet frequently for a Coke and to swap stories as guys like to do. The pastor would sit with his back to the door and the chief always sat where he could see people coming and going -- cops like to see such things.
On one particular day the police chief invites Pastor Randy to ride with him out to the police weapons range for a bit of shooting. Randy likes to hunt and cheerfully accepts the offer.
Randy owns several hunting rifles and a cross-bow, but not a handgun. “That’s okay,” says the chief, “you can use mine.” There are three of them out at the range: The chief, a sergeant who drives the chief, and Pastor Randy.
The sergeant is the first to shoot using the chief’s .40 caliber Glock handgun. The target is a metal man silhouette mounted on a coil spring. Sarge takes careful aim and shoots. Dead center -- but just below the belt line.
“Ouch, that hurt,” says the chief, laughing as he takes up his position to shoot. Chief’s shot strikes almost the exact spot but the sergeant says nothing about the chief’s hit. The chief hands the Glock over to Pastor Randy.
“I noticed that both shots were about the same but a little low,” says Pastor Randy, “so I aim about a foot over the silhouette’s head.” Wham! The bullet hits dead center in the upper chest -- center mass.
The pastor hands the pistol back to the chief with the comment, “Thanks, pilgrim, that’s a really nice weapon ya got there.”
“Great shot,” the chief says quietly to the pastor as he holsters his weapon. Sarge says nothing at all as the trio walks back to the chief’s car. That’s enough for one day.

Classic Three Stooges

2009-09-20T19:27:00.001-04:00

These guys must look like Larry, Moe and Curly trying to squeeze through the revolving door entrance to the bank -- all at the same time. They aren’t really The Three Stooges, but they’re three of the stupidest-looking would-be bank robbers since banks were invented.
What makes this situation really pitiful is that several members of the bank staff help extricate these dummies from the revolving door where they’re stuck.
The bunglers immediately leave the bank — one at a time — then regroup outside in the parking lot. They are embarrassed. But apparently not too embarrassed because they turn right around and come back into the bank, this time in single file. Their intent? Robbery, of course.
Their routine is so improbable that none of the bank employees really believes them when they announce, “This is a stick-up — give us $10,000 in cash — please!”
Bank employees look at each other and start laughing. “Is somebody taping ‘America’s Funniest Videos?’ ”
“No, this must be the son of Alan Funt filming for ‘Candid Camera.’ ” The bank manager laughs so hard she gets a stitch in her side.
Now the tall guy vaults over the counter, but his trousers snag on a sign that reads: “We are here to serve you; let’s get started.” That’s not part of the robbery scheme; it’s the bank’s slogan.
While the fallen robber struggles on the floor with his injured ankle, the two other dunces decide to beat a hasty retreat back to the parking lot. Trouble is, they start through the revolving door at the same time. It didn’t work before — it doesn’t work this time either.
No weapons are involved, but each of these stooges gets eight years for bank robbery.

Cease fire in the neighborhood

2009-09-13T14:43:00.001-04:00

A 48-year-old guy we’ll call Uncle Harry is a history buff. He restores and builds replicas of antique firearms. His hobby includes pistols, rifles and even cannons. Sometimes he shoots these vintage weapons, all in the interest of history.
Uncle Harry recently built a replica of a French and Indian War cannon. That’d place the weapon’s shooting days between 1754 and 1763. Can we agree that’s a really old weapon?
Uncle Harry spent a lot of time and money building this cannon, even to the point of reshaping a rusted out cannonball so it’d roll down the muzzle.
In case you’d like some specifications, I can only tell you the two pound cannonball measured 6.25 inches in circumference. Lastly, Harry installed a fuse in the cannon.
Now here’s the situation: Uncle Harry lives in a real nice neighborhood less than an hour out of Pittsburgh.
He’s planning to light the fuse and count the time it takes to ignite the powder charge -- but that’s not what happens. Uncle Harry tells the cops he forgot the cannonball was still in the bore.
You guessed it -- the cannon shoots the two pounder off into the wild blue yonder. Some 400 yards away the antique missile hits a rock then ricochets into the wall of a nearby house. The cannonball crashes through the outer wall, then through an inside wall and a medicine cabinet before it lands in a kitchen closet.
Big mess -- but fortunately nobody gets hurt! However, you can see the possibilities. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Uncle Harry promises never to shoot another cannon, but the cops bust him anyway, charging him with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. Don’t know what Uncle Harry did during the arrest, but the cops also bust him for disorderly conduct.
The neighborhood is asking for a cease-fire, and Uncle Harry is being urged to confine his studies of vintage weaponry to watching the History Channel.

Cybercops at work

2009-09-06T21:42:00.001-04:00

Kids at the E.L. Broder Middle School are getting the thrill of their young lives at career day. One of the exhibits on the campus is a police patrol car equipped with the latest in law enforcement technology. The highlight of the show is an on-board computer.
One of the parents, a guy named Jake, is dragged by one of his kids to the squad car. He strikes up a conversation with the two cops assigned to the unit.
“Fancy stuff for a couple of country cops,” Jake says, laughingly. Jake prides himself on knowing something about computers. A prolific internet surfer, Jake brags to anybody who’ll listen about his expertise in cyberspace.
The tall cop says, “Yes, it is kind of fancy, but we manage to keep up with it. Would you like to see a computer demonstration?”
Jake doesn’t expect such a friendly response, at least not from a country cop. “Sure, show me some high-tech cop stuff,” says Jake.
“I’ll need to see your driver’s license,” the cop says.
Jake is a bit surprised at that request, but with his little kid watching he digs into his wallet and hands over his license. Getting so up-close and personal with cops is making Jake a bit nervous. He now regrets ever asking for a demonstration.
Minutes later the cops are no longer smiling. They move in close to Jake. One cop in front and the other in back of Jake. “Place both hands on the hood of the car and spread your legs,” one of the cops says. Next thing Jake knows, he’s handcuffed and sitting in the back of the patrol car.
Jake’s driver’s license identifies him. The computer additionally flags 14 arrest warrants for Jake ranging from grand larceny to check fraud.
Arrangements are made for Jake’s wife to come pick up the kids. As the patrol car pulls away, one of the cops looks around at Jake: “Isn’t this cybercop stuff fun?”

Don’t mess with this lady

2009-08-30T17:13:00.001-04:00

The Houston Herald wrote earlier this year about Marge, a barroom waitress, who was arrested and charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of a young mugger. That incident occurred on a Thursday night.
Marge spent the weekend in jail. Monday morning she appeared before Judge Rainwater (not his real name)
for an arraignment hearing.
During questioning by the district attorney Marge made the following statement in court and under oath: "I was standing at the bus stop for about 15 minutes after I got off work. I'm a waitress at Sonny's Cafe. It was late at night and there was nobody else at the bus stop.
"I had my right hand on my gun, which was in my purse hanging on my shoulder. All of a sudden, somebody spun me around and grabbed my purse off my shoulder. When I caught my balance my right hand was still gripped around my gun. The guy was running away with my purse!
"I yelled out real loud: 'No way, punk, you're not stealing my paycheck and my tips!'
"I pointed my pistol at the guy running away with my purse and I squeezed the trigger -- six times." All six bullets struck the man in the back.
Judge Rainwater asked Marge why she shot the man six times?
Still under oath Marge answered, "When I pulled the trigger the seventh time it only went 'click.'"
Marge was released without further charges. The next day, Tuesday, she was back working at Sonny's Cafe.
Comment from this retired cop: Although the outcome may be amusing, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled back in the sixties that deadly force may not be used in incidents of property theft unless someone's life is in danger.

Japanese cook versus gorilla man

2009-08-24T00:15:00.001-04:00

Kato carries a large bowl of food scraps out to the dumpster behind his Japanese Hibachi Restaurant near Myrtle Beach. As Kato shakes the garbage out of the bowl he feels a painful blow on the back of his head.
Kato turns to face his attacker. They wrestle to the ground. Kato manages to free himself from the struggle and runs up the steps to the kitchen with the attacker only a few steps behind.
Once inside the kitchen the attacker leaves Kato and heads for the cash register. What’s different in this criminal scenario is the attacker is wearing a gorilla suit, at least it looks like a gorilla suit, but the creature doesn’t act like a real gorilla.
Robbers usually use a bandanna or a stocking mask -- but this bandit is an original. Maybe Kato thought it was Mike, the gorilla who escaped briefly from Riverbanks Zoo a few weeks ago. We learned that Mike hasn’t left Riverbanks since that fateful escape.
Kato, hard working fry-cook that he is, chases the gorilla suit, only now Kato is armed with something he knows how to use -- a meat cleaver.
The gorilla lashes out against Kato but the cook counters with a swing of his trusty cleaver. The encounter ends quickly as Kato strikes the gorilla’s shoulder.
The cleaver sticks in the gorilla. Kato must have hit a tender spot because the gorilla -- or the guy inside the furry suit -- screams out some pretty foul language.
With the meat cleaver still stuck in his shoulder, the gorilla-guy makes a speedy exit out the back door and vanishes into the night.
When the cops arrive they have difficulty writing their report so it won’t sound like a script from a weird movie.
Last we heard, the cops were checking hospital emergency rooms, looking for a guy, or maybe a gorilla, with a meat cleaver stuck in his shoulder.

A Viking’s farewell

2009-08-15T20:42:00.001-04:00

This week's column is not about cops. It's about a subject the feds are telling millions of us how we should handle our health care.
According to the proposed Universal Health Care -- all 1,000 plus pages of it -- citizens 65 and older may be interviewed every five years by a government agent about their "end of life" plans.
Just between you and me, as a Christian my spiritual bags are packed and I'm ready to travel whenever my orders come through. But the government agent doesn't know that, so I plan to mess with his brain a little.
When I'm asked about my end of life plans I'll say, "Well, I've always dreamed of having a Viking funeral." The agent may not know about Vikings, so I'll have to explain: "I'd like a proper service on the shores of Lake Murray.
"Next I want to be laid in a bass boat fitted with a Viking sail. A dog must be placed at my feet and kerosene splashed all over me and the boat. Then two men will push my funeral barge out to sea, figuratively speaking."
The next part of a true Viking funeral is tricky, but it's gotta be done right if it's a genuine Viking funeral. My pastor has to take a long bow with a flaming arrow and shoot it over the lake to land in my boat, igniting the Viking barge, me and the dog. A choir is chanting an appropriate dirge as my vessel sinks to the bottom of Lake Murray
The part that worries me is that my pastor is unskilled in archery and has zero experience with flaming arrows. If he misses my boat, a Viking funeral will be disgraced. In the spirit of Gary Cooper, Beau Geste, and the French Foreign Legion, I have a right to a proper Viking departure.
There are other concerns. What about a permit from DHEC, permission from the Coast Guard, and the Sheriff's Lake Patrol? I'm also worried about PETA because of the deceased canine at my feet.
I can't be certain if the government agent will meet my needs. He might call in guys in white jackets to put me in a rubber room. It's not easy being a Viking.

Baghead’s tactical error

2009-08-09T17:22:00.001-04:00

Late one night Clyde walks into a convenience store. He heads straight for the back of the store where he pulls a paper bag over his head. There's a hole punched in the front of the bag so Clyde will be able to see out.
Next Clyde -- we might as well call him Baghead -- walks up to the front of the store and tells the cashier, "This is a stickup, gimme all the money."
Please note that this activity is all caught by a surveillance camera. The clerk looks at the guy with a paper bag over his head and asks, "This some kind of a joke, mister?"
Baghead steps directly in front of the clerk and says, "I've got a gun!" But as the holdup guy moves, the bag on his head twists a little and he can no longer see out.
While Clyde is readjusting the bag the clerk tells him the cash register won't open because it's closing time. Just then a kid walks up and hands the clerk money for a candy bar.
The clerk instinctively rings up the sale and the cash draw pops open. Oops! Embarrassed, the clerk says, "I'm sorry," but Baghead is so confused he turns and runs out of the store.
Following company policy the clerk locks the front door and calls 911. The cops take the camera tape to the precinct and find that the entire baghead incident is recorded -- including Clyde walking into the store without a bag over his head.
This act of genius gets a big laugh at the cop shop. A few days later Clyde is arrested on a misdemeanor charge and confesses that he is the baghead bandit. Now Clyde faces a charge of attempted robbery and has earned the right to do time behind bars.

Old Uncle Andy’s shotgun

2009-08-02T13:55:00.001-04:00

Margie runs over to Uncle Andy's to avoid getting beat up when her husband comes home. It's late Saturday which means Elmer will come home mean and drunk. Margie feels safer at Uncle Andy's even though he's 92 years old.
A few quiet hours drag by watching television until Margie hears the thundering sound of Elmer's pickup sliding to a stop in Andy's front yard. Margie's husband, lap-legged drunk, is out hunting for his woman.
The drunkard storms into the living room where Margie is on her knees in the far corner. Elmer busts up some furniture, then knocks his crying wife around with his fists.
Margie is semi-conscious on the floor as Elmer charges into the den. There's old Uncle Andy sitting in a rocker with his favorite Remington 12-gauge shotgun across his knees.
"I'm tired of you hiding my wife, old man!" says Elmer. "Tonight I'm gonna settle this once and for all," as the drunk strides toward Uncle Andy.
From about six feet away Andy fires his 12-gauge. Elmer catches the full impact of the pellets in his midsection. "You old coot -- you shot me!" Elmer sputters as he draws his last breath.
Deputies are nervous about locking up a 92-year-old man. A Lexington County Magistrate orders Uncle Andy released under a personal recognizance bond. A few days later later a coroner's jury assembles to hear evidence in Elmer's death.
The old man is the last to take the stand. Trying to go easy on the 92-year-old, the coroner asks, "Sir, is it true that as the deceased advanced toward you, your shotgun accidentally went off?"
Uncle Andy sits straight up in his chair and looks the coroner square in the face: "Heck no! It weren't no accident! I meant to kill that no-good son-of-a-gun." Jurors at first wince, but then quietly giggle at Uncle Andy's unvarnished testimony.
Absolutely certain that Elmer would have beaten the old man to death, the coroner's jury comes back with a unanimous verdict of "accidental death." Uncle Andy is never charged with Elmer's shooting.

He walked away from 23 banks

2009-07-26T19:24:00.001-04:00

Our guy always waited in line at the bank with a deposit slip in his hand and a gun in his pocket. Once he reached the head of the line, he announced he wasn’t making a deposit -- he was making a withdrawal.
“Gimme all the money,” he said at an estimated 23 banks in four states including South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
The bank robber usually wore an unmarked tee shirt, jeans, a baseball cap and sunglasses. Once he reached the head of the line he’d order the teller to put the money in a canvas bag with a special warning: “If you try to slip a dye pack or tracking device in with the money I’ll shoot!”
The “shoot” comment usually discouraged bank employees from trying to follow the bandit. He made his escape by simply walking away. But his walking escape became the only clue the cops or the FBI would ever have. He walked away from the bank rapidly -- but with a limp.
That’s why he was nicknamed “the limping bandit.” One FBI agent said to a Charleston newspaper reporter, “He’d walk out of the bank and around a couple corners and blend right back into the public." There was nothing unusual about him, except for the limp.
He was identified by the cops as Cecil Stephen Haire, 51, of Douglas, Ga., after he was arrested in mid-July. Immediately after a bank holdup a witness saw a limping man get into a car with a Georgia license plate. The witness wrote down the tag number and gave it to the cops. That was the only break investigators ever got after a three-year string of 23 bank robberies.
What kind of a guy is Cecil Haire? We’re told the robber had polio when he was a kid and that accounted for the limp. He’s being held in the Charleston County Jail where cops will say little except that he has a criminal history. He was sentenced in Savannah, Ga., in 1979 to 20 years for bank robbery. He was released in 1986 after serving only seven years.

Gorilla escape -- the rest of the story

2009-07-19T18:37:00.002-04:00

Most of us have read about the gorilla escape at Riverbanks Zoo but few know why the gorilla returned to his compound so soon after his escape. Here’s what really happened:
It’s Friday afternoon in mid-June at Riverbanks Zoo. Mike, a 400-pound gorilla, is lounging in his compound contemplating something he hasn’t seen before.
A severe thunderstorm caused several bamboo shoots to buckle and hang down against the inside wall of the gorilla compound. Mike ambles down into the earthen moat and grabs a couple of dangling bamboo shoots. Now the big ape simply walks up the retaining wall hand-over-hand gripping the dangling bamboo. Once atop the retaining wall, the 400-pounder leaps to the sidewalk in a place normally reserved for zoo visitors.
Mike is spotted almost immediately by security guards who quickly set in motion an emergency procedure. Staff and visitors are quickly herded into buildings and doors are locked.
Two people somehow miss the hurried evacuation. They are food service contractors -- a man and a woman. Mike sees the two, ambles over to them and back hands the woman. The smack doesn’t knock her down, but it gets her attention.
Next Mike reaches for the guy who has curled up into the fetal position. The gorilla picks the guy up, but at that moment spots a woman some 30 yards away.
The woman he sees is not just any woman. She’s the zoo keeper for the gorilla compound. The lady in charge!
Who knows what a gorilla thinks at a moment like this? My guess is Mike is thinking: “Uh, oh, there’s my momma. I’m not supposed to be out here. I’m a bad boy. Better get back in my own yard.” Instantly, Mike drops the guy and leaps back into the gorilla compound.
Zoo officials, who’ve thought of just about everything to keep a safe environment, trim the bamboo tops around the perimeter of the compound so shoots won’t enable Mike or his playmates, to do any more hand-over-hand scaling of the wall. Kudos to the zoo folks.

Showing up in court -- the hard way

2009-07-12T23:34:00.001-04:00

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office in South Dakota is looking for a pickup truck that’s been involved in a hit-and-run accident on Interstate 29. A highway patrolman spots the truck on Highway 50 near Vermillion. The trooper gives chase and calls for backup in an attempt to stop the fleeing pickup driver, who has other ideas.
Now cops from the Vermillion Police Department, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, and the South Dakota Highway Patrol have all joined in on what’s become a Keystone Kops style car chase. The guy behind the wheel makes a surprise move by driving straight into the Town of Vermillion where he stops in front of the Clay County Courthouse.
The guy backs the truck up the steps of the courthouse then crashes through the courthouse doors. Next the driver jumps out of his truck, runs up the courthouse steps to the second floor and bursts into a courtroom where a judge has just dismissed the jurors.
The fugitive then barricades himself inside the empty courtroom. The fleeing hit-and-run driver is identified as Clovis Murray of Sioux City, Iowa. Not only is he wanted for hit-and-run, he’s already been charged with tampering with anhydrous ammonia, a substance used to make methamphetamine. He also has outstanding warrants from other jurisdictions for possession of meth and burglary tools.
Clovis’ barricade isn’t successful because the cops push harder on the courtroom doors than Clovis and soon he’s in police custody. Clovis is additionally charged with felony eluding police, driving under the influence and disorderly conduct.
Oddly, the courtroom Clovis broke into is the same courtroom he was due to appear in later that same day on a long list of criminal charges. Clovis must have wanted to make a dramatic appearance.

The phantom interview

2009-07-05T16:05:00.001-04:00

Grandmother Delaney receives a telephone call from her grandson, Eugene. He attends a college in the Midwest and expects to get his degree in December. In the meantime, the boy explains he has a golden opportunity to interview with an executive of one of the Fortune 500 companies in New York City.
“I don’t have any real nice clothes to wear to the interview,” explains Eugene. “I need a nice business suit, and the plane fare costs more than I can afford with my allowance. But $1,200 should cover the cost of everything and I’m almost positive I’ll get the job.”
Grandmother Delaney is impressed with her grandson’s maturity in gathering all this information together in such an organized manner. She sends the $1,200 to Eugene by a Western Union money order exactly as requested.
Weeks pass and there’s no word from Eugene. Grandmother Delaney calls his cell phone and leaves a message: “Eugene -- please call, I’m anxious to hear how you did on your interview with the man in New York.”
A few hours later Eugene returns his Grandmother’s call. “What interview?” the boy asks.
“The interview with the big shot in New York that you were sure was going to hire you!” Grandmother says.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Grandmother,” says Eugene.
At that moment Grandmother Delaney feels cold chills running up and down her spine. She knows she’d been duped. After calling the local cops and the campus police the old woman realizes she’s the victim of a scam.
The original call from Eugene was not her grandson, although he sounded very much like him. Investigators familiar with the routine said her grandson and some of his buddies probably were overheard talking in a beer joint.
Using Internet sources, the scammer was able to find the grandmother’s phone number and a little bit about the grandson. From a few scraps of information the scammer was able to built a promising -- although totally false -- tale of success for her grandson.
Will Grandmother Delaney get her money back? Not very likely. The scammer, with her $1,200, is in the wind.

Retired and having fun -- but where?

2009-06-27T16:03:00.001-04:00

The London Times reports that the parking lot attendant at the Bristol Zoo worked faithfully, seven days a week for 25 years. Then one day he failed to show up for work.
None of the zoo employees know the attendant’s name. They referred to him only as “Guv,” a British custom for an official whose name no one knew.
Zoo officials contacted Bristol town officials to ask for a replacement for the missing parking lot attendant. Townsmen said the attendant was employed by the Bristol Zoo. “Not so,” says the zoo director.
Zoo people check the attendant’s booth and the ticket machine but find nothing that will lead to finding the absent attendant or the name of his employer.
Then it dawns on Bristol officials: “If Guv doesn’t work for the zoo and he doesn’t for the town -- then who on earth does he work for?”
A light switch goes on when the town realizes that Guv has pocketed the parking lot money and flown the coop. Rapid calculation reveals that with parking fees averaging £400 per day for cars and buses the estimated total is $660 a day in US dollars.
Didn’t anybody check to see where the money was going? Apparently not because the town thinks Guv works for the zoo, and the zoo people thinks he works for the town. Nothing was suspicious until Guv didn’t show up for work.
Where’s Guv now? Your guess is as good as anybody’s. Maybe he’s on the coast of Spain, or Argentina, or anywhere on Planet Earth. If you do the math you’ll find that Guv’s retirement stash comes to a handsome sum of more than $6 million U.S. Not bad for 25 years of faithful -- or unfaithful -- service.

“I ain’t your Grandma!”

2009-06-21T20:36:00.001-04:00

Bad Nose Babcock walks into the convenience store late one night. He hangs around the drink boxes in the back while three customers pay for purchases and leave.
Now Libby, the 68-year-old assistant manager, is the only other person in the store. Bad Nose walks up to the check-out, and puts a Diet Coke on the counter. Libby starts to ring up the sale when Bad Nose pulls out a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
"While you're in that drawer, gimme all the money so I don't have to kill you!" says the gunman.
"Go ahead, take it all," says Libby, "it don't matter none to me, it ain't my money." She takes money out of the register and lays it on the counter as Bad Nose scoops up the cash and stuffs it into his pockets.
The bandit starts backing away and warns the old lady, "Don't you go callin' no cops, 'cause if you do, I'll come back and smoke you — you got that, Grandma?"
Apparently the word "Grandma" lights a fuse in Libby's temper. Reaching under the counter, the old lady yells, "Grandma? Grandma? Who the devil you callin' Grandma, you idiot?"
Having said that, she levels a .38-caliber pistol at Bad Nose, closes her eyes and squeezes off a single shot. When she opens her eyes, Bad Nose is on the floor writhing in pain, holding himself between the legs.
Libby calls the cops. A short time later, Bad Nose is gathered up by the cops and paramedics, loaded into an ambulance, and carted off to the emergency room. Libby is trembling as the cops interview her for the incident report.
They tell her she probably won't get in any trouble for shooting an armed holdup man. "You're lucky he didn't shoot when you reached down under the counter," one cop says.
"Maybe so," says Libby, "but I ain't too old to shoot his skinny butt, and I sure ain't his Grandma!" The cops are very careful not to say that dreadful word. They speak to Libby using only the word, "ma'am." The cops do, however, confiscate Grandma's gun as evidence until after Bad Nose Babcock's trial.

Bob Ford's Call The Cops!

NOT the last laugh

Thanks for a great run

After that, everything's gravy

Metal entrepreneur gets fried

Be kind to small critters

Cops, coffee and doughnuts

Tattoo tells it all

Drug smuggling with ancient technology

A clue cops love

Fighting gamecock

Bullying—not a new problem

Are we having fun at the wedding?

Late night till-tapping

Late night till-tapping

Slip & slide on the high seas

The case of the interrupted burglar

Carter’s foolproof plan

That your ringtone?

Slip and slide bank robber

Call the Cops Book 1 is now available

Deadly stickup

Busted in a Skyjack

The nose knows

Speeder “gets even” for traffic ticket

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Call the Cops is now available for Kindle

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Nosy neighbors are crime stoppers

Egbert’s Mom is a squealer!

Over the fence for a dollar!

Cops looking for purple people

Bird feeding gone wrong

Justice is served

The burglar on Facebook

We’re talking “big money” here

Power to loot

Sports car in the bayou

Expensive cigarettes

Shot nine times — and lives

Show Boudreaux some ID

Driver training isn’t for everybody

Test questions for sale

Facebook to the rescue

Stupid pills: Take two with water

Madame Cassandra’s mistake

Launching Eddy

Clown forensics - not science

Battlefield skills on I-95

Your credit card handy?

Rookie deputy locked up

The invader can’t swim

Stolen cargo highlights this trip

A bucket of quarters & a belly laugh

Spider in the neighborhood

Money To Go

Without emotion

Attention from airport security

Not the best hiding place

Wrong place & wrong time

Super tracking device

Grass is greener over there

Google Earth -- crime solver

The night of the boulder

No luck for this Irishman

Cell phone monitors crime

Texting while driving

Flash of a camera

Technology to the rescue

What did the burglar look like?

Visitor’s day at the big house

Shillinglaw’s folly

Jewelry store window smashed

Cops harassing the innocent

Walking home from school

Not a toy gun

Come to Fantasy Island

A conscience to be admired

The ancient moonshiner

People empty their pockets