When I say it's a trend, it's a trend baby

In the 2009 threat assessment published on January 14 I identified two emerging crime patterns originating in Florida. The second pattern was the phenomenon of food as weapon.

Now another food-as-weapon incident has been reported, again in sunny Florida.

Meet Cassady C. Catolico:



Ms. Catolico hit a man named Steven Buniasky in the head with a bagel. The report does not describe the bagel, nor does it state whether or not Catolico brought the weapon with her to the crime scene, or if she used the victim's own bagel against him.
It does say that Ms. Catolico was already on probation and was in violation of a temporary injunction filed the week before by her victim. The incident occurred at 2:18 am, proving once more that no matter what problems you're having in your relationship, and no matter how badly you want to work out those problems, trying to do so after 2 in the morning is probably not a good idea.

So, fellow citizens--brace yourselves. So far we've seen assaults with sandwiches, hamburgers, delicious sweet potato pies and now bagels. I shudder to imagine what happens when they get to the canned goods, smoked meats, and large imported cheeses.

Satisfying

You know what's satisfying?

Let's say you're investigating an aggravated battery, and you've got your main offender in custody. You get your second offender identified pretty quickly, and you decide to grab a bite to eat at your local taco stand before driving the first offender to the juvenile detention center.

The satisfying part comes when, just a few minutes after you've finished your meal, your second offender walks into the restaurant with his mom, uncle, older brother and younger sisters.

The even more satisfying part comes when mom, who insists on coming into the station with you and sitting right with junior as he's interviewed, allows her kid to make a written statement outlining his role in the beating. And then you get to drive two little rat bastard gang members to jail at the same time.

Amputee Criminal Update

David Wiley, armless, one-legged and briefly famous for eluding police, is on his way to prison for 5 years.

My dumbest question

The delightfully raunchy, funny and smart Katie Schwartz has tagged yours truly. Here are the requirements:

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you ever been asked? Why was it it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

Now, before I get started, I have to say something. After reading Katie's story I believe that it is really unnecessary, pointless, really, for any other blogger, anywhere, to post another response to this tag. Go read her story, here, and tell me if I'm not right. In spite of that belief I'll soldier on and give you this story.

Like anyone else who works with people--food service, retail, any of the "helping" professions--I've had plenty of dumb questions. But the thing is, there's one dumb question that I've heard at least a half dozen times over the years, from different people, but always in the same context.

Here's the setting: an office or interview room in a police station. Picture the usual institutional gray/green furniture, cinderblock walls and air of human desperation. There's a guy sitting in a chair, and you can tell by looking at him that he's spent, physically and emotionally. Sometimes he looks tearful and afraid, sometimes relieved, and other times almost happy because a great weight has just been lifted from him. Sometimes it's not a guy, it's a girl, but almost always it's a guy. He's in the process of signing his written confession, the one I just got from him, or he's already signed it and he's sitting back as I explain what happens next. At some point he looks up and makes eye contact with me, something he hasn't done for a while, and says "can I ask you a question?" And I just know the question is coming.

And then it comes:

"Do you think this is going to hurt my chances of becoming a police officer?"

Now, why was the question dumb, every single time it was asked? Because in each case the person had just confessed to a f*cking felony, that's why, and even grimy shithole police departments in places like southern Louisiana and Cook County, Illinois, generally refrain from hiring felons. (Seriously, they do--most of the bad cops you read about become felons after they've been on the job a while.)

So how do I answer this question? Like this:

"No, I wouldn't worry about it. They'll probably appreciate your honesty in admitting you made a mistake. Would you like to make any phone calls now?"

I tag MizBubs, Dale, Lulu and Johnny Yen. MizBubs because she works at a public help desk at the library and she's married to me, and I know she could fill pages with the stupid questions I've asked her; Lulu and Johnny because they're both educators, and Dale...well, because I get the feeling people just ask him a lot of dumb questions in general.

If you're not creeped out, then I'm not doing my job

It's been a busy few days since returning from Florida. So many things going on, so much to write about, so little time to do it. We were lucky enough last week to finally participate in Johnny Yen's popular "Margarita Friday." Thanks to a 64 oz box of Fresh Island margarita mix on sale at Binny's Beverage Depot, and an unopened bottle of tequila that MizBubs found behind the tiki bar, "Margarita Friday" turned into "Margarita Saturday", followed closely by "Margarita Sunday".

Still, the weekend was productive. MizBubs and the girls spent the better part of the weekend working in the yard and garden. MizBubs, handiest gal in town, found the leak that was causing our pond to drain--thankfully it was a 2 inch split in the hose running from the pump up to the waterfall, so a pretty easy repair job, compared to tearing up several hundred pounds of concrete and stone. More on all that yard stuff later. Why?

Because now I'm here to talk about clown crime.

I didn't plan on blogging at all this week, but a couple of items jumped out at me and I felt compelled to bring them to your attention. Remember, it's almost Memorial Day, and that means that carnivals are on the move. And when the carny smells of deep fried fat, human sweat and cheap beer are in the air, the clown is close behind. Just as it is with alligators, the best defense against clown crime is constant vigilance!

A clown wearing a top hat robbed a Fredericksburg, Virginia CVS store of $6,000 worth of Oxycontin and Methadone.

Ronald Schroeder, better known as "Silly the Clown", is in custody in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He stands accused of raping his unconscious girlfriend. Silly took photos of the event, and when cops arrested him they also (surprise!) seized child porn on his computer. You can read the criminal complaint here. Alcohol was involved.

Schroeder should probably have called himself "Stalker the Clown" since he had two restraining orders filed against him in the past.

Schroeder's case involves computers, email and messaging. Is there a trend here? Remember, just a few weeks ago popular Colorado children's entertainer "Giggles the Clown" got arrested for using the internet to lure an underage sex partner.

Authorities in Tuscon, Arizona recently convicted half of a quartet of criminals known as the "Clown Robbers." A closer examination of this case, however, revealed that the offenders were not actually working clowns, but merely common criminals who wore clown disguises.

My Christmas Spirit Refuses to Die!

Not even sleep deprivation, sex offenders, violent crime, overtime, work-related holiday parties, drug overdose, autopsy and bureaucracy, can wreck my sense of holiday cheer. Nope. My Christmas spirit is indomitable.

This last week was something.

Our family, for all its chaotic zaniness, has always placed a premium on buying and decorating a tree together every year. Over the past couple of years, though, our tree-buying expeditions have gotten smaller, and I’ve missed the decorating once or twice as well. This year Hannah (our youngest) and I managed to get a tree while MizBubs and the Mad Seamstress were both at work. It was important to get the tree last Sunday afternoon, because I had to go out of town for a couple days to attend a seminar, and we didn’t want to wait much longer. So, we got the tree, bundled it into the back of the minivan, and got it home. We didn’t get time to put it up before I left on Monday. MizBubs did an admirable job of cutting it, getting it inside, and set up in our dining room while I was gone. It’s still there, undecorated. It’s been there all week like that, fresh and green and piney-smelling, but oddly naked.

I spent a couple days in Champaign, Illinois, attending a class on investigating officer-involved shootings. My department sent me to this class by myself, and I didn’t really know anyone else in the class. This meant that, for the first time in 18 years, I went to bed early while I was out of town at a seminar. I ate a good meal at a place called Radio Maria, and found a neat little vintage shop called Carrie’s, where I got some good gifts that I can’t talk about here without spoiling someone’s surprise. Best of all, I found a pristine copy of Hillbilly Holiday for $5! The CD contains four extra tracks of hillbilly Christmas goodness featuring Faron Young, Johnny Horton, the Davis Sisters and Buck Owens. It's out of print, and the cheapest I've seen it on Amazon is $50!

The class was informative and good, but two days of studying worst-case scenarios, gunshot wounds, lawsuits, police fatalities and the like left me a little drained and happy to get home. Then it was back to work, trying to catch up on some administrative crap and some cases I was working on to clear my desk for my 13-day holiday. Most of it was just routine—lots of forgeries and financial crimes, and the usual thefts and domestic batteries. I had one woman who believed someone else used her name during a 1985 arrest (she found out during a background check she had to undergo for a license she was applying for) and wanted her name cleared. The mug photo from 1985 was gone, the arresting officer long since retired. I got the original inked fingerprints from 1985, and submitted them as “unknown”; the results matched to the woman I was dealing with. According to the fingerprints, she was, in fact, the person arrested by our department back in 1985. I don’t see how someone could forget being arrested 20 years ago, but I guess it happens.

Then this weekend hit. An 18 year old girl died in her bed early Saturday morning. It looks like it was probably an overdose; I went to the autopsy Sunday morning and the medical examiner explained the telltale signs. We won't know for sure for at least 6 or 8 weeks, when the toxicology report comes back. What got me, and this is the first time something like this ever happened to me, was that the girl looked quite a bit like my oldest daughter. I tracked down her boyfriend, who I know as a burglar and junkie, ready to tear into him. Instead, I found myself faced with a 20 year old, on methadone for 6 months now after a 4-year addiction to heroin, who couldn’t stop crying because of his dead girlfriend. I did get an idea of where she might have scored before she died, but we might never know for sure.

That same weekend one of our officers caught a weenie-waver at the library. The freak was kneeling between the stacks, tugging away, and the officer grabbed him and handcuffed him so quickly the freak didn’t have time to get the, uh, offending part back in his pants. I talked to this guy for almost 2 hours, and found out that he loves visiting local libraries and masturbates in public or exposes himself almost every day. He also prefers looking at porn on the computers at the Chicago Public Libraries, because, he said “it’s easier.” Oh well. He had a stack of computer-printed photos, folded up and, eh..stuck together...with him when he got arrested. He printed them (thanks Chicago Public Library!) from a website that specializes in fully-clothed young women sitting on, and trampling, and rubbing their feet in the faces of passive, dopey-looking men.

I finally got to the end of the workday yesterday, and attended my final work-related party of the season. I bugged out early and got home to watch the second half of the Bears game. The best thing about yesterday turned out to be falling asleep during the post-game, snoozing happily in my knowledge of a Bears win with a belly full of holiday bourbon.

I’m cooking dinner for my family for the first time in over a week tonight: Cajun fish, sweet potatoes and greens. After dinner we’ll finally decorate our naked little Christmas tree, and all will be right with the world.

Oh, and I hope to have some more fun stuff posted later this week, before our trip to Indiana.