Tag Archives: crime

The secret to the good life…

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The good people of Charlotte are far more tolerant and understanding than I have a tendency to be. If you and your friends step out onto the interstate in order to “protest,” I don’t feel bad at all if one of you finds yourself under the bus. I understand people stopping for the assembled crowd in front of them, but the first time a rock slammed into my windshield or I felt my life was otherwise endangered, I don’t believe I’d have any moral compunction about using 4-wheel drive and 381 horsepower to cleave through that crowd like a hot knife. I don’t ever seek violence, but don’t think for a minute that I’m shy about using every weapon I have at hand to preserve my own life. I value it far more than I do that of someone who decides wading out into the middle of I-85 is a good way to make their point.

I’m beginning to feel like a broken record when I say things like this, but then again I’ve never had much a warm fuzzy for organized “protestors.” In my experience the only thing they’re much good for was lunchtime entertainment back in the olden days when I worked in DC. Those Million Whatever marches, though, were mostly harmless for the average tourist or office worker. If your idea of a protest involves endangering life and destroying property, you’ve really ceased to be sympathetic in my estimation.

Wake up. Go to work. Come home. Make dinner. Have a few hours of entertainment. Go to bed. Repeat. There’s no great secret to the good life, but you kind of have to work for it… and no, looting the local Walmart and throwing rocks at commuters does not count as work.

The hood life…

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My neighborhood has an internal Facebook-style social media site that keeps homeowners apprised of the latest news of our small slice of Ceciltucky. The vast majority of updates are made when someone is having a yard sale, there’s going to be an association meeting, or some other important civic event. This past week, though, the whole feed has been given over to a recent spate of crimes that threaten to drag our quiet neighborhood down into the gutter with Baltimore or the unfortunate souls who live in Elkton proper.

You see, over the last three days there have been empty bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade found thrown into several yards. One of these bottles had the audacity to land in someone’s driveway and shatter. On another thread, there is news of an unnamed presidential candidate’s sign that was stolen from someone’s yard. The neighbors are up in arms over the effrontery of the vandals, thugs, and hoodlums plying their trade in our usually bucolic subdivision.

There’s wild talk in the hood about installing gates, and cameras, and streetlights and I love my neighborhood for having such a massive hissy fit of an overreaction to a $5 crime. It’s one of the ways I know I’m among good people. After spending a few years living in a suburban Memphis neighborhood where car windows were regularly smashed and at least one burglary was reported a month, I just kind of chuckle to myself. This is probably the safest neighborhood I’ve ever called home so I’m cautiously optimistic that cooler heads will prevail before someone calls an association meeting to approve a special assessment for security upgrades.

My guess, if only based on the type of bottles involved, is that it’s local neighborhood kids being stupid. Sure, you’ll want to stop that before it escalates beyond a few thrown bottles and a missing yard sign, but in the grand scheme I don’t think we’re seeing the birth of a new and terrible criminal enterprise along the banks of the Elk River.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go back to living the hood life here on the upper reaches of the Eastern Shore.

See and say…

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Over the last couple of days there’s been a rash of motorcycle and 4-wheeler thefts in the county. Asshat or asshats unknown have broken into a number of local sheds and garages to ply their trade. Knowing that it’s been a recent issue is probably the only reason I noticed the “young adult” pushing a dirt bike just off the side of one of my rural commuter route. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but the coffee kicked in and I realized that a teenager pushing a dirt bike around that section of road was, in fact, unusual by definition. In a year of making that drive at about the same time five days a week I’d never seen so much as a telltale trail into the woods where someone might be riding, let alone actually seen someone riding a bike or a quad.

So yeah, I started off the morning by putting in a call to the Sheriff’s office to file an unsolicited report of the location and description of the young white male of average height wearing a dark hoodie pushing what appeared to be a white dirt bike of unknown make. Maybe it was nothing. It was probably nothing. On the other hand, maybe I helped get some little shitbird caught and someone’s property returned.

I did ponder for a few seconds if I wanted to bother given the likelihood that it was some neighborhood kid and that even if it weren’t, but the time some deputy got a chance to drive through the area he’d as likely as not be long gone with the bike. Still, it was that nagging thought that if he’s one of the ones going into garages at night and stealing shit, I really want someone to catch up with him.

I got the chance to put “see something, say something” into practice today. It wasn’t exactly foiling the next big terror plot or anything, but I knew it felt just unusual enough that I’d be annoyed with myself all day long if I didn’t take the effort to make a simple phone call. At worst I inconvenienced a deputy and some kid had to answer a few questions. At best, someone in blue got another lead on tracking these creeps down.

I’m not at all sure why I’m bothering to write any of this down, let alone hit the publish button… but the up side is it saves you from reading another in a long line of gripes and complaints about the office. Maybe we should all be thankful that my path crossed a young man pushing a motorcycle this morning.

2+2 = Ardvark…

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I want to make one thing clear up front. What I’m about to say isn’t political. There are plainly idiots on both sides of the issue and I have no wish to associate with either flavor of crackpot. With that said, here’s the deal as simply and plainly as I can lay it out for you.

I am an armed American citizen. I’ve lived in a home where firearms were present since the 20th of June 1978 and I’ve personally owned, maintained, and used a variety handguns, rifles, and shotguns. In 34 years I’ve never used any of those firearms to kill anything more threatening than a paper target or the occasional marauding watermelon. You see, I was taught to respect firearms long before I was old enough to really understand the incredible power they have to destroy. I was taught how and when to use them, on the range, in the woods, and in my own defense. I was never taught to fear a firearm any more than I was taught to fear a hammer, saw, or other tool.

Sitting on its own in a dresser drawer or propped in a corner behind the door, I’ve never known a firearm to discharge itself. The only time I’ve ever seen a round leave the barrel is when a living, breathing person pulled the trigger. The weapon itself didn’t have any intent, evil or otherwise. The bullet simply went where the barrel was pointed when the gun was fired. That’s all a long way of saying that if you’re looking for someone to blame when it comes to violent acts that involve a firearm, start with the person who pointed it at another human being and pulled the trigger.

Blaming the gun is pretty much like saying it’s the bat rather than the player who hits the home run. Just how far out of the park would the ball go if there wasn’t a player swinging that bat? Take away the visceral, emotional reaction that so many have when it comes to having a reasoned, logical discussion about firearms and I find we’re really talking about bad people performing heinous acts. The fact that a gun, or a knife, or a rock, or a thermonuclear bomb was involved becomes secondary at best. To mix my metaphors even further, it’s the criminal who commits the crime, not the car that he drove to reach the crime scene. Sure, you could make that argument, but it makes about as much sense as 2+2 = Ardvark.

Criminal class…

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Dear Criminals,

I get that times are a little tough lately and that maybe you’re having a hard time keeping food on the table, or filling the tank so you can get to your regular job, or for whatever other nobel reason you have felt compelled to turn to the life on an outlaw. I know that Memphis is usually a criminal’s playground, but in the future we’re really going to have to insist that you keep that stuff inside the loop. The nice suburbanites out east don’t like it when you start robbing their banks. It makes us all nervous and jerky and in a state that has so many soccer moms with gun permits, nervous and jerky is not a good thing.

While we’re on the topic of banks, you might want to reconsider your mark. Sure, Willie Sutton robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” but lets face it, this isn’t 1933 and most money is electronic now. Basically, by robbing a bank all you’ve done is make sure that instead of just Memphis police looking for you, the local FBI office now has a flag raised on you too. Maybe you’re not public enemy number one, but when it comes to criminal enterprise, the fewer people looking for you the better, don’t you think? You’d have been far better off knocking over a couple of Kwik-E-Marts and a liquor store. I’m just sayin’.

In selecting a life of crime, I understand that your long range planning skills probably leave something to be desired, but in the future I hope you will consider that most banks actually have working alarm systems and cameras and that instead of having a lonely retail clerk giving them a description of your unmasked face, the police and FBI now have you on film from several angels and a remarkably detailed description of the late model Pontiac you used as your getaway car.

In closing, I hope you’ll remember in the future that you suck at crime, probably at life too… But at accessorizing, you’re a champ. The apron really makes a statement.

Sincerely,

Jeff

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High speed…

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Memphis is a wonderful town and has been a place of many firsts for me. Friday night added another to that list… I got to see my first ever high speed chase. Having watched much of the trainwreck unfold in my rear-view mirror, I was pleased to be able to watch the show to its logical conclusion… The suspect jumped a curb, scattered a group of pedestrians/potential drug, dealers and did a header into a telephone pole… and then jumped out of the car and immediately fell over.

This won’t surprise anyone, but I cackled like a hyena the rest of the way home. I love it when bad things happen to stupid people.