Meant to Amuse, Not to Offend
I live in a place with crime. A couple of years back, I fed the FBI stats into MS-Access and found that this community of 10,000 ranked 166th out of every incorporated community in the United States. 166th may not sound that high, but you have to consider that this is out of every town and to make matters worse, as you stairstep towards Albuquerque, the 3rd "most dangerous" city in the US based on violent crime according to some sources, the places in between ranked higher (lower?) in my database.
Luckily, most of the crime in my community is property. Be it a run-of-the-mill break-in to someone having a bunch of people over to party and when it was over, they discovered money or something missing from the house. There are lots of other regular occurrences along these same veins, but luckily, the violent crimes are generally limited to a couple a year and the really strange, such as the cop that came back from Iraq to find his house stripped, including the toilets and windows are also pretty rare.
There's also been a problem with corruption. When they hired a new jail administrator, jailbreaks or the public information about them stopped. It was also around this time that new procedures were put in place to stop the guards from stealing and selling the prisoner's property. I've mentioned it before, but one of our more high profile jailbreaks was when a former guard was incarcerated for letting someone escape to Mexico. The current guards gave him the keys and left him in charge, while they went to pickup crack for the prisoners. One of the prisoners didn't have any cash, so they had to go by his mother's house to get his contribution and while they were gone, their former co-worker escaped.
We also have our share of white collar crime. Perhaps the biggest story lately has been the person charged with overseeing non-taxpayer student athletic funds, who stands accused of embezzling $28,000. This story broke around the same time as the special ed teacher, track and assistant football coach, who lied about his identity and resume to get hired, a fact that was discovered after he was arrested for using one of his students as a go-between in the purchase of drugs.
By far our biggest white collar story is the situation surrounding the county treasurer's office. In 2003, it was discovered that if you paid your property taxes in cash, you'd get a receipt but some of the employees would divvy up the money. Estimates are that the missing funds may total around $500,000 and it was an ongoing operation for years. At the center of this story is the wife of the local magistrate. It is pretty common knowledge that if anything ever comes of the case, she'll probably be the one to stand trial. I'm not certain if she has ever been formally charged with the missing cash, but I know that it hasn't come to trial. She was actually arrested for misappropriating a couple of thousand in checks, but I also don't think that has ever gone to trial.
With all of this background in place and though I could cite other examples and actually considered footnoting this post with a multitude of links, I'm continually amused that every "Police Blotter" column in the local papers are guaranteed to have a couple of entries along the lines of the one that follows;
March 26thA 51 year-old woman in the 700 block of N. Sixth St reported at 3:32pm that a woman kept staring at her. When she asked why, the 47 year-old suspect made a derogatory remark. Suspect was contacted and admitted exchanging words, but said the victim started it.
Luckily, most of the crime in my community is property. Be it a run-of-the-mill break-in to someone having a bunch of people over to party and when it was over, they discovered money or something missing from the house. There are lots of other regular occurrences along these same veins, but luckily, the violent crimes are generally limited to a couple a year and the really strange, such as the cop that came back from Iraq to find his house stripped, including the toilets and windows are also pretty rare.
There's also been a problem with corruption. When they hired a new jail administrator, jailbreaks or the public information about them stopped. It was also around this time that new procedures were put in place to stop the guards from stealing and selling the prisoner's property. I've mentioned it before, but one of our more high profile jailbreaks was when a former guard was incarcerated for letting someone escape to Mexico. The current guards gave him the keys and left him in charge, while they went to pickup crack for the prisoners. One of the prisoners didn't have any cash, so they had to go by his mother's house to get his contribution and while they were gone, their former co-worker escaped.
We also have our share of white collar crime. Perhaps the biggest story lately has been the person charged with overseeing non-taxpayer student athletic funds, who stands accused of embezzling $28,000. This story broke around the same time as the special ed teacher, track and assistant football coach, who lied about his identity and resume to get hired, a fact that was discovered after he was arrested for using one of his students as a go-between in the purchase of drugs.
By far our biggest white collar story is the situation surrounding the county treasurer's office. In 2003, it was discovered that if you paid your property taxes in cash, you'd get a receipt but some of the employees would divvy up the money. Estimates are that the missing funds may total around $500,000 and it was an ongoing operation for years. At the center of this story is the wife of the local magistrate. It is pretty common knowledge that if anything ever comes of the case, she'll probably be the one to stand trial. I'm not certain if she has ever been formally charged with the missing cash, but I know that it hasn't come to trial. She was actually arrested for misappropriating a couple of thousand in checks, but I also don't think that has ever gone to trial.
With all of this background in place and though I could cite other examples and actually considered footnoting this post with a multitude of links, I'm continually amused that every "Police Blotter" column in the local papers are guaranteed to have a couple of entries along the lines of the one that follows;
March 26thA 51 year-old woman in the 700 block of N. Sixth St reported at 3:32pm that a woman kept staring at her. When she asked why, the 47 year-old suspect made a derogatory remark. Suspect was contacted and admitted exchanging words, but said the victim started it.