The Friday Police Blotter

[captainsblog]

The Buffalo area has way more than its share of crime stories. Some of them are beyond the realm of humor- we exported Timothy McVeigh to Oklahoma City, while importing the murderer of OB-GYN and pro-choice martyr Bart Slepian- and other area expatriates like O.J. Simpson produce mixed emotions of sadness and stupidity.

Today's local stories are just plain goofy, though.

Minimum-security inmate breaks up fight between two county jail guards over bag of chips

The fight erupted April 21 in the Yankee Building, across the street from the jail's main campus in Alden. The building features open housing for prisoners considered to be lesser security risks. The inmate apparently had tried to break up the fight.

Jail supervisors suspended the two officers with pay, as the contract with the Civil Service Employees Association requires. Meanwhile, the sheriff's Professional Standards Unit began an investigation likely to produce disciplinary charges.

"The incident may have been between two officers, but it is an embarrassment to everyone in the Sheriff's Office who takes pride in their job and uniform," Undersheriff Mark N. Wipperman told The News. "Unfortunately, an incident like this really overshadows the professionalism and dedication that the vast majority of our jail management staff brings to work every day."

Wipperman said the disagreement began over "what appears to be the dissemination of food products." A source familiar with the event said a bag of potato chips somehow sparked the fight.

The local blogging media immediately piled on the incident:



References to "betcha can't eat just one": several.

Badly photoshopped image of new community activist t-shirt aimed at shaming the inmate who broke up the fight: just one, so far ::whistles innocently::



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That's the Ghost of Criminals Past. The next story speaks of Criminals Yet to Come.

As mentioned here recently, our local cultural organizations have suffered a major loss of county support. We participated a couple of weeks ago in a grassroots effort to replace some of that funding through volunteer performances by local artists. Yet now, the mayor of Buffalo, who never saw a podium he didn't like, has decided to come to the rescue anyway, proposing a plan that will provide the budget-cut culturals, most of them in the city, with a significant source of replacement funding from his own new budget plan for 2011.

Will this come from surplus taxes? Cuts in spending? Reliable recurring revenues? Nope; it'll be coming from Your Right Foot, and mine, and all the other ones that find the 47 straight red lights on Delaware Avenue to be a bitttt much:

Brown also confirmed that he is prepared to set aside $300,000 to help dozens of cultural groups that saw their funding from Erie County eliminated earlier this year.

But there is a string attached. The mayor wants the onetime grants to be paid for through a controversial red-light cameras program that he's asking the Common Council to implement. Brown said Buffalo should follow the lead of many other cities and install cameras at many busy intersections to nab red-light runners....

As for the red-light camera initiative, Brown said he believes local residents are "overwhelmingly in favor of these cameras." He also cited national statistics indicating that red-light cameras save lives.

These speed demons were authorized by state law in last year's budget, but only in the "Big Four" upstate cities (NYC has had them by separate legislation for some time) and only if their local legislatures stick their necks out and authorize them within their municipal borders. Rochester did so last year, and there are only a few of them, well-marked and never causing me major problems. However, their traffic grid is much more efficiently controlled than the one here, and Buffalo's plan ran into resistance early on when some opponents got word that the mayor was targeting only intersections at, or on major roadways near, the city's borders with surrounding suburbs, thus branding them as HonkyCams.

Perhaps that's what is on Urkel's mind as he renews the effort; if he's going to nab the stupid white people on their way to and (more likely) from the city, why not prey on their senses of guilt by making their need for speed a dedicated funding source for the arts?  I can even see the ad campaigns now:








We could even go with designated sponsors for particular crime scenes. Theater of Youth for school crossing zones; The Fabulous Scintas for all the red light traps on Hertel; and Thursday At The Square around all the corner stores where the underaged kids get their Genny pounders and Four Locos.

As for me? The only one I'm likely to floor it and run over little ladies for is

Comments

[darksumomo.livejournal.com]

On the topic of saving cultural institutions, I blogged about the sad state of metro Detroit's libraries, which was a downer. Your post was a lot more fun. Mind if I copy those images and use them in my next post?

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Be my guest. Can't stop the signal:)

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I like "Floor it for Falstaff." :-D