Workin' on the Man

Let's talk police.

In general, I have no problem with the police. I am, as always, a perfectly good law abiding citizen who has never had any reason to run through my neighbor's yard, over a fence, and down an alley to avoid the police. Really.

However, in the past week or two, there have been several incidents involving law enforcement that just beg for me, as a fine upstanding card carrying member of the "would be journalists" club, to lay the mock-down on the cops.

So, let's start in Washington, where of course nothing silly ever happens. Correct? Not so, says CNN, who informed me that a toy gun was smuggled past police at the Cannon House Office Building. Apparently, the image of the gun, part of a Halloween costume, showed up on the monitor but by the time police responded, the bag was gone. Normally, my first concern about something like this would be the failure of the police to notice something as obvious as, say, a gun in their monitors. But really, the story brings up the question. Why, exactly were there costumes being allowed into the office building? It is a place for government, not for fun! I'm left with this terrible mental image of Dick Gephardt drunk at a party, running around with a Gary Condit mask on yelling "I killed the intern! I killed the intern!"

God help us if Kennedy finds his way over there.

But back to the main point. The police really have egg all over their face over this little toy gun. To be fair, however, it's not just the police in the States who sometimes have trouble dealing with fake weapons of water destruction. Let's skirt on over to Britannia for a second and check out the scene in Jolly Ole' London.

Imagine, you are sitting in the Northern Institute of Cosmetology (does anyone else picture a massive compound of hairdressers with padded rooms when they hear this? No? Just checking.) when you look outside and see your nine year old son being arrested and thrown into a cruiser. Do you, A) Go and try to rescue him or B) finish your perm? If you picked A, than you're a good, respectable parent and if you picked B we're going to have to castrate you.

Anyway. This very scene occurred on October 28th, when Tamyka Saunders looked out the window and saw her nine year old son being handcuffed and thrown into a police cruiser at gunpoint. (The Morning Journal) Turns out her son had been sitting outside with a toy gun, and the police were called by a concerned citizen. And by concerned, I mean "dumb." Said a police spokesman, when questioned, "We're not going to tolerate anyone walking down the street, sitting on a bench ... if he's waving a gun around." When asked if they would tolerate people walking down the street or sitting on a bench while holding a gun steady, the officer flipped off the press core, called them all "bloody wankers," and shot the lot of them.

Next, let's head over to lovely Brazil, where the police department has clearly watched far, far too many episodes of Baywatch. In a huge undercover operation, a special fifty member unit of the Rio de Janeiro department will be stripping down to their swimwear to patrol the beaches. (abcnews.com) The plan is to send special force operatives onto the beaches to look for mafia meetings, drug dealers, and treacherous thieves roaming the finely combed beaches. Ideally, by not wearing anything but swimwear, the police will be completely undercover. What people have forgotten is that, given a policeman's natural propensity towards the mass consumption of all things donut-like, the bad guys will be able to avoid the cops by just "running when you see a fat guy."

Despite my mocking, though, the police really do a pretty good job of keeping the world safe and alien free. Just because they occasionally go into silly Police Academy style hijinx is no reason to take potshots at the whole institution.

Unless it's with a toy gun.