Police Beat Roundtable #6

The sixth installment of our ongoing look at that most charming column of the Daily Universe. Previous installments can be read here , here, here, here and here.

This time, a special guest: Kenneth J. Jennings III.

Basketball Assault

A BYU fan assaulted a Utah fan after the basketball game between the two schools on Jan. 25. After the game, a BYU fan and Utah fan began arguing. The Utah fan was blowing a long trumpet-like horn in the BYU fan’s face. The BYU fan shoved the horn, and the mouthpiece hit the Utah fan’s tooth and chipped it. The Utah fan was treated at the First Aid Room. The two individuals shook hands and had no further problems.

Steve: Putting the “moron” in Moroni.

GST: What was this “trumpet-like” horn? A cornet?

Steve: Bugle. Not the savory snack variety, neither.

GST: If I ever meet a guy at a basketballing contest with a cornet, I’ll beat him to death with it. Let me get that on the record.

Ken: I was picturing a French horn before the helpful Police Beat-provided imagery.

Cynthia: What is it with guys and fighting then being friends?

Ken: I like the happy ending though. “And they had no further problems, ever. The end.”

Steve: Cynthia is silent. She was a Cornet major in undergrad. Minor in tooth-chipping.

Cynthia: actually, I have vast experience with tooth-chipping, but no degree. I should get one of those degrees where they give you credit for life experience.

Steve: You’re the Sarah Palin of tooth-chipping.

Cynthia: ouch!!

Ken: I may not be chipping teeth in that fancy Washington way!

Steve: a maverick tooth chipper, out there, taking shots.

GST: She studied tooth-chipping at 7 undistinguished universities in 5 years.

Cynthia: you compare me to Caribou Barbie again and I quit!

Cash was stolen from the feminine hygiene machines in the Wilkinson Center between Jan. 25 and Jan. 26. If anyone sees someone prying open the feminine hygiene machine, please contact the police immediately.

GST: Contact police before she bleeds out.

Ken: Typically Daily Universe. If it bleeds, it leads.

Cynthia: lolz. How do they know somebody was trying to steal the money, and not the product — desperate times call for desperate measures

Steve: if someone is desperate enough for a tampon to PRY THE MACHINE OPEN with her bare hands — let her have the thing already.

Ken: I call for the maxi-mum sentence for this offender.

GST: groan.

Steve: nicely done.

Cynthia: no way gst, that was awesome

GST: With wings!

Ken: The Lightdays dispenser was ransacked on Jan 25-26. Then the regular one on the 27-28. Then the Lightdays one again through the 30th.

Steve: The cycle of violence

Cynthia: now we’re all wondering what pseudonym ken uses at FMH.

Steve: padding the truth!

Cynthia: Steve your puns = FAIL

Ken: On FMH I am WiccaLady1974 btw.

Cynthia: ummmmmm

A 43-year-old visitor was assaulted at 8:10 p.m. on March 12 in the Marriott Center. The victim, who was attending the dance competitions, reported she was bending over to get a drink from the drinking fountain when something hit her on the back. When she stood up she noticed a sharp pain on her lower left side, and she reached back to find a metal object in her back. She tried to get the object out of her back, but had to receive assistance. The object turned out to be a long finishing nail stuck an inch and a half in her back. She was transported to the Utah Valley Medical Center for treatment. While she was being treated, she emphatically stated, “Don’t tell my husband about this!” No suspects have been identified at this point, but the nail was booked for evidence.

GST: If I found out that my wife got in the way of a nail gun again, I would be FURIOUS with her.

Ken: No charges have been pressed against the nail, which has so far only been identified as a “fastener of interest.”

Also — Please hammer don’t hurt her.

Cynthia: ok I’m calling it, you made this one up

Ken: Is one of these always fake?

Steve: A note at the scene read “I just nailed your wife at the dance competition”

Ken: Ha!

Steve: good thing the cops kept this one under wraps for her. No siree, no publicity.

GST: Turns out the woman was actually a piece of lumber, so it wasn’t a crime.

Ken: LaDon and the Real Girl visit the stake dance.

GST: “Lumber” is a fun word.

Cynthia: agreed

Steve: Such is the peril when you cheat on your husband with a carpenter. Was there someone with a blowgun full of finishing nails, just waiting for another sucker to use the water fountain?

GST: Every now and then, you find a Police Beat item that cries out for a feature story. This is one of them. Perhaps a long piece in the Daily Universe Magazine, perhaps by Joan Didion.

Steve: lolz

Ken: I’m mostly interested in the “Don’t tell my husband.” Sounds like similar carpentry-related attacks have happened before.

Steve: Agnes of Lumber

HIT AND RUN-Two men went into the Sinclair gas station at 175 E. 800 North in Orem Wednesday night, grabbed four cases of Budweiser beer and ran out the door.

The clerk gave chase as the two men ran north through the parking lot. As the clerk followed the perpetrators through a hole in the fence, 20-year-old Christopher Adam Hill, of Provo, punched him in the head to help his escaping friends get away. Though dazed, the clerk grabbed hold of Hill and wrestled him to the ground.

One of the fleeing thieves, seeing Hill struggling with the clerk, ran back and started to hit and kick the clerk in an effort to free his friend. The clerk was able to grab the thief’s leg and remove one of his shoes before he abandoned Hill and ran away. The clerk kept Hill in a headlock until police arrived on the scene.

A customer at the store who saw the incident called police to alert them of the robbery and ensuing details. Hill, who had two warrants for his arrest, was arrested for assault and retail theft. Police know the identity of the other two who escaped and will be rounding them up soon.

The clerk went to Orem Community Hospital for stitches in his ear. The cases of stolen beer were found nearby the gas station, as the thieves had dropped them. It appeared that, absent their friend Hill to enjoy the beers with, the perpetrators were not interested.

Cynthia: “gave chase” is such a great phrase — way to raise the bar on literacy in PBR, whoever wrote this

Steve: I wonder if they get extra credit for punny titles.

Cynthia: er, in PB….PBR is us (and clearly literacy not raised here)

Ken: Is this really Police Beat? I didn’t know its jurisdiction went that far north.

Steve: next week it will be the Pocatello Police.

Ken: Not that I wouldn’t like to see Police Beat investigations creeping northward…meth in Ogden, cow-tipping in Tremonton, maybe the Larry Craig thing…

GST: The clerk is like the Terminator. He wasn’t going to quit.

Steve: There are plenty of wide stances to be found in the Wilk bathrooms. No need to venture off campus.

Cynthia: this is the clerk’s telling of the events, ya?

Steve: you suspect conspiracy to commit beer theft?

Cynthia: so what really happened is that his ex-g/f beat him up, and he came up with this heroic sounding story to cover it up

GST: Circle K expects every man to do his duty.

Ken: No way, he got one of the shoes! That’s totally, like, evidence.

GST: They do pay him $6.80 an hour, you realize. Nearly losing his ear is the least he can do.

Cynthia: maybe his g/f wears men’s shoes?

Ken: And regularly steals beer on his shift.

Steve: The shoes later were found in court not to fit Mr. Hill’s accomplices. If the Keds don’t fit, you must acquit!

Ken: A massive shoe-fitting search is underway throughout all the kingdom!

GST: If the shoes ain’t tight, you may indict!

A man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to steal the bike of a boy almost 40 years younger than him. Witnesses reported Louis Williams, a 42-year-old Provo resident, approached two young boys riding their bikes in the area of 400 W. and 200 South. He commented that one of the bikes was “cool,” pushed the 3-year-old boy off of his bicycle and left with it. The bike was found in a nearby trash receptacle, according to the report.

GST: The guy had his reasons. Let’s not judge him too harshly.

Steve: I see no crime here. The law of the Jungle permits cool bikes to be taken by the strongest.

Cynthia: morally, this must fall beneath taking candy from a baby…since presumably one would eat the candy.

Ken: If the Big Wheel in question actually was “cool,” as the suspect stipulates, he gets off, right?

GST: Do kids still have Big Wheels?

Steve: “You Honor, I submit that this rusting Huffy is not ‘cool’ at all!”

GST: Not these kids, I mean. I realize they don’t have them anymore.

Ken: My kids do, but we buy them all 1970s clothes and toys from D.I. No Jeopardy money for you, brats.

GST: That’s why your son looks like Huggy Bear, Ken.

Cynthia: the real crime by this guy is not considering the self-esteem of the kid whose bike wasn’t stolen

Cynthia: now he knows his bike was inferior.

Steve: Interestingly, the man was only wearing a single shoe.

Ken: I like that Police Beat points up the age gap between the suspect and the toddler. Their May-December relationship could never last.

GST: Yes, Police Beat finds a moral voice! Rampant creeping editorialism infects PB.

Cynthia: May-Decembers don’t last, but this is like February-December, which are kind of similar actually — maybe it wraps around?

Ken: This is the Anna Nicole Smith of campus crime.

An individual reported a phishing e-mail, allegedly from eBay, asking him to confirm personal information. He called eBay, and they confirmed they had not sent the message.

GST: He then proceeded to buy tickets to Phish on eBay.

Steve: wow! How did this not hit the national desk??

Cynthia: eBay later confirmed being annoyed by stupid phone calls. P.S. raise your hand, all who have been to a Phish concert.

Ken: I send all my spam to the Universe first. “Nigeria confirms that its former dictator sent no such email.”

GST: You gotta love the guy that hangs up after his call to eBay and thinks, “I should probably alert the police.”

Ken: Campus police cybercrimes unit! They’ll know what to do.

Cynthia: self-importance is the defining characteristic of all individuals who appear in Police Beat.

GST: Especially that stupid woman that was punctured by a nail gun. I’m sick of her.

Ken: “Oh, I have a finishing nail sticking out of my lower back! I need campus police! Whine whine whine.”

Cynthia: ok, ok, I take it back.

GST: Exactly!

Cynthia: er, so to speak.

An unknown person used a washable wipe marker to write obscenities such as “poo-poo” and “poo” on a black Denali parked in Heritage Halls on Nov. 25.

Cynthia: those are obscenities?

Ken: He was going to right “Poor SUV…wash me!” but he stutters.

GST: Community standards of decency, Cynthia.

Steve: That is just outstanding.

Cynthia: maybe the vehicle was being used as a Chinese take-out delivery vehicle….get it?…..pu-pu platter?

Steve: Worst joke in the history of the PBR, Cynthia.

Ken: You can get kicked out of Provo bowling alleys for bowling as “ASS” or “POO.” Racial slurs are okay though. Uh, I hear.

Steve: a washable wipe marker, not a flushable wipe one.

GST: Poo. Honestly!

Ken: The transitory nature of the act adds to the genius of the graffiti art.

Cynthia: what is the meaning of it being a black Denali then?

Ken: Hate crime!

Steve: it was a poo-colored Denali.

GST: I still refer to my SUV as a black Mt. McKinley.

Ken: My parents used to describe the house where we lived in the late 1970s as “baby-sh#$ brown.” But I’ve never heard it as a car color.

GST: Ken, your parents were using code language for heroin. Sorry to break it to you.

Ken: this is some good baby-sh@#!

Cynthia: I thought baby sh#$ is yellow?

Ken: It was an ochre color.

Ken: Other nearby cars were marked “potty”, “wee-wee,” and “there’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance.”

GST: lol

Steve: there was one car marked with “ca-ca,” some suggested it was a foreign gang.

A female student reported that a suspicious male followed her to the testing center on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. The man was yelling profanities, claiming white dominance and telling the student men can and should dominate women. He left after she got to the testing center. The suspect is reported to be 6 foot 3 inches, in his 20’s, and bald. Police are investigating.

Cynthia: yay, SM!

Steve: White Power Bill is a campus institution.

Cynthia: he was yelling, “poo! poo!”

GST: The saddest part is, when he was in the Testing Center, he scored a 92 on an American Heritage exam.

Ken: Wait, so this suspicious male is actually white? So much for my “suspicious male” theory.

Steve: He was helping her to study. She was going for her Aryan Patriarchy 310 final.

Cynthia: if only he had yelled, “men can and should preside over women”

Ken: Maybe he was a blind guy who thought he was white, like one of those hilarious Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor movies.

“Fathers are to preside in the home! Poo! Poo! Potty!”

Steve: “MEN SHOULD PRESIDE IN EQUALITY! IT’S NOT ABOUT DOMINANCE!!!!! IT’S A LOVING RELATIONSHIP OF EQUALS! WHITE POWER!”

Also, Ken I hate to break it to you – but your theory is shot to hell now. Good thing Tree-beck didn’t have a “Suspicious Male” daily double out there for you.

Cynthia: are you allowed to have a shaved head, or is that an “extreme” hairstyle?

Steve: it was not a shaved head Cynthia. BALD. Like White Power Jean-Luc Picard. He was playing a whimsical flute he once acquired from a space probe, while shouting aryan threats and dominating Counselor Troi on her way to the Testing Center.

GST: There are other ways to win the label “suspicious male” label that don’t involve being non-white. You can also have a beard, cut-off jeans, a porn-stache, a Night Ranger t-shirt, or a monocle, spats, and stick.

Cynthia: who goes bald in their 20s? That’s suspicious

Ken: If he DID have a beard, that does jibe with his inability to follow her into the testing center. Not sure what their policy is on monocles, pirate dress, etc.

GST: Yeah, I like to think that they let insane, screaming white power freaks wonder in and out of there at-will, so long as they are clean-shaven.

Ken: And have two sharpened #2 pencils.

Steve: His shorts were of the requisite length, and his SS Death-Head T-shirt appeared to be clean and tidy.

A student reported a suspicious male to BYU police on Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 6:30 p.m. The subject was dressed in all black and armed with knives. After investigations, police concluded the subject was a member of a medieval club on campus and he was dressed in costume.

Cynthia: ha! he was probably singing too, that is very suspicious.

Ken: And playing the lute. You can’t spell “lusting” without “luting”!

All black and armed with knives? Medieval Japan, maybe.

Steve: BYU police then launched him from a trebuchet over the Smith Field House.

Ken: Is there a campus ninja re-enactment club?

Steve: This is why Goth guys are so grumpy, cuz THE MAN is always hassling!

Cynthia: playing the lute is suspicious, those things are notorious for encouraging violations of the law of chastity

Ken: Gene R Cook was once sitting next to a famous lute player on a plane, who admitted he got into luting just to get teenagers to have sex with each other.

On Oct. 26 a student employee in the Harold B. Lee Library discovered a clear bag filled with a white crystalline substance. The student tasted the substance and because it tasted bitter, reported the bag to the police. The police concluded the substance was citric acid. The student shows no medical problems to date. Police said they discourage students from tasting unidentified substances.

Cynthia: wow, is this the same guy who put the suspicious package in the microwave? roommates maybe?

Steve: The student, Sonny Crockett, was then cited for not wearing socks.

Ken: He reported it because it tasted bitter. If it had been sweet or salty, Mr CSI would have just finished the bag.

Steve: How on earth did the police conclude that it was citric acid? They can test for Citric Acid??

Cynthia: maybe the bag was labeled?

Steve: Someone had scrawled ‘Fun Dip’ on the side of the baggie with a washable wipe marker. also, “poo-poo” and “poo.”

–GST is on the phone with Poison Control right now, hoping that he didn’t just spend $300 on citric acid.

Cynthia: they should pre-emptively expel this kid for violation of the honor code–he finds a bag he thinks is blow, and the first thing he does is take some?

Ken: Maybe a baggie of citric acid is used to dilute street drugs, like baby laxative. Someone was violating that old BYU dictum: “Cougars Don’t Cut Cocaine.”

Ken: I found a baggie of oregano-looking stuff in the HBLL once, and immediately used it to make a nice pesto for the girls apartment across the way.

GST: poo-poo!

Steve: all right, I think GST is checked out. Let’s call it, folks.