Police Beat Roundtable #12

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

On the 12th Day of Police Beat, BCC brought to me: Peter LLC as a guest.

Steve: So, because we got so many complaints about PBR #11, we decided to invite aboard someone that nobody finds offensive: Peter LLC.

Cynthia: excellent.

Peter: Really? Not even, say Ray or Ardis?

GST: I find his use of limited liability forms of business organization offensive.

Peter: Hey, it’s my name, initialized.

Cynthia: Ray is PBR’s greatest fan, if we bring him on staff, we lose our greatest fan. Peter, don’t kill the magic for us.

GST: Really? You have two middle names? You think you’re an earl or something?

Peter: Well, not really, but the middle one does start with L.

Steve: His parents named him after their favorite band: Los Lobos.

Peter: Ronan or John Fowles told me to get a new handle ’cause some turd named Peter was already posting under his own name.

Cynthia: where is that Peter now?

Steve: So, you picked LLC because Peter Turd was taken.

GST: I remember that turd. And he is a lot better than you.

Cynthia: I think it’s time you assume your rightful place as just ‘Peter’.

Peter: Stop comparing my front yard to your backyard, gst.

On March 3, a former BYU student was cited for trespassing in the Clyde Building. The individual, who was trying to live in the building, had been kicked out several times before. The individual had set up his bedroll for the evening when police found him.

Peter: Nothing like being caught with your pants down.

Cynthia: Scouting skills, put to good use!

GST: Rudy!

Cynthia: Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! (gst, you can’t say that name only once)

Peter: Down by Provo river doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Clyde Building.”

GST: If you say it three times in the mirror, Rudy appears and kills you.

Cynthia: Actually, make that Ru-dy! Ru-dy! Ru-dy!

Steve: The Clyde Building is like the Telestial Kingdom. If you knew how majestic it was, you would kill yourself to get in (and set up your bedroll).

Peter: If at first you do not succeed, try that old science building on the south of campus. Make that history building.

Cynthia: This guy is just taking the age-old advice: we’er thou art, act well thy part.

Peter: I know I’ve killed for less–a six man pad at Glenwood.

Cynthia: He doesn’t just have a hobo bag with his sleeping things, he has a well-packed bedroll.

Steve: The individual’s name: Clyde.

Peter: Clyde Souls? Wait, no, Soles. He wrote equipment reviews for Rock and Ice magazine. Probably just trying out a new sleeping bag.

GST: Not only does BYU have a police force, they are invested with the Sword of Laban.

Peter: On the right or left shoulder?

Cynthia: dunno, but you can buy the patch on eBay.

GST: Depends on whether they are at war or not.

A black “Quickie” wheelchair valued at $8,000 was stolen from portal Q of LaVell Edwards Stadium Saturday during the football game. The victim is a visitor.

Cynthia: “Slowie,” parked beside it, was not stolen.

Peter: Portal Q–where the U fans congregate?

Steve: The victim was also stolen.

GST: I want to invest in this Quickie wheelchair. It might make going home for lunch worthwhile.

Peter: Another argument for socialized medicine–rising wheelchair costs.

Steve: Medical supply companies can’t keep it in stock. Everyone always pops in for a Quickie.

Cynthia: is the label “visitor” meant to increase empathy (we treat our visitors well) or decrease it (darn Ute, who cares)?

Peter: It was last seen burning out on the baseball field, somewhere around third base.

GST: If the Police Beat writer were an anthropology minor, she would have said, “The victim is The Other.”

Cynthia: if I had a Quickie, I would paint the wheels before parking it at BYU football games, then when someone steals it, I could follow the tracks.

Steve: Tell me more, Nancy Drew!

Cynthia: …either that or smear bread crumbs on the wheels (same idea, but bread crumbs).

Steve: Waste of bread. Leaving paint tracks all over the stadium, however, strikes me as sheer genius.

Peter: I’d go for some small stones.

A mysterious liquid, later identified as urine, was poured under the door of a student in Q Hall of Deseret Towers Nov. 18. The victim was sitting in his dormitory when they began to smell the liquid and identified it as urine. The victim left their room and saw another student walking away from the scene and finally confronted him on the suspect’s floor, where there was a verbal altercation. The victim and the RA cleaned up the mess. The victim was able to identify the suspect, who was cited for disorderly conduct and was sent to Provo 4th District court.

Cynthia: what is mysterious about urine?

Steve: Methylene Blue solves another crime.

Peter: Those chemical markers give it away every time.

Cynthia: RA sounds like good job training for elementary school janitor.

GST: Yes, he might have just applied sawdust liberally. But then you feel like you’re living in a Cracker Barrel. Which, incidentally, is no less urine-soaked.

Peter: Sure, pass off your problems to Provo’s 4th District Court as if they didn’t have enough urine on their hands already. Or on the floor. Whatever, you get my point. Not saying that judges don’t wash after using the john.

Cynthia: this is why they had to blow up DT–too much sawdust had accumulated.

Steve: Ever tried to pour urine or other mysterious liquids under a door? Not an easy task. Plus first you have to get the urine into an Ehrlenmeyer flask.

GST: I thought Peter LLC was supposed to class-up the joint this week? Another great call, Steve.

Steve: Yeah thanks, Pete-turd.

Cynthia: Steve also thought having a chick on staff would bring class, and look how that turned out.

Peter: Whoah, here I am standing up for Provo’s judges and this is the thanks I get?

Steve: Send them a candlestick salad while you’re at it, perv.

Peter: Clearly I’ve fallen in with the wrong crowd. I should have paid more attention to the Mormonads of my youth.

GST: I have all of the Mormonads laminated and spiral bound. They have replaced my scriptures.

Near the northwest steps of lot 22, near the Bean Museum, four people aged about 16 years, came to the Marriott Center for tunnel singing and were approached by two suspicious males who spoke a foreign language. The suspects demanded to see the contents of the four boy’s pockets, told the boys to leave and threatened to hurt them. The suspects were said to be college age and of Asian descent. Later that evening BYU police received a phone call reporting two men throwing eggs and water balloons towards the tunnel singers. One suspect threw a stink bomb at the singers, which burnt a hole in a blanket. Police pursued one individual in the Helaman Halls area but could not catch the suspect. Police are not sure if these two incidents are related.

Steve: DU reporters get paid by the comma.

GST: An incendiary stink bomb. Hardcore.

Peter: Old Boy! Someone was out for revenge!

GST: Charlie don’t tunnel sing!

Cynthia: so local high school kids come to BYU to get in on the tunnel singing action? BYU is an amazing place…

Steve: Asian descent! Good heavens. I am waiting for the D.U. to start identifying suspects based on lineage. “The suspects were said to be of the Tribe of Dan.”

Peter: Aren’t the Helaman Halls basically straight corridors? How do you hide in them?

Cynthia: ninja skillz — they are Asian descent after all.

GST: Just as the Bible is not intended to be an accurate guide to history, Police Beat is not a tactical manual.

Peter: Maybe the police will avail themselves of the insights of phrenology next.

Steve: The stink bomb is a giveaway re: Asian descent. It was a ninja smoke bomb. The police aren’t stupid, that’s how they know the incidents are related.

Cynthia: If it weren’t for the Asian thing, I’d strongly suspect that the suspects are among our PBR staff. Whole lotta hating on tunnel-singers around here.

Steve: Step 1: burn a hole in the blanket.

GST: Yes, Peter. “Officer Lombroso noted that the suspect had the close eyes, heavy brow, and low cheekbones of someone inclined to criminality.”

Peter: The sloping forehead, protruding nose, the breathing through the mouth…open and shut, your honor.

GST: Cynthia, you are correct. I personally have no problem with funneling weapons and materiel to these anti-tunnel signing freedom fighters.

Steve: It turns out the suspect burnt a hole in the blanket OF HIS OWN DAUGHTER!
(that’s for you, Peter)

Peter: After locking her up in his own basement for how long?

Cynthia: wha?

Steve: we’re on the same wavelength.

Peter: It’s an Austrian thing, you wouldn’t understand.

GST: Yeah, in California we have no idea about insane serial killers and kidnappers. What are they all about??

Peter: Just a bunch of wannabe thugs hailing from Compton, dissing the police.

A wheel was stolen off a bicycle from the bike racks of Wyview Park at 4 p.m. on Saturday. A resident called BYU police reporting a male changing wheels. The suspect, a 23-year-old visitor, ran when officers confronted him but finally stopped and admitted he had stolen the tire because he had gotten a flat and didn’t want to walk back to Orem. The suspect was arrested then released. The victim was a 22-year-old student.

Peter: Who wants to walk to Orem? I walked from the University Mall to Glenwood once and it took FOREVER!

Cynthia: can I just register a complaint with the horrid groan-factor of the name “Wyview”

Steve: What, and “Wymount” is just magic?

GST: Wymount is euphonious.

Cynthia: no, “Wymount” and “Wyview” are both atrocities

Peter: I played the euphonium.

GST: Wydontyoukeepyouropiniontoyourself

GST: I played the cacaphonium.

Steve: Officers used the PIT technique on his bike.

Peter: So what’s the scoop with this “catch and release”? Was he released to his roommates?

Steve: They tagged him with a radio transceiver in his mouth.

Cynthia: I think it would be such a delicious irony if the on-foot police chase had lasted all the way back to Orem. Very O. Henry.

Peter: It’s uphill, both ways, No copper gonna make that run on foot.

Two visitors to the BYU Bookstore were arrested for shop lifting after attempting to steal more than $250 in merchandise. The visitors were caught leaving the Bookstore when sensors sounded the alarm. Bookstore employees found the suspects with a large bag filled with stolen merchandise. The bag contained: boxer shorts, the game “Battleship,” a Sony CD player, three phone jacks, 50 feet of phone chord, Duracell AA batteries, a cable lock, a three speed tape recorder, the game “Guess Who,” wrist bands, a 12-pack of cassette tapes, a blue BYU spandex leotard. The suspects were arrested and given a citation.

GST: You sunk my shoplifting scheme!

Cynthia: This person has HORRIBLE taste in games.

Steve: Were these six year olds??!

Peter: Well, at least we can be sure they weren’t TR holders.

Cynthia: also, what is a “three speed” tape recorder?

Peter: The 12 pack of cassettes would have set off alarm bells in my mind had this been at any point after, say, 1989.

Cynthia: have we gone all the way back to the 80s in the PB archive now?

Steve: This list of items is perplexing. One of the perps appears to be in the wired surveillance business. The other appears to be completely retarded.

Peter: Was one of them named John Cusack? He probably should have kept the radio under his jacket rather than holding it over his head.

Cynthia: why does BYU even sell BYU spandex leotards??

Peter: Drill team?

Steve: Also stolen was a tape of some kickboxing. You know, kickboxing? Sport of the future? Don the Dragon Wilson?

Cynthia: men should never wear spandex leotards, and if a messenger bag can make a women scandalous, what of spandex?

Peter: “Do you think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I’m wearin’ these bad boys?”

Steve: GST, you ever played the game Guess Who?

GST: No. Isn’t it a brit-rock band?

Cynthia: Guess Who is kinda racist IIRC.

Steve: Ever see the vid on “How to Win ‘Guess Who’ in One Move?”

GST: Really? I thought I’d played all of the racist board games.

Steve: The Guess Who was a Canadian band, btw, you HACK!

Peter: Huh, I’d have never guessed.

Cynthia: do any of you own wrist bands?

Steve: I sell my own line of SteveStrong bands. They are Magenta.

GST: You frickin’ Canadians. You’ve always got to point out Canadians. “Alan Thicke’s a Canadian, you know. Glass Tiger? You betcha.” No one cares.

Steve: ….but Alan Thicke IS Canadian!

Cynthia: congrats…

GST: Yeah. Put him on a stamp.

Steve: He probably already is.

Peter: A fitting recognition for his contribution to American culture.

Steve: “Canada’s Greatest Weapon.”

Several sofas were stolen from the Harman Continuing Education Building lobby. Members of a BYU singles ward removed the sofas from the lobby claiming they needed the sofas for a ward skit. A custodian attempted to stop the individuals.

Peter: So how did the skit turn out?

Steve: The skit was a morality play, a la Everyman, but focusing on furniture theft.

GST: They beat the custodian to death with his own shoes.

Cynthia: Funny that they say “members of a BYU singles ward”–isn’t that ALL students? Don’t you get kicked out if you’re not a member of a ward?

Steve: Sigh, Cynthia. Your naivete is so charming.

Cynthia: I guess they’re just saying that married students wouldn’t do something that dumb, but that seems like a dubious assumption.

Peter: The sofas were later recovered at the drive in. Police recovered 1.47 in change.

Cynthia: “your naivete is so charming.” did you read the last PBR, Steve?

Steve: Harman was a famous educator. He founded a system of continuing one’s education by the repeated theft and retrieval of lounge chairs, portrayed in music and song.

Peter: 12 students sit around a table and discuss how to remove sofas in the face of opposition from custodians. There are no lectures, just discussion.

Cynthia: BYU students have a very strange sense of what constitutes acceptable “borrowing”–cf. bike wheel dude, now sofas….

Steve: He was also a notorious bounder and cad.

Peter: known for wearing a top hat and swinging a cane, jauntily.

Steve: Saucily winking at passers-by.

Peter: Sometimes he would even kick up his heels as if at a revue.

GST: This is inappropriate, and disrespectful to the memory of Harman, who crossed the plains in the same company as B-66 and B-72.

Peter: Weren’t those Cold War bombers?

GST: Yes. Now they are quonset huts on campus.

Steve: His disciples say that one Harman is born to each generation. He shall be known by a withering moustache and a plaid vest. He will pass the test of the mystic monks of “Time s’andsea Sons.”

Peter: Nothing quite as immortal as a Quonset hut.

A white male in his early to mid 20’s walked into a cash handling area of the Student Auxiliary Services building on the north side of campus and pulled a pistol on three students and took an undisclosed amount of cash at 4 p.m. The suspect ran out of the SASB toward the MTC. The suspect is described as a slender male, about six feet tall, with brown hair, an unshaven beard and a light mustache. He was wearing blue jeans, a dark jacket and a dark baseball cap. Officers arrived at the scene and searched the area but were unable to find the suspect.

GST: Finally, a decent crime.

Steve: I wonder if he made it all the way to the MTC.

GST: Next up, he robs the Armenian money train with Vic Mackey.

Steve: The crime here, of course, is the unshaven beard and light mustache.

Peter: The last thing the witnesses remember him saying: “I shot a man in Reno…”

“Where’s your beard card, son?” He did have a concealed carry permit.

GST: Guess where I conceal my beard.

Peter: Your top hat?

GST: Yes!

Peter: You Lincoln-look-a-likes are all the same!

Steve: Now that something actually criminal happened, Cynthia has nothing to say.

Cynthia: actual crimes = yawnz, but I do have another Nancy Drew plan to hatch for you all, to wit: if this dude was smart, he’d have packed a razor along with the pistol. Then, as he makes his getaway, he quickly shaves, thus blending in with the student body. Eh?

GST: Shaving while making a getaway. Sounds like a recipe for bleeding to death.

Cynthia: electric!

GST: I assumed you meant a straight razor and a strop.

Steve: We’ve all seen The Fugitive, SB2. Thanks for dazzling up what is possibly the most well-known evasive technique ever known.

Cynthia: but he used a disposable razor, I’m suggesting electric!

Peter: You’ve got to shave pretty early to get that one past BYU’s Finest.

Cynthia: that’s the innovation.

Steve: Wow, we’d better get back to fake crime before you continue to blow us away with criminal mastermindery.

Peter: It does look suspicious, dunnit?

Band cymbals were stolen out of room 3E95 in the Harris Fine Arts Center some time between Dec. 11 and Jan. 24. The band cymbals are considered BYU property and value at $1,210.

Cynthia: what?!! That’s crazier than the $800 sheep.

Peter: I prefer to think of them as the Lord’s property.

Steve: You gotta be a ninja to steal a cymbal. It’s like the final test of the Shaolin.

Cynthia: apparently BYU employs the same appraiser as the dude who values Wheel of Fortune’s dinette set prizes.

GST: They are “considered” BYU property. Well, exactly who considers them BYU property? The Law? THEY ARE BYU PROPERTY.

Peter: “secret methods for blending materials” don’t come cheap. I bid one dollar.

Steve: To be fair, it’s unclear whose they were. Police suspect the cymbals may belong to someone named “zildjian.”

Cynthia: Is it just me, or is there something incongruous about “band” and “fine arts”?

Peter: Yeah, mention ‘cymbals’ and I’m thinking more “one man band”

Steve: You know, there’s something about this crime. I can’t help but think that this theft is in some way representative of something else. Almost as if the theft of these items were really just metaphors or images for a different act entirely.

GST: Cynthia, don’t exhibit any disrespect for band. I did that in an earlier PBR and had to spend 3 days in the comments section defending my assertion that all the band kids were gay. It was a real hassle.

Steve: IIRC, it wasn’t an assertion, but worded as a statement of fact: “all band kids are gay.”

Peter: Personally, I only knew one gay kid when I was in band and he was…not.

Steve: Found that out the hard way, did we?

GST: Not that there’s anything wrong with it. You know, except to the extent that Mormons think that there’s something wrong with it.

A suspicious individual in his 40s to early 50s was reported at the Miller Baseball Field on Jan. 23 between 3 and 4:30 p.m. The man was wearing a flannel shirt and a stocking hat. He pulled his motorbike behind a parked car. The driver of the car was trying to leave the parking lot. The man approached the person in the car and said he was a professional softball coach. The man asked the person in the car for her name, number and address. She refused to give the man the information and reached in her car to pull out a baseball bat. A van pulled into the parking lot, and the suspect left. Anyone with information should contact the police. The victim is a 19-year-old student.

Peter: Hmm, just a day before the cymbal incident.

Steve: Flannel shirt, stocking hat… did he shake when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly? If so, why did he need the name, number and address??

Peter: Elves on strike?

Cynthia: so this guy’s afraid of a van, but not a softball player armed with a bat? He doesn’t know the same softball players I know.

Steve: You mean the lesbian ones.

Cynthia: dude.

Peter: If you think times are tough for investment bankers now, just trying being a professional softball coach at any time.

GST: I find it interesting that for the final item, you find something about the one group even more likely to be gay than band kids.

Steve: Softball is to women what band is to men. It’s second to the LPGA.

Peter: The LPGA, however, is Asian.

Cynthia: I think it would be awesome if Miller Baseball Field were named for the beer.

GST: It is. It’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Steve: Larry H. Miller Lite.

Cynthia: I’d like to get Matt Evans’ thoughts on this.

Peter: Come for a car, stay for a beer.

Steve: and a PG-13 movie!

Peter: I understand they’ve got some killer brats.

GST: Not bad, not bad. Tho’ I preferred the old County Stadium.

Steve: OK, so let me ask: what is the crime here??????

Peter: Soliciting softball coaching? Or whatever it’s called when you offer something.

Cynthia: I think we all know that Santa doesn’t know anything about softball…dun-dun-DUUUUUUN!

GST: Aaaaand … that’s a wrap.