Police Beat Roundtable #13

The Thirteeth installation 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, here, and here.

This week: former guest Ken Jennings drops in as a holiday surprise for BCC readers.

Between Feb. 6 and March 3, University Police received a phone call from students’ parents. The parents gave police information about criminal activities their sons were involved in. The police found no criminal records for the students, but upon further investigation, discovered the two individuals were impersonating a police officer. Both individuals were cited in court for impersonating a police officer.

Steve: I can imagine this sting operation going down. “Hi, this is Sgt. Rosen from the BYU Police.” “Oh hi Sargeant. You know, I’m a police officer myself!”

Ken: The students had been seen walking around campus jauntily, using Irish accents, spinning a “billy-club” on one finger.

GST: Nice parents. Jeez.

Cynthia: wait the students were impersonating? It sounded to me like the parents

Steve: Seriously, nice parents. Little Johnny’s been stealing from people, running a slave ring…. or not.

Cynthia: they dressed up like cops, figured out their kid’s illegal activities, then handed it over to the real cops.

Ken: “The two individuals were impersonating a police officer.” Just one? Maybe one was on the other’s shoulders wearing a long cape, impersonating a REALLY TALL police officer.

Steve: So “individuals” = parents?

Cynthia: LOLZ

Steve: This is all very odd.

Ken: I need a flowchart for this item.

Cynthia: also, “Between Feb. 6 and March 3” but “phone call” is singular. longest. call. evar.

Graffiti was placed on a telephone booth at the bottom of the tunnel by Helaman Halls at about 7:30 a.m. on March 18. The message read, “WSU straight 17.”

GST: White Single Unicorn.

Ken: It’s true. There are only 17 straight students at Weber State. Free the WSU Straight 17!

Steve: Apparently the phone booth at the bottom of the tunnel used to be a prop on ‘Lost’.

Cynthia: odd choice of verbs. Graffiti “was placed” on it? “why here’s a lovely traffic sign. I shall place this cute little graffiti here upon it.”

Ken: A VHS copy of More American Graffiti, in fact.

GST: I prefer the singular “graffito.”

Ken: I think the graffiti was supposed to say “WSU talkin bout, Willis?” but the loud tunnel-singing confused the “perp.”

Cynthia: I wonder if the graffiti artist was kind enough to include a doily under the graffiti, for extra classiness.

A purse was stolen at the JKHB on March 13. The purse contained $10, a marriage license, house and car keys, and prescription medicine. The victim is a student.

Cynthia: lolz!!

Steve: Someone stole my wife’s purse!

Cynthia: wow. Utah culture encapsulated in one purse.

Ken: Where’s the MLM scrapbooking items?

GST: I hope she recovers the purse; otherwise the thief is licensed to marry her boyfriend.

Steve: I can see Johnny Cash singing a desperate, lonely tune about this theft. “I left Provo with ten bucks in my purse/marriage license and Xanax, my life is a curse…”

Ken: Fill me in, ladies. (Cynthia, gst, whoever.) Why do you carry your marriage license with you in your purse?

Steve: BE PREPARED.

Cynthia: that would be awesome if the Rx was BCP and Police Beat outed her to the world.

Ken: It wards off the whistling construction workers remodeling DT.

At 2:50 p.m. on Feb. 26 near Heritage Halls, a 19-year-old female student called to report a suspicious individual. The suspicious male stopped her from his car, asking for directions to the student center. She informed him the WSC was just down the road. He then asked her if she would get into his car and take him there, and she told him she wouldn’t. He told her if she would go with him she could get out of the rain and he would buy her something. She refused, and the suspect drove away. The suspicious individual was described as a 20-year-old male in a military uniform, similar to a navy dress uniform. The car he was driving was described as an 80s style compact, possibly a hatchback. The victim said the car was full of garbage, and she thought she wouldn’t have been able to sit in the car because of all the junk. The police checked with the ROTC to see if there was any recruiting in the area that day, but there wasn’t. If anyone else is approached by this male or another suspicious individual, they are advised to get a license plate number and contact the University Police immediately.

Ken: Wow, the Army really IS worried about those recruitment quotas.

GST: I’m going to go out on a limb and say I really doubt that this fellow was a naval officer. He’s a one-man press-gang, apparently.

Steve: The rusty Honda civic rattles off in the distance, “Up Where We Belong” blaring from its blown speakers.

Ken: Not a real sailor…he just alternates between different “Village People” outfits during his daily kidnapping runs along Campus Drive. Also, he was wearing the Donald Duck version of a sailor suit. i.e. no pants.

GST: lol

Cynthia: har

Steve: FYI

GST: Does the “I’ll by you something” snare ever work on potential kidnap victims over the age of 6?

Steve: It worked on Sumer! She fell for that ol’ zillion-dollar-diamond-ring scam.

Ken: If I remember correctly from EFY, the sailor suit/hatchback con is also how John Bytheway met his wife.

Cynthia: sorry guys, not listening to you, currently mesmerized by young Richard Gere.

Ken: Fun trivia: Richard Gere’s middle name is “Tiffany.” No, really.

GST: Named after a cufflink. Go figure.

Ken: His parents couldn’t decide between that and “Debbie Gibson.”

A 73-year-old man slapped a young man sitting in front of him at the BYU vs. Utah basketball game on March 1 when he asked the young man to sit down and he refused. The man was cited for assault.

GST: Acquit this man.

Cynthia: stay off that dude’s lawn!!

Ken: This is why I never take my kids to BYU sporting events. Always some Greatest Generation a-hole getting all up in your face.

GST: When you turn seventy, they should give you a double-O designation, “License to Slap.”

Steve: Who on earth calls the cops after getting slapped by a 73-year-old?? DKL, that’s who.

GST: Seriously, I agree with you Ken. Old people bug the hell out of me. They think that just because they fought the Kaiser we need to listen to them drone on about the quality of their bowel movements. Put them in a “home” and throw away the key.

Ken: The oldster actually slapped him ceremonially with a long glove, challenging him to a duel. As was the style at the time.

Cynthia: the young man thought he was following the prophet—somebody gave him a copy of “Standing for Something” for his birthday and he never got past the title.

Ken: The 73-year-old man was actually a slightly disoriented Merrill J. Bateman, former BYU president.

Steve: Last time I checked, the Kaiser won. His rolls are ubiquitous, as are his piked helms.

GST: Wouldn’t be the first BYU student he slapped.

Ken: Merrill J Bateman slapped me on two nonconsecutive occasions. Oh, wait. That joke only works for Grover Cleveland.

GST: Merrill Bateman never slapped me, but he did pin my arms back while Bruce Hafen rained blows on me.

Cynthia: get out.

An unidentified person broke into the Utah Academy of Dance, located on 1668 S. State in Orem last Tuesday. The alleged burglar entered through an unsecured door. Employees of the academy reported $30 in change and several CDs stolen from the business.

Steve: The CDs included Def Party Jams, Jock Rock Vol. III and the Electric Slide EP.

GST: Why is this in the BYU DU Police Beat?

Cynthia: “broke into,” i.e. “opened unlocked door.”

Steve: The $30, meanwhile, constituted their entire annual budget.

Ken: In change, no less.

Cynthia: they were saving up for new CDs to replace their crappy Def Party collection.

Steve: A hefty bag of pennies, which they use for their classic “Pennies From Heaven” routine.

Ken: The Utah Academy of Dance does most of its dancing on street corners, apprarently. Penny for the jazz fingers, guv’nor?

Steve: jazz hands, you Philistine.

Ken: Oops.

Steve: you, Sir, are no patron of the Arts such as I! (slap)

Cynthia: jazz hands should be worth at least a nickel. Fingers, that’s a penny.

GST: Suh, I accept your challenge.

Steve: Pistols at dusk, at the Tunnel Phone Booth! WSU STRAIGHt 17 FOREVER!

GST: Cynthia will act as my second.

Ken: He brings a bag of pennies, you bring a gun. That’s the Provo way.

Cynthia: I am a great shot.

Steve: Spitwads and grenades don’t count.

Cynthia: so far my penny-hurling skills have not been tested, so can’t let you know how I rate there.

The Provo Police Department took a theft report of a 2003 Chevy Silverado last Monday. Pleasant Grove police told Provo police last Tuesday that Pleasant Grove officers stopped the vehicle in Pleasant Grove. Provo officers responded and found the truck, as well as a stolen motorcycle from Payson in the truck’s bed. The left side of the truck had been primed before the theft, but the suspect painted it white with an amateur paint job of poor quality. The alleged thief also removed three white fender flares, each valued at $200. The suspect fled on foot when stopped by Pleasant Grove police officers.

GST: Again, what does this have to do with BYU?

Ken: The charges are grand theft auto and vehicular painting of a poor quality.

Steve: Not only do they have to ruin the man’s reputation in the paper, they have to mock his painting skills? Uncalled for!

Cynthia: that clear coat has questionable provenance.

Steve: An amateur paint job of curious workmanship.

Ken: The Utah Academy of Dance, guardians of all things artistic in Utah Valley, complained about the unmatched primer. Complained…in dance form!

Steve: Gotta give him credit for multiple pieces of flare, though.

Cynthia: flair.

Steve: Excuse me, it says “Flare,” like the signal flares I have mounted to my fenders. My bicycle fenders.

GST: When it said that the truck was primed before theft, I assumed that meant that it had been prepared to be stolen. “OK, I’m going to steal you soon. It’ll be great. You on board? Good.”

Ken: Three fender flares? That guy is one white fender flare short of a picnic.

Steve: Anyone who has suffered a beating at the hands of the Pleasant Grove PD knows what a horrible misnomer that town has.

GST: I know those guys. “Uday” and “Qusay.”

Cynthia: how do you flee on foot carrying 3 fender flares?

Ken: Brigham Young originally named the settlement “Unpleasant Grove” before wiser heads prevailed.

A thief stole a cash register from Shear Elegance pet salon at 727 E. 1000 South, in Orem Tuesday night. The amount of cash stolen was not disclosed.

Ken: Shear Elegance doesn’t want its high-class clientele to know about its cash-flow problems.

Cynthia: Bichons are good tippers, but beagles will stiff you every time.

Ken: The register contained $30 in change, which the chief stylist had recently lifted from a nearby dance academy.

Steve: They just got a big money delivery from their Poodle Flipper Spa Retreat (for you Best In Show fans). Meanwhile, GST has nothing to say. His conscience has convicted him.

Ken: Pet salon heists bring back too many bad college memories for him.

Cynthia: GST used to work at a pet salon.

Steve: That one time in Reno when things went all wrong. Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito worked at the pet salon with him.

Cynthia: but he was fired when he let his pet beautician’s license lapse. His excuse: “the dog ate it!” I totally brought my A game today.

Steve: bada boom! Can we have the B one back?

Ken: I posted nothing but cut-and-pasted jokes from old PBRs this whole time and nobody noticed!

GST: Look, I agreed to this exercise to comment on BYU police blotter items. This has been Orem, Pleasant Grove, Springville, Kamas–everywhere but BYU. I object.

Cynthia: second!

Steve: Geeeeez people.

Ken: How could BYU, the Lord’s University, have as much crime as “the Mission Field,” i.e. Kamas?

GST: You understate the scope of BYU police–they get involved in many things that fall far short of crimes. Far short.

Steve: For example:

Two cans of whipped cream were found opened in the aisles in the Creamery on Ninth. Two other cans were found but were unopened. Two multipacks of toilet paper were also found half-melted on the shelf.

Ken: LOL!

Steve: I don’t know how you MELT toilet paper, exactly, but I want to learn.

Cynthia: what??

GST: WHAT THE [expleting] [expletive]?

Ken: Fahrenheit 452: the temperature at which freedom burns and TP melts! Somebody should have told the Toxic Avenger not to squeeze the Charmin.

Cynthia: wow, I can’t believe that the Creamery’s go-back basket constitutes a crime scene.

Steve: Good thing they found those other cans of whipped cream, in the …. Creamery….

Cynthia: yes how do those figure into this in any way??

Steve: Also found: yogurt. Dannon. Fruit may or may not be at the bottom.

GST: “[radio squelch] 7 mary 3 and 4, reported unopened cans of whipped cream. Area secured, over.”

Ken: “Two other cans may be unopened! Repeat, unopened! Request backup!” “REDDI-WHIP DOWN! REDDI-WHIP DOWN!”

Steve: “We have a Code Yellow on the TP, request Doctors Spengler and Venkman to investigate from CSI.”

Ken: The only time I’ve ever melted toilet paper myself was the day after the chili cookoff.

Cynthia: maybe the whipped cream is toxic, and it melts TP, and the students were just trying to go all Erin Brockovich exposing that action.

Steve: I love how the report seems to correlate opened whipped cream with melted TP. Was there a large spherical burn mark in the center of the Creamery, indicative of a time-travelling cyborg hunter?

Ken: “A box of Lucky Charms was also found shelved with the generic Marshmallow Mateys on the aisle’s endcap, but officers believe this to be an unrelated infraction.”

Steve: Okay, folks, I’m done.

Ken: When were we supposed to start being funny?

Steve: PBR 14.