Police Beat Roundtable #22 – Halloween Edition!

The 22nd 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, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

SB2: Alright are we starting? Where’s Ken?

Steve: He’s coming.

Ken has joined

SB2: Welcome!

Ken: A-looooo-ha.

SB2: [Defiantly sits silently in response, just like I do in Sac Mtg when someone does that.]

Steve: We had someone do that last F&T mtg. I laughed them to scorn

Ken: If it’s a white person, take them out with a potato cannon.

SB2: Yep our last one was a white dude. Couple months ago.

GST: He’s a typical white person like barack obama’s grandmother.

Steve: Aloha my brothers. I am descended from Hagoth the ship-builder. I bring you poi and dances that tell stories.

Ken: Or Charlize Theron. One of our great African-American Oscar winners.

SB2: Alright this is the Halloween Edition, but we’re starting off with a non-Halloween-theme one to warm up:

SUSPICIOUS:

Oct. 27: A male individual was reported yelling in the Eyring Science Center. When the officers arrived, they discovered he was actually singing along to music playing on his iPod.

GST: We already did this one.

Steve: Yeah, we did. Maybe the iPod’s on repeat.

SB2: har

GST: I will repeat the joke used last time: what you say about his company is what you say about society.

SB2: It’s just not the same without all caps.

Ken: I hope the cops strapped him to that big brass pendulum in the Eyring Science Center lobby.

Steve: THEN SINGS MY SOUL! MY SAVIOR GOD TO THEE!! etc.

ANIMAL PROBLEMS:

Sept. 7: Campus Police received a call at 7 a.m. saying a bat was flying around in the Wilkinson Center. An officer was dispatched, who then opened a door, and the bat flew out.

Steve: FAKE. and I can prove it. Hello, 7 a.m.? That bat would already have been turned to cinders by the rays of Mr. Sun.

Ken: The bat then flew threw the window of stately Wayne Manor, fatefully inspiring a musing Bruce Wayne to begin his crimefighting career.

SB2: My dear Watson, you failed to note that the turnstile counter for the entrance registers one more than the exit turnstile yesterday….VAMPIRE!!

Steve: Val Kilmer Wayne, or George Clooney Wayne?

Ken: The officer then determined that the bat was a fruit bat and sent it off to the Wilk basement for electroshock.

Ken: Too soon?

Greg has left

SB2: Wow, when you’ve offended gst, you know you’ve gone too far!

Steve: Why would Heavenly Bat make a bat that way?

Greg has joined

Steve: Like a dog to his vomit.

SB2: NEXT!

Steve: No wait, we need GST’s thoughts re: bat. We need his turn at bat.

SB2: Groan.

GST: I got nothing. I was offended by Ken, though.

Ken: My work here…is done.

GST: I am now at a proper keyboard, and no longer responsible for driving a car at the same time.

SB2: Vandalism is of course a key part of the Halloween season:

VANDALISM:

October 16: Vandalism was reported on the Y. Police investigated and found that someone had placed butcher paper on the Y. Police removed the paper.

GST: Exactly how is butcher paper vandalism?

Steve: This dorm is clean! (poltergeist voice)

GST: Sounds like a protective coating, in fact.

SB2: Well they didn’t mention all the blood and guts smeared on the butcher paper. It was a ceremonial slaughtering and butchering by the graduating class of the Farm Dept.

Ken: BYU cops have it pretty easy this week. Bat inside: let it outside. Butcher paper on Y: take butcher paper off Y.

GST: An offering to the god of Wrangler jeans.

Steve: I subscribe to Lambchop & Hamhock Weekly — the No.1 butcher paper in circulation. All the abbatoir that’s fit to print.

Ken: Was the whole Y covered in butcher paper, or was there just one piece stuck somewhere to it? One is vandalism, but the other is just littering.

SB2: The item says “vandalism,” Ken–are you questioning the wisdom of the BYUPD on matters of law?

Ken: Littering…or the worst Christo exhibit ever.

GST: Did you see the long piece in the last edition, Head Cheese, What In Hell Were We Thinking?

Steve: Their op-eds are controversial. I think their view on Spanish clenbuterol levels in Basque cows was a hit piece.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING:

Nov. 1: Police received a call concerning screams and pounding coming from a room in the Maeser Building. Police investigated and discovered the screaming man was a custodial worker watching the game between Texas and Texas Tech., and was upset about his team’s loss.

SB2: Haunted House FAIL.

Steve: Pounding what, exactly?

Ken: Yeah, I don’t know if his alibi explains the pounding so much.

Steve: Maeser is the Honors Building. The only pounding that takes place in there is that of heads to walls.

GST: Police were able to rescue the man from the chalk circle he’d been drawn in.

Ken: Chalk and chicken entrails, it was a voodoo thing.

Ken: The Maeser Bldg does look more like a haunted house than any other building on campus, save only the testing center.

Steve: Inquiring minds want to know (a) who won the game and (b) what Tech do they have at Texas Tech, exactly? BBQ tech? Steers & queers tech? maybe it’s Scientology Tech.

Ken: They use Texas Instruments calculators. That is the tech.

GST: If our friends in Lubbock are working on BBQ tech, I think they deserve our support. If I were president, I’d fund that sh** as if it were the Manhattan Project.

SB2: Lets start a new Mormon internet rumor: Disneyland Haunted House was designed based on BYU Maeser Bldg. I totes heard that from my uncle’s roommate whose grandfather was the architect!

Ken: Did you know the Disneyland Haunted House claims that its hearse was used for Brigham Young’s funeral?

SB2: Seriously?! I’ll have to start emailing my relatives to tell them that.

Ken: It’s true, I heard it from a guide. Sadly there is no evidence for this awesome claim.

Steve: I beheld the mighty BBQ Device created at Texas Tech and murmured to myself, “I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds.” TT is the Los Alamos of the BBQ world.

Steve: I wonder if that hearse is available for funeral rentals. Strikes me as a gold mine – Disney themed funerals.

SB2: Cha-ching! Why hasn’t anybody thought of this??

Steve: I want to get buried in one of the teacups.

SB2: They could project ghosts sitting next to you on the pews at the funeral–that would be so fun!

Ken: Per Brigham Young’s wishes, it must always be followed in processions by fifty-odd veiled women…thirty oldish ones looking sort of sad and twenty youngish ones looking surprisingly relieved.

GST: Woman seen scattering ashes at Disneyland

Ken: I “scattered ashes” once at Disneyland, around the last bend on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.

GST: And then the maintenance crew scattered sawdust.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY:

Oct 29: A suspiciously dressed male was reported entering the law school. He was dressed in all black, was wearing a leg holster, a bulletproof vest, a portable radio, and five rounds of shotgun shells across his chest. The individual was carrying a black bag that contained two Airsoft pistols. The suspect turned out to be a law student and was called out of class for questioning. He stated he was dressed up for costume day; however, he was the only one in the class dressed up in costume. He was directed to remove his vest and was released since he was not violating any federal or state laws.

Steve: Wrong building, Neo.

SB2: Hello, it’s called “Halloween” not “Costume Day,” and you’re 2 days early

Ken: Whoa! First ever suspicious male who is actually suspicious! They are diluting the honor.

GST: And that man is now 9th Circuit Federal Appellate Court Judge Jay Bybee.

Ken: lolz

Ken: I love the “tell Bill to dress it’s a dress as a terrorist party but don’t tell the other guests” prank.

Steve: His study group conspired to make him show up like a fool: “Hey Jay, what are you wearing for Costume Day this year?”

SB2: He had the shotgun shells with him in case any children needing interrogation were brought to lecture that day.

Steve: “Oh yeah, Costume Day is HUGE at BYU! Don’t miss out, Jay!”

Ken: Poor kid was a Canadian and thought Americans actually celebrated “Costume Day.”

SB2: Hey, Police Beat obviously considers “Costume Day” a not implausible thing–they bother to point out that he was the only one wearing a costume.

GST: I think the truth is that he heard the constitution was hanging by a thread, and HE WAS ON IT.

Ken: Check it out: he was “called out of class for questioning.” He sat through twenty minutes of contracts or something before the principal’s office called.

GST: I confess that if I were the instructor, that young man would have made me very nervous.

Steve: Every Day is Costume Day on Police Beat.

Ken: Here’s your Socratic method, old man.

Ken: I know what you’re thinking. Did you give me six hypotheticals there, or only five? In all the excitement, I’ve forgotten.

SB2: HA!

Steve: Res Ipsa THIS, pal!

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY:

October 24: A boy in a gorilla suit was reported attempting to scare girls in Wyview Park. Officers located the monkey man, asked him to go home and he did.

Steve: Gorilla = / = monkey!!!!!!!!!!!

SB2: I believe gorillas are actually apes, not monkeys.

Ken: This is what happens when BYU starts teaching evolution.

GST: It was actually a bonobo suit.

Ken: Read the article! It was a monkey man…in a gorilla suit.

Steve: LOL

GST: Which I understand to be a highly sexualized type of monkey.

Ken: It’s therefore the official mascot of Wyview. Except for, possibly, the feces-throwing and public masturbation.

SB2: Somebody alert Glenn Beck–we have found evidence, in a Church-approved publication, no less, that a half-monkey/half-person exists!

Steve: Well is he a monkey man or monkey boy? Article is unclear on this point. Whether he has celebrated primate bat mitzvah needs to be determined. Today I am a monkey man! l’chaim!

GST:

SB2: BAR mitzvah, Steve, unless it’s a transsexual monkey-human hybrid

Ken: Is monkey-boy the BYU equivalent of Bat Boy?

Steve: I’m open to the possibilities SB2. OPEN YOUR MIND.

SB2: Whatever his problem is, I’m sure it’s a tendency that he can overcome, with enough effort.

GST: And shocks.

Ken: In movies, when a guy in a gorilla suit shows up, everybody freaks out. Then they find out it’s just a guy. THEN the real escaped gorilla shows up and everyone taunts him and it’s TOTALLY DANGEROUS! I wonder if that happened here.

Steve: This kid is just begging for the Trading Places treatment. (it’s a movie, SB2)

SB2: Why was the gorilla suit guy only trying to scare girls? That’s sexist! I call for equal-opportunity scaring! if only BYU allowed protests, I could organize a protest of the blantant sexism.

Ken: Have you noticed this is another 30-second problem-solving exercise for BYU police? Monkey Man at Wyview? Ask Monkey Man to go home.

Steve: Go home, Monkey Man!

GST: I get Trading Places confused with Brewster’s Millions. Not because I can’t tell black guys apart, though.

Ken: If the black comedian is doing that weird horse laugh, it’s Eddie Murphy. If he’s shaking and hyperventilating and Gene Wilder is lurking nearby, it’s Richard Pryor.

GST: Got it.

Steve: I get Trading Places confused with Trading Spaces, and I’m surprised with every episode that there’s no drunk santa eating smoked salmon through a beard and helping to staple gaudy upholstery.

Ken: Monkey Man didn’t WANT to go to Wyview. He wanted to stay in DT like a good little monkey. But Monkey Man had one problem: he was always curious!!!

SB2: I’m not sure that warranted 3 exclamation points, Ken.

Steve: Agreed, that was a single exclamation sentence, max.

SB2: Next!

COSTUME CRIMES:

October 30: Several males were running through Brigham Square wearing only capes and underwear. When officers arrived, the caped crusaders were gone.

Ken: Wow, that was an even easier solution!

Steve: Only their underwear remained, floating ghostily in the night, trying to make Brigham do the funky chicken.

Ken: Yeah, they are chuckling in their linotype machine.

GST: I don’t get the constant reference to “males” and “females.” We’re not talking about insects. Can’t we say “men”?

SB2: “Several”?! What a terrible witness who called this in–can’t even provide a number! The quality of BYU police informants is really declining of late.

Ken: How old is this item? Was this back when the temple garment actually included a nice cape?

Steve: If garments included capes I bet they’d be more lax about letting them show.

Ken: Maybe I am misremembering my grandparents’ bedroom closet.

GST: The cape had no religious significance. Your grandparents were just kinky.

Ken: Always go with the mesh cape. The cotton-poly one doesn’t breathe much.

Steve: At BYU, there is no question these are boys. If women had done this they’d be wearing prison hijabs by now.

Ken: Capes and underwear…who knew there was a cosplay club at BYU now?

Steve: Crucio Samuelson!

SB2: NEXT!

COSTUME CRIMES:

Nov. 6: Officers responded to a call concerning a disorderly person in the atrium of the HBLL. The subject at issue was wearing a red shirt, a scarf around his neck, a red mask around his eyes and holding several roses. He was holding a sign that read, “Ask me for…A-Hug, A-Rose, A-Hand, A-Date, A-Nything else.” When officers told him he wasn’t allowed to solicit in this manner, he continued to argue and told them he wasn’t going to stop. Officers then explained that he may be arrested for disorderly conduct but he said he had diplomatic immunity and could not be arrested. When officers told him that it is necessary to receive permission from the dean of student life to demonstrate on campus, he agreed to follow through with the dean and left the area.

SB2: Now if he’d have just left it at the first 4…that last one was the kicker.

Ken: Well? What did the dean decide?!?

Steve: What the hell is a nything? New York things?

Ken: He was working up to A-dultery.

SB2: So what is the distinction between a “suspicious male” and a “disorderly person”?

GST: Diplomatic immunity is not invoked enough on campus.

Steve: Suspicious male = rapist. Disorderly person = nutcase.

Ken: This sounds like the most dramatic rose ceremony…EVER!

Steve: LOL

SB2: I think it is really sad that this guy was just trying to fulfill the measure of his creation by finding his Eternal Companion, and The Man was keeping him down.

Ken: This Bachelor joke brought to you courtesy of the year 2002.

Steve: I like the title of Dean of Student Life. he reports to the Dean of Life. (That’s Jesus.)

Ken: Make Mikey the Dean of Life! He’ll eat anything!

GST: He’s the only campus administrator with a Double-Oh designation.

Ken: What if he really had diplomatic immunity? Maybe he was an A-mbassador.

Steve: Dean of Cinnamon Life.

Ken: I would like to be the Dean of Cinnamon Life. Mmmm.

SB2: So since when is wearing a red shirt and a scarf a problem at BYU? The Honor Code is even more detailed than I realized!

Steve: They subjected the disorderly person to an A-nal cavity search.

Ken: But stopped when he got A-roused. Red shirt and scarf is illegal because that’s what Men’s Chorus wears “off duty.”

GST: Yeesh.

SB2: His setup would be way awesomer if A-Rose was a reference to Axl Rose.

Steve: They had the same problem when the cast of Glee visited campus. They also claimed diplomatic immunity from the People’s Republic of Shittytvistan.

Ken: I think that is near the Kingdom of Mywifewatchesitvania.

GST: You know where you are? You’re in the Wilkinson Center, baby. You’re gonna die.

Steve: I think a scarf adds a certain panache to a microphone stand. Steven Tyler agrees.

Ken: I just now noticed this guy had a red Hamburglar mask to go with the scarf. Now THAT is a great look.

GST: It was more of a Hamrapist outfit.

Ken: Maybe he can go to the Dean of Cinnamon Life and steal his Cookie Crisp.

Steve: A-nalrapist.

SB2: TAKE ME DOWN TO THE PARADISE CITY where the grass is green and the girls are modestly dressed! TAKE ME TO BYU!! doesn’t quite work, does it…sorry.

Ken: The grass is not green at BYU. Too many cougars cut corners.

Ken: “Where the grass is brown and the religion faculty is s****y? Rhymes at least.

SB2: So “cougars don’t cut corners” is a LIE? Oh my whole world is crumbling!

Steve: Quit whilst thou art ahead ken-san.

Ken: I’m trying to get Eric-Snider-ed out of Police Beat.

Steve: Cougars on Battlestar Galactica cut corners, but that’s sort of the style.

Ken: The cougar on 24 did not. It just growled at Kim.

SB2: Alright that’s all the Halloween we got, how about a random classic:

BIZZARE:

Nov. 7: Police received a call from the assistant principal at a private school in Salt Lake County. A fourth-grade student had told the assistant principal his dad was making a bomb in the garage to blow up the BYU football stadium. Following immediate investigation, police discovered the child wasn’t telling the truth.

GST: Stupid Stevie Hofman.

SB2: There’s a future Friend story in here somewhere.

Steve: Wait, some assistant principal in Salt Lake has the first instinct to call BYU police.

GST: I’d call the FBI, then Interpol.

Steve: That alumni network really comes in handy!

Ken: Get a man down to the stadium STAT!!! Is that a Pixies song?

SB2: Send Jay!

Steve: Chloe, I need schematics on Lavell Edwards Stadium. I don’t know, Chloe, look it up!! NOW!!

GST: This item gives me pause, because if my kid asked me what I was doing in the garage, that’s the kind of thing I might say, just to shut him up.

Ken: Jay Bybee is the Jack Bauer of BYU. “I’m going to need a hacksaw.”

Ken: This guy would tell whatever lie it took to mask his garage’s giant porn collection

Steve: It’s not a garage so much as a gigantic tin porn storage box.

SB2: Turns out that dad is an engineer for the Stadium of Fire.

Ken: It was Sean Hannity’s son. He’s going to blow up the BYU stadium…with fiery patriotism! Also with some C4.

SB2: His dad was making an inflatable BYU Stadium kids bday party jumpy thing (worst birthday party ever).

GST: I like the way the schools have trained this kid to inform on his parents, though. He should get the Pavlik Morozov Medal.

Steve: Turns out the kid wasn’t telling the truth — bomb was actually for Ute Stadium. BYU Police consider the issue wrapped up. With butcher paper.

Ken: Don’t go to a trusted relative or teacher! Track down the assistant principal!

SB2: Ok last one!

TRAFFIC INCIDENTS:

September 19: After the BYU football game a woman tried to direct traffic and was hit by a vehicle. She confronted the driver who said he had been waiting for a long time, and then drove off. The woman reported the license plate and police are currently investigating.

Ken: I’ve been waiting along time to hit you! I’ve been stalking you in my car for weeks!

GST: The investigation hinges mostly on a discussion amongst the cops as to whether she deserved it.

Ken: Uppity broad, thinks she can direct traffic at the Lord’s football parking lot…

SB2: She was wearing a short skirt–clearly asking for it.

Steve: Those BYU kids go to weird extremes to ask girls out on dates.

Ken: Maybe when he said he’d been waiting a long time, he meant that he was a virgin. I bet celibacy leads to lots of traffic accidents at the Y.

SB2: I like how the police beat subtly undermines her traffic directing: “tried” to direct traffic.

GST: Well, she clearly failed. I mean, there was a car v. pedestrian accident!

SB2: Maybe next time she should stand where she wants the cars to go.

Ken: She did direct traffic! Right into her lower body.

Steve: This is some high-speed collision we’re talking about here. As she lay on the ground, bleeding and broken…. “ugggghhhhh…. why did you do that, jerkwad….” (passes out after duly noting license plate in moleskine)

GST: She directed traffic with a red cape. And a barbed lance.

Ken: Nah, she just banged on the hood like Ratso Rizzo. “I’m walking hee-ah!”

SB2: I have to admire her tenacity–she’s hit by a car then she swiftly gets up and confronts the driver.

Ken: “I’m direcin’ traffic hee-ah!” It was an insurance scam, huh?

SB2: I wonder if he will ask her to pay for the car wash he needs to get the blood drops off the driver side door?

GST: She wanted to inquire if he had a valid reason for hitting her.

Steve: “Gosh, your car seems to have struck me. Are you OK, kind sir?”

SB2: She was hoping that he’d feel bad and ask her to marry him to make up for it.

GST: It worked for George McFly.

SB2: Now that that didn’t work out, she’s *really* depressed about her prospects for marriage at BYU.

Ken: Hey, there are lots more motorists in the parking lot.

Steve: She’ll graduate with her MRS., courtesy of Geico.

SB2: ha.

SB2: er, so are we done then?

Ken: Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Steve: Oh we’re done here.