January 29, 2008

The Best Sentence You'll Read All Day

Police did not say how many mailboxes were damaged.

Moorestown police charge bridge commission chairman with driving while intoxicated [Burlington County Times]

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Getting Away With Driving On The Beach

Sometimes I really think I should just move to Atlantic City and write about there; while there's no Milton Street, there is a constant stream of ridiculously awesome political scandals.

Take City Councilman Tim Mancuso. He was arrested on April 21, 2007, for allegedly driving a city-owned vehicle on the beach. Oh, and Mancuso was drunk, cops said; he was charged with DWI, reckless driving and driving on the beach without a permit. But now it looks like the charges will be dropped. Why? Because Atlantic City simply won't provide discovery information.

While the case was moved to Cape May since Mancuso is a City Councilman, the city has simply refused to provide discovery info and nobody has any idea why. Mancuso's defense attorney asked for a dismissal, which the judge says he'll most likely do in 45 days if there's still no discovery.

"It appears the people in Atlantic City are not complying and assisting the prosecutor," the judge said. "Somehow it's not being produced, and I don't know why. It appears someone is passing the buck." AC is so awesome; if they add sports gambling I'm spending all my time there.

Atlantic City's inaction may force court to dismiss DUI charges against councilman [Press of Atlantic City]

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May 26, 2006

The End Of Illegal Guns

In this week's Citypaper, Brian Hickey comes up with a novel approach to end the tide of gun violence in the city: Set up gun checkpoints just like we do with DUIs and frisk everyone in the car to find illegal weapons.

Whoo! That's quite a bold plan, but he plays the "it's really no different" card, and I suppose it's not really all that different than DUI stops. But the idea of being stopped at a checkpoint and frisked because I happened to be driving around an area where they were looking for a few illegal guns kind of makes me [insert your favorite 1984-esque reference here].

Hickey claims that the stops wouldn't be discriminatory, since they'd be stopping everyone. (In a program in NYC, officers were stopping and frisking -- wait for it -- a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos.) I tend to think it discriminates against people who own cars, leaving those who walk, run, bicycle or Segway around with illegal guns safe, but that's not really the issue here.

Now, before you say, "This is the silliest thing I've heard since the 76ers offered free tickets if you gave them their illegal guns," let me tell you I've found out a way to make this novel approach even better. You may remember that a last week Hickey wrote that the then-unknown suspect in the murder of Police Officer Gary Skerski "warrants a shoot-first, don't-even-bother-with-questions-later response."

I'm sure you're seeing where I'm going here: We should set up traffic stops, and if the guy has yellow eyes or looks like he might've killed someone, you simply open fire into his chest (with a legal gun, of course!).

Shoot first, don't even bother with questions later! Problem solved. No long trial, no messy appeals and we can all get back to debating the cuteness of puppies.

Lethal Rejection [CP]
Stops, or They'll Shoot [CP]
Hoagie Dip 3/1 [PW]
May 19: A Good Day For Snitchin'

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