Let the record show that every weekend, I watch LIVE PD. It's a show on A&E that follows police departments across the nation. Mainly in Florida (because, seriously, that's where the CRAZY is), and South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, Arizona, and Washington. I'm sure I'm leaving some out. Like MISSOURI! Which has just been added over the past few weeks.
Not only am I familiar with MISSOURI, but I am familiar with GREENE COUNTY, where the action takes place. That's where I went to college. It's Springfield and the surrounding area. So I kind of like to compare how we stack up against criminals in other parts of the country.
Sweet Gummi Mary! On the first two nights, we barely saw MO on the program. Oh, they tried. We started two or three car chases, but then aborted them due to traffic and a danger to innocent people. Well. The next week, they stayed in a traffic chase, after a motorcycle, which promptly ran a red light, clipped the back of a car, and sent the driver and his girlfriend sailing about 30 feet through the air before gravity exerted its influence.
Okay. That was exciting, but kind of stomach-churning. Because that was a live chase. No faking. The car that got hit was sitting there with the driver all hysterical, even though she did nothing wrong. The show didn't let us see the bodies until it was determined that both riders were conscious, and there was no pool of blood, and no limbs were dangling. However...the driver's leg was at a wonky angle, and he was whining that he'd broken it. Sorry if I don't appear sympathetic.
Anyhoo...I don't know if that made us look good or bad. You can't abort every chase, and you can't predict that some yahoo on a motorcycle is going to run a red light. Turns out that the chase continued because that driver had already been arrested for evading, (which is running from the police) on a motorcycle. He also had warrants for other crimes.
So...Saturday night, Missouri was once again a hotbed of crime. But Sweet Gummi Mary! Do we have to show our stereotypical rednecks to the world? I'm not sitting up here on my high horse, thinking I'm better than them. There are people in our state who live this way, and do the best they can with their upbringing and education. It just seems that there could be more exciting crimes to show than our denizens from the hinterlands.
This was a road rage incident that didn't even happen in Greene County, but the one next to it. A man with about three teeth and a beard, in overalls, was pulling a trailer piled high with belongings like a couch and washer/dryer and kitchen table. His chubby wife with poor grammar, and his adult daughter with bleached hair, were eager to tell the story of the girls previous co-habitor chasing them and slamming on his brakes when he got in front.
Their story was crookeder than a pig's tail.
The other guy showed up, and though a bit more well-spoken, seemed to have holes in his story, and readily admitted to passing them on the two-lane road, declaring, "It's a passing zone there!"
Seriously. Why would he pass them if he was following them to ask for the washer/dryer back for the landlord? Something doesn't add up. He'd already moved out of the house (for not paying rent, but was staying in a motel), so why would he care what SHE did with her belongings?
Yes. We DO have people like that here. And also like the three folks at the end of the show, who led yet another police chase, down a street I knew as soon as the camera was on. They had a little machine-gun looking weapon, and drugs, and a he-said/she-she-said story about not knowing each other or whose gun it was or why they were evading. I know you can't pick and choose your criminals, but maybe they can show more folks like the lady a couple weeks back who was driving 20 mph in a 30 mph zone. That's because she was a farmer, and lived out of town, and didn't know the city, and wanted to be cautious.
I don't think LIVE PD will want to film here. The mailbox thieves are common, but the headless bodies are few and hopefully far away from the Mansion next time.
3 comments:
They could come to my part of the big city. There's a crazy old redheaded woman who speeds just about everywhere she goes.
Oh. I guess I shouldn't open my mouth...
I've got my own "redneck" he said-she said police action going on right here in the flat behind mine, which butts onto my closed in back porch.
There's even a restraining order in place where he isn't supposed to come and see her and she isn't supposed to cross the main road and go to his place. The day the restraining order was put in place they were off to his place all buddy-buddy and almost every day since with a few incidents where she is locked up in her flat pretending she isn't home and he is pounding on the door, then there's a yelling match and so on and so on.
It's getting quite annoying to have to listen to all the time.
Sioux,
Good luck with keeping your trap shut!
***
River,
That would be stressful. You just can't help some people, because they won't help themselves. What a waste of a restraining order.
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