Cop humour - an entertaining link

[Crusoe]

I stumbled across this recently and have to share. It’s the police activity logs from a local newspaper in Arcata, California, and whoever writes it should get a medal for services to mangling the English language.

Arcata Eye.

Please, nobody tell me it’s satire. I like believing it’s real.

[Lnix]

1:38 p.m. Cows made it out of their pasture on to Bayside Cutoff, but proved too stupid to take their liberation from enslavement any further

[yosemite]

A friend of mine attended the university in Arcata. I visit Arcata annually (I stay at the Motel 6) since it is on my “Hwy 1/101 Coast and Redwood Tour.” I never knew Arcata was so fun!

It is a sleepy little college town. It is full of liberal/vegetarian artsy-fartsy types. Somehow I think that this police log is legit. It kind of fits. (But I could be wrong.)

[yosemite]

I especially like this one:

5:01 p.m. A guy who has spoken with great passion about the mean old City of Arcata’s greed-driven plans to log old growth redwoods which don’t exist in the Arcata Community Forest and has also protested the human rights violation of being asked not to smoke his cigarettes within two feet of a bunch of 3-year-olds waiting for a bus now misspent his waning youth arguing with a construction worker about an aborted attempt to immortalize the random banality of his existence by scrawling gibberish in the wet cement at the new, arguably improved info kiosk at an I Street cooperative supermarket which is really doing the best it can.

Thanks for the link! I am going to forward it to a cop friend of mine.

[SuperNelson]

Wonderful- Thanks.

[Billdo]

Just a sampling:

Saturday, September 2

3:35 a.m. A South J Streeter must have been suffused with the sheer joy of life or something to be shrieking while sharing his rock-style music with the neighborhood at near-seismic volume levels. Mr. Exuberance next found himself nodding solemnly at a policeman who was standing in his doorway.

5:24 p.m. An F Street fluorescent-irradiated temple of corporate abundance hosted a misfit without address, but unwillingly as her desire for succor amid the genetically souped-up foodlike material was abbreviated by a management complaint.

7:28 p.m. A skateboarding solipsist appropriated Plaza flower beds and other surfaces for his amusement to the effective exclusion of passersby whomight not wish to absorb the impact of a wheeled board.

10:12 p.m. Some kid took a cab and refused to pay. Dad took care of it.

Sunday, September 3

4:30 a.m. How, diplomatically speaking, does one put it to a wee-hour motorcycle enthusiast that, gee, the neighbs don’t like hearing you rev your machine right about now? An officer found a way.

10:04 p.m. A box spring somehow migrated from a vehicle in the 600 block of Sixth Street to Eighth and K streets.

10:17 p.m. Every residential block must, by cosmic rule, have at least one continually barking dog. A note was left for a Janes Road resident.

Poetry in Mundanity

[yosemite]

I love this! I think I will copy and paste the whole entire police log and print it out. It will make great reading!

[SanibelMan]

This is hilarious. Lanna lives in Arcata; I wonder if she knows about this. I’ll ask her the next time I talk to her.

[AuntiePam]

Great stuff.

My mom lives in the Greenwood area in north Seattle, and the weekly newspaper had a column years ago that was almost as funny as this, Hash Ground Twice Weekly, or something.

This is a hoot. Thanks for sharing!

[Fletch]

Humboldt county is also noted for the fine marijuana it produces.

[yosemite]

4:09 p.m. A transient man was arrested on a charge of extreme foolishness - allegedly trying to obstruct a massive police officer and having some prohibited vegetable matter in his pocket while doing so. Off to the Pink House.

9:12 a.m. A loserific mooch was asked to leave a 13th Street supermarket of choice.
12:58 p.m. As was another energy-sucking zero.

5:38 p.m. What exactly is there to steal at a tattoo parlor?

AND MY PARTICULAR FAVORITE:

11:05 p.m. A shopper left a 13th Street business and headed home. Outside, he caught sight of some people with whom he has some weird history. On spotting him, the former associates gave voice to their disdain for the pedestrian by erupting in primate-like hooting and gibbering. He nodded and headed north up one-way H Street. But the brace of baboons gave chase, executing a loop around the block to position their vehicle ahead of the pedestrian, where they turned off the headlights and waited for him to come abreast. As he did, the van-borne chimp contingent again burst into self-expression as best as their limited wit would allow, which amounted to abject taunts equivalent to simian chest-thumping. The object of their undesired attention just walked on home for a more intellectually fulfilling interaction with the candy bar he’d just bought. A friend had seen the beginnings of the brush with stupidity and called police, but the circus act had waned on their arrival.

[Lanna]

Egads, I have fallen behind on the boards. The writers for the Eye are really great, but the police logs are by far the best. Most of the crimes here involve bongos or missing washers and dryers… It’s nice that Kevin Hoover can make them so witty. I’m always clipping parts and sending them to out of town relatives.

Anyway, the site doesn’t include the HSU or Blue Lake logs, which are also rather choice. I’d recommend subscribing to my little local paper if you enjoy the Arcata reports, as chances are you’d enjoy the rest of it.
-Lanna