But first ... The inaugural 911 complaint to properly kickoff 2009 came mere moments after midnight on January 1st. The caller complained about hearing several gunshots in rapid succession over the last few minutes. The caller added that the small explosions began right at midnight. She knew this because at the very same time ... she was watching the live coverage of the fireworks in Edmonton ... on TV ... uh ... never mind.
Bozo of the year.
Though the field was very competitive this year, one Bozo shone slightly brighter (dimmer?) than the others. Here is why. He was facing some rather serious charges from earlier in the year. In fact, he had already pled guilty and is being sentenced on January 9th.
He was given a rare opportunity to get his affairs in order and spend the holidays with his friends and family before starting, what is going to be, a sentence of no less than two years in a federal prison. Instead, on Christmas Day, he opted to make a high speed, drunken tour of Ponoka in an unregistered, uninsured pickup truck, the route of which included sidewalks, front lawns and one failed attempt at a river crossing (without the benefit of a bridge).
Police closed the distance with the suspect vehicle by attending one reported sighting after another; only at a slightly faster pace which allowed members to arrive at the scene of one complaint where the suspects were still present. Police noted that the description of the vehicle matched, the description of the driver matched (and was recognized as a well known local bozo) and the description of the passenger (looks like a hung-over Santa Claus ... the Jack Skellington version, not the Norman Rockwell one) matched exactly as well. Both were arrested on the spot. Santa was released after a few sobering hours of slumber on the drunk tank floor, but his evil elf was remanded in custody. Actually he could have been released on a modest amount of cash bail but (oddly enough) couldn’t find anyone silly enough to post it; when it was explained to them that he had to behave himself for a solid two weeks if they were to get their money back.
This year’s La Bozo Grande was already a strong contender earlier in the year when he was a semi-successful cocaine trafficker. He would cleverly drive his customers out to some remote location, ensuring that he was not being followed, and make his drug for cash transactions in the middle of nowhere thereby avoiding any unwanted attention by the police.
The only real problem he had was that his two best customers, the ones who rarely dickered about price and who always bought in bulk, were undercover police officers. Congratulations to Uber-Bozo, 2008!
Someone who made a late run for the overall championship fell short of that mark but earns the distinction of being the Bozo of the Year in the newly created “Ladies’ Division” ... though ... (and this probably goes without saying) she is nooo lady! You heard about her first when she tried to bludgeon me with a boot (ala George Bush). Later she mistook the dance floor of a local nightclub for the rec yard at a women’s prison and shouted out a challenge; something like, “Ok! Any of you fat britches (?) tough enough to take me on?”. Now, I’m not sure what “britches” are but apparently a couple of them were peeled off of her by the attending police officers a few minutes later and she spent the rest of that night in our detachment’s version of a Ladies’ Room (or as we like to call it, “Tank Two”). Finally she was the subject of a party crashing complaint. It was not even because she had arrived, uninvited at a private party full of people who did not know her, or that she had done so without even BYOBing. Police were called when she began to run around the house like a rabid Shitzu, biting those people. Bravo second banana! You are Number 2! Good luck in 2009.
Remember, in this contest there really are no winners; just varying degrees of losers.
The first viable contender for the 2009 crown is this dude: It had overtones of the classic Goldilocks tale. Only this time it was the Goldilocks family that was home sleeping in their beds when a bear broke into their house. The family members awoke and made some immediate observations similar to this, “someone has tracked snow through our livingroom, someone has been eating our groceries, someone was sleeping on our couch ... and he’s still there!”. Police attended soon after and made some observations of their own, not dissimilar to those made by the complainants. They noted that someone had made entry via the unlocked front door, had walked through the living room and kitchen leaving a wet, dirty trail. A stop was made at the refrigerator for a snack and the trail ended at the couch; where the 6’3”, 290 lb. drunken stranger was still snoozing noisily, sounding for all the world like a flatulent Kodiak with severe indigestion. He was later charged with the applicable criminal offences and released to appear in court at a later date. The homeowners missed the point a little and immediately contacted a locksmith so that they could have their locks changed when in fact... the moral of this story is to LOCK YOUR DOORS in the first place.
If you have information about any unsolved crime or ongoing criminal enterprise, call the Ponoka RCMP at 783-4472. You can also call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or now leave tips anonymously on-line at www.tipsubmit.com . If this is the kind of environment that you would like to work in, we are hiring. Check us out at www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca or call 1-877-RCMP-GRC for information about the application process.