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A cop clobbered by a clog and a coat copped by a covetous kleptomaniacal convict

Welcome to the last Police Blotter for 2008. Much like you, I will be busy over the next week dealing with my own last minute shopping during my “off” hours (and with other people’s last minute shoplifting during my “on” hours too no doubt).

Welcome to the last Police Blotter for 2008. Much like you, I will be busy over the next week dealing with my own last minute shopping during my “off” hours (and with other people’s last minute shoplifting during my “on” hours too no doubt). There are presents to wrap, Christmas lasagna to make (what? You don’t have lasagna for Christmas dinner?) and all that general running around that we all do. Unlike you, I will also be pouring over the past year’s blotters and making the annual selection of Bozo of the Year. This has been a great year for Bozo’s and the competition is fierce. Who will it be? Will a wild card competitor reveal himself before New Year’s Eve? Stay tuned. In the mean time, Merry Christmas all. I’m forever nagging people, “don’t leave your unlocked, running vehicle, unattended”. I’m most often moved to say this after somebody calls us to complain that some thief just drove off in their new $60,000.00 luxury SUV after the complainant ran into the 7-Eleven to pick up a cheez-e-chili-dog. Every time I’ve issued this warning I’ve been unequivocal, “never do that!”. Now it seems that I need to soften my stance on this in certain rare circumstances. So... if you are working, say, in the ditch beside a major highway on a really cold evening and your vehicle is parked on the shoulder of the road beside you, you don’t necessarily have to lock up your running vehicle - especially not if the only set of keys you have for that fire truck are in the ignition. My apologies to the Lacombe firefighter who took my warning too literally.

This week I was treated like I was the President of the most powerful nation on the planet, the United States of America. I don’t mean this in the good way that includes jet setting around in my own personal jumbo jet or having four branches of the  military to do my bidding. No. I mean that some idiot tried to beat me to death with (in this case) her own shoes; shoes which she lobbed at my head with the goal of disengaging it from between my shoulders. She did this at the cell block after she was arrested for a disturbance at a local bar. Part of the reason she attacked me was because I drove her about 22 kms north of Ponoka to lodge her at cells in Hobbema because we had no guards available here. She was moved to commit clog clobbering when she realized how far she was going to have to walk the next morning when she was released. She should have considered how long that walk home was going to be without the benefit of her shoes (... or as I like to call them ... exhibits #1 and #2).  She may have opted for pummeling me with her fists but her knuckles were probably already sore from punching out a guy, (whose nose she broke and was twice her size) in that bar which called us in the first place and declared that they no longer desired her patronage.

A woman attended the courthouse on behalf of a family member during one particularly cold day recently. The icy cold conditions made for an excellent opportunity in which to test out her expensive new winter coat and by the time she’d arrived at the courthouse she was thoroughly impressed by its performance. The ability of this coat to effectively keep its occupant toasty warm and ever so stylish at the same time only served to deepen the sense of loss when she discovered it absent from the courthouse coat rack (where she had left it less than an hour earlier). In conducting her own investigation at the courthouse she identified a witness. This witness had not known anything about a stolen coat but when she was given the description of the distinctive coat she recalled someone else wearing such a coat moments earlier. In fact she had admired the coat while she was waiting for the woman to sign her probation documents after being convicted of a couple “theft under” charges a half hour earlier. Police quickly discovered the identity of the woman, gave her a call and asked her about the coat. She paused for only a second before rattling off a fantastic tale about “just this minute” noticing that she now had two identical jackets in her closet and that she hoped police could help her locate the rightful owner of the jacket she had “quite innocently” mistaken for her own. The member assured her that he could help her in that regard. He also added, in passing, what a fortunate thing it was that this jacket-snatching business was “an innocent little mistake - coulda’ happened to anyone” - especially since it being anything other than innocent, it would be a breach of a condition of her probation order; the probation order which was folded neatly and tucked into the pocket of that very jacket. The thoughtful member even offered to drive by her place to pick it up and at the same time he said they could look at both identical jackets, side by side and share a good natured chuckle over how innocently such a mistake could be made. Oddly, this woman didn’t want to do that. She preferred to drop it off herself, She volunteered that she would probably be wearing some different coat too when she did so ... “cuz I’m going to take my jacket, that looks exactly like this jacket, to ... uh ... the dry cleaners... yeah ... dry cleaners, on the way there.

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.