Confused Cloyce

About forty years ago in an attempt to improve community relations the Detroit Police Department created dozens of what were called 'mini stations' across the city. The idea was to have small offices with perhaps five police stationed in them, where citizens might drop in and more readily discuss issues of crime and policy. Not a bad thing, really, but also not really the point of my tale.

The mini stations were rarely free standing but were rather housed in larger buildings with available office space. One such instance was when a station had been put on the ground floor of a senior citizen high rise on the west side of Detroit. It was placed there reasonably enough for seniors to have access to police services. Not a bad thing really, but also not really the point of my tale.

One day I was driving past the aforementioned senior citizen high rise with a friend of mine as a passenger; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. As the high rise was centered to a large city block, a sign proclaiming that a Detroit Police Mini station was in it had been placed out at the intersection of two near cross streets. You know, to let everyone know it was there.

The traffic light at the intersection caught me. After a moment Cloyce incredulously says, obviously after seeing the sign, "That's a Mini Station?"

Not thinking much about it I answered simply, "Yeah."

Cloyce continued in amazement, "How big is a regular police station?"

And that is the point of my tale.

Cloyce the cop

My brother Phil had a good friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who spent about twenty years as a reservist with the Detroit Police. He never did much more than cover at baseball and hockey games but hey, it helped the regular cops out.

Once Cloyce was working at a baseball game  at old Tiger Stadium when, as part of his rounds, he stopped by the DPD office under the stands. The sergeant, indicating a sad looking fellow sitting over to the side, told Cloyce to escort the guy from the premises for public drunkenness. So Cloyce did.

About three innings later Cloyce was back by the patrol room, and the sergeant told him to show another guy the door. The same guy, in fact. "Isn't he the one I took out before?" Cloyce asked.

"He bought another ticket and came back in," the sergeant answered with a shrug. Warning the drunk not to return a third time or he'd face a night in jail, the sergeant gave him over to Cloyce.

Cloyce spent the rest of the game keeping a sharp eye out for the miscreant. He didn't want his own reputation soiled if the guy actually did get back in the stadium a third time.

Still, he avoided the DPD office for the rest of the game.

At the ballpark with Cloyce

My brother Phil had a good friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who spent about twenty years as a reservist with the Detroit Police. He never did much more than cover at baseball and hockey games but hey, it helped the regular cops out.
Once Cloyce was working at a baseball at old Tiger Stadium when, as part of his rounds, he stopped by the DPD office under the stands. The sergeant, indicating a sad looking fellow sitting over to the side, told Cloyce to escort the guy from the premises for public drunkenness. So Cloyce did.
About three innings later Cloyce was back by the patrol room, and the sergeant told him to show another guy the door. The same guy, in fact. "Isn't he the one I took out before?" Cloyce asked.
"He bought another ticket and came back in," the sergeant answered with a shrug. Warning the drunk not to return a third time or he'd face a night in jail, the sergeant gave him over to Cloyce.
Cloyce spent the rest of the game keeping a sharp eye out for the miscreant. He didn't want his own reputation soiled if the guy actually did get back in the stadium.

Seat Belt Check Lanes are Stupid

Note: Charles Martin Cosgriff, smart aleck extrordinaire that he is, doubles as the Wayne County (MI) Conservative Examiner on examiner.com He likes this too much to dare alter it.

While your Wayne County Conservative Examiner was tooling westwardly along Michigan Avenue in southwest Detroit early yesterday evening, a little after 7 in the PM, he could not help but notice the harsh stare of the Detroit Police Officer boring into his person as he made his way. It caused him to shrink away with fear, in fact. The officer had his squad car parked in the left turn lane, which was truly inconvenient. Your WCCE was wanting to hang a left into the parking lot of his favorite Little Caesars for the sake of a couple Hot and Ready pizzas, and perhaps some Crazy Bread as well. You know, that delightfully doughy bread painted with garlic, and with what we perceive are cheese bits of a sort as a kind of crust. Yet thanks to the officer ever so diligent at his duty, it was necessary to drive a block past the restaurant, to make a left and circle yet another block in returning to Michigan to turn right into the waiting LC. It was really quite distressing, for your WCCE had spent several hours doing yard work, a chore in itself, and was really quite hungry for that wonderful American specialty colloquially known as beer and pizza. Yet his well earned repast was delayed so insultingly because he had happened upon a seat belt check lane, an area set aside so that the City of Detroit could be on the lookout for those vile and despicable criminals who had not buckled up. Horrid, disgusting felons they are.

Really now. We have to wonder whether the whole plot was merely a ploy for the city to earn a few extra bits of coin. Detroit is, after all, suffering deep financial woes. Yet if only that might have been the case, the officers perhaps may have been cut a little slack. As it is, they were seeking out the truly evil people who may have dared motored along a Detroit thoroughfare without having availed themselves of the proverbial 'click it or ticket'. My, but those government agents as so able to turn a phrase.

Of course, one really can harbor no ill will against those stouthearted men and women in blue. They were merely doing what they were ordered, we are sure, and with the proper admonition to 'be careful out there', if a harkening back to a well known catchphrase from a well received police show of thirty some years ago may suit our purpose here. If the reference escapes you, this is where it may be found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2QApwtE8zQ . It was surely an easy if boring night of work for them, the 5 or 6 squad cars of dutiful civil servants we could count for ourselves who were assigned such a menial task. Surely they pined for a career out of the police academy which offered a greater challenge than signalling an errant driver to the roadside, for no greater sin than a citizen driving his own car on a highway paid for by his taxes having no real concern for his own safety or that of his fellows. Surely the murderer, the rapist, the arsonist, the robber; nay, even the passer of bad checks, could not have been doing more harm to society last evening than that inconsiderate unbuckled operator of a motor vehicle. The nerve. Cheek, gall; that's what it is.

And now, as we have assuaged the desire to over-employ the semicolon as we pen our message this noonday, we leave you with this heartfelt thought.

Seat belt check are a waste of time and manpower. It seems that the nanny state rules, especially as it easier to apprehend safe criminals over unsafe. Our leaders appear to do so much while doing so little as they assign their minions such tasks so well below their training. Yet so little done seems the fate of modern government at all levels these days.

Prejudging the Case

Seven year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones died in a horrible tragedy a few days ago, and her funeral was yesterday. Yet rather than lament the fact, we see only that the opportunists have arrived in Detroit to make hay for themselves at the young girl's expense.

Notables such as attorney Geoffrey Fieger and preacher Al Sharpton have come out of the woodwork supposedly out of concern for Aiyana's life and tragic death, and to raise awareness of the plight of such young innocents. But it is fair to ask how truly concerned they are for her and how much of their invective is driven by the personal incentive of staying in the limelight themselves.

This is not to say that there should not be a thorough investigation of the matter. If the Detroit Police officers involved acted rashly then such has to be addressed. Yet why is it so many involved have already presumed bad judgment on the part of the cops? The AOL News report on the funeral ends with Aiyana's young friend Roshell Johnson asking, "Why did the police do this to her?"

We don't know yet that the police did anything wrong. Even at that, we don't know how much the grandmother's actions helped or hurt the matter, and we ignore that the police were present in the first place to arrest a murder suspect living in the house. How much of the fault therein might lie with the household?

True, we don't know that either just yet. But everyone is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Why don't the men and women in blue receive even that little amount of due consideration?

What we have here is a circus with Al Sharpton and Geoffrey Fieger in the center ring for reasons of their own vainglory. That does not serve the cause of justice. And it in truth mocks Aiyana Stanley-Jones' sad death.