January 29- February 4, 2009
editorial@boulderweekly.com

Playing cops and robbers
How do you tell the difference between a police officer and a teenager? Apparently, if you’re a cop in Chicago, you don’t — at least
not until the junior-high imposter has been on duty for nearly an entire shift.

When 14-year-old Vincent Richardson, who has wanted to be a police officer since he was 5, showed up at the police station dressed in a regulation uniform and declared that he was reporting for duty, he was assigned to traffic patrol with a veteran officer.

After spending five hours on patrol, the two returned to the police station where a sergeant noticed that Richardson wasn’t wearing a badge. After an interrogation in which Richardson was unable to give a reason for his not having a badge (like that he ISN’T a cop!), the teenager was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor count of impersonating a police officer.

Amazingly, this wasn’t Richardson’s first time being charged with such a crime. Twice before he has been caught pretending to be a police officer; one of those times he was charged.

But the really crazy thing about this story isn’t that a 14-year-old kid tried to slip in under the radar; it’s not even that he did so on several occasions. The crazy part is that for several hours — almost an entire workday — he got away with it. Riding around on traffic patrol with a veteran officer, without a gun and without a badge, a kid managed to pull off a pretty sophisticated impersonation right under the nose of the law.

So the way we see it, one of two things needs to happen for the sake of Chicago’s citizens: either the current cops need to be fired or this kid needs to be hired. Something tells us the savvy teen might do a better job than his arresting officers when it comes to spotting a criminal.

Depends on how you look at it
On Jan. 20, our country welcomed its first black president. The crowd for President Obama’s inauguration was enormous — larger than any prior inauguration, in fact. Going to see the historic event was a coveted experience for many. Some people shit their pants to be a part of it. Seriously.

An article from the McClatchy Tribune called the inauguration “the largest temporary-toilet event in the history of the United States,” and went on to explain that, although crowds were roughly the size expected, the porta-potties were only a quarter full by the end of the day. Given the number of people on the streets of D.C. that day and the number of hours they were there, the company that supplied the porta-johns expected them to be at least half-full. So, you ask, where did all the shit go?

William Broker, a grocery store manager in the area, might just have the answer. Apparently, he noticed that sales of Depends — that’s right, adult diapers — rose 20 percent in the days leading up to the inauguration. Several couples even admitted to him that they were buying them to “survive the dense Mall crowd.”

According to the article, “‘At an event like this, you really have to wear Depends,’ said Karen Johnson of Fredericksburg, Va., who isn’t a fan of portable toilets. ‘It’s so nasty inside those things,’ she said.”

To this, we have one response: No one likes porta-potties, lady. But it’s just slightly more disgusting to shit your pants than to squat over a hole. Get over it and pop a squat so the dude standing next to you doesn’t have to smell your poo all day.

Paper chase
On Friday, Jan. 23, the University of Colorado faced an attempted robbery. No, it wasn’t Benson’s personal piggy bank or a CU football panty raid. This time, the target was the UMC bookstore.

Two unidentified men were caught attempting to steal $700 worth of textbooks. After being confronted by bookstore employees, the suspects bolted. In their wake, they left the books and their two backpacks.

The police are spending their time hunting down the suspects, but we have another concern: 700 big ones seems like a hellavua lot of money for books. Where was the shopping cart? As we inquired further, we discovered that the bounty in question amounted to a total of five books. Yes, count ’em. Five. F-I-V-E for $700. That’s roughly $140 a pop.

Who are the real criminals here? The impoverished college students who snag a few textbooks on the sly or the pretentious academics who force these young coeds to purchase their overpriced, theoretical prose?

Noam Chomsky, Harold Bloom, Judith Butler, we need you to report to the Boulder Police Department for a lineup.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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