MODERN KEYSTONE COPS (MARCH-APRIL, 2008)

It's been two years since I've blogged any moderm keystone cop stories. Two police incidents occurred recently, each deserving of a distinguished Modern Keystone Cop award.


"HEY, STOP OR I'LL SHOOT! STOP OR I'LL SHOOT!"

Last month, a 17-year-old chimpanzee escaped from a University of Texas (UT) laboratory in Bastrop, a community not far from the university's main campus in Austin. Lab attendants in a pick-up truck darted the chimp with a tranquilizer gun, but without effect. According to the official report, the chimp jumped into the back of the pick-up truck and "took the attendant's dart gun away from him and discarded it."

The driver sped away and the chimp either fell from the truck or jumped out of it. The chimp then advanced toward a UT police officer. According to the report, "The chimpanzee started flailing its arms. The officer shouted at least twice that he was going to shoot." In fear for his safety, the officer then fired several times at the advancing chimp, killing him.

Now I can understand how the officer would be in fear for his life. But, warning the chimp at least twice that he was going to shoot? Did he shout in chimpanzeenese which, just as Jews and Italians do while talking, involves the flailing of one's arms and hands? Or, as a college cop, did he simply mistake that ape for a rampaging dope-crazed unkempt naked UT student?

Obviously the chimp did not stop. Maybe that was because in the excitement, when he warned the chimp, the officer forgot to follow the accepted attention-getting police practice of beginning each warning by shouting: "HEY, ASSHOLE!"


"I BET YOU TEN PESOS I CAN HIT THAT THING FROM HERE."

Earlier this month, a large group of Mexican police officers were firing their weapons at a shooting range in Tapachula, a city in southern Mexico's state of Chiapas. One of the officers fired his gun and struck a hive of Africanized (killer) bees. CARAMBA !!!!!!!!

The killer bees swarmed at the cops and at least 70 officers were stung bad enough to be hospitalized. Score: Killer Bees 70 - Killer Cops 1. At least 10 of the officers were hospitalized in serious condition. If you get hold of a Spanish-English dictionary, you can bet there is no English transaltion for the language used by the officers while they were being stung.


EDITOR'S NOTE: The chimpanzee that was shot in Bastrop most probably would have understood the shouts used by the Mexican cops as they flailed their arms in the midst of the swarming bees.