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January 13, 2006
Another Case of Dumb and Dumber
A call from an employee at Starbuck's resulted in the S.F. Bomb Squad blowing up a flashlight with a water cannon? One might wonder, are cops as dumb as that Starbucks guy? A few weeks ago Chico PD shut down 2 blocks in the downtown for hours over a dirty backpack left unattended by the post office. It was also dispatched with a water cannon, much to the chagrin of the homeless guy who came back to retrieve it.
For decades we've evacuated schools, movie theaters and businesses over trivial bomb threats or suspicious looking packages, because the consequences of being wrong are far too severe and probably mostly because cops know lawyers will be all over them if they are wrong. That's why the police are forced to overreact each and every time, because of that remote 1 in a billion chance with a 100% chance of a lawsuit to follow if they're ever wrong. It's caused us to be literally stuck on stupid and squander our limited resources.
On another level of dumb, recently Homeland Security (a wasteful boondoggle) bought security lighting for the Glenn County Fair. Gee, are our county fairs becoming a hot bed for terrorist gatherings? Home sure thinks so. Homeland Senility blows millions on equally useless things in the most remote regions of country...because they can. That's what happens when you give bureaucrats too much money and tell them to fix a problem. I can't fault the fair manager, he just saw an opportunity for some better lighting and grabbed it. Probably the same could be said for the cops practicing with their new water cannons.
Posted by Post Scripts at January 13, 2006 09:09 AM