City’s New Police Chief Wants to Dress to Impress and Arrest
Like all cities, Cincinnati is a place where crimes are committed. Strategies constantly evolve as law enforcement tries to thwart all sorts of criminal enterprises. In order to combat all the degenerates and scofflaws that call the Queen City home, it is necessary to have clear and direct plans of action in place. A large part of that strategy involves deciding what Cincinnati’s police officers are supposed to wear. New Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell wants officers to wear their hats while working details and traffic posts, reversing a directive from our prior chief James Craig, who deemed hats unnecessary. Blackwell recently wrote that wearing hats “in the spirit of professionalism” is the right thing to do while working traffic posts, noting that it offers idiots who get caught driving drunk a chance to make at least one hat-related joke at the officer’s expense while they are being arrested and transferred. Officers can continue to use their discretion and opt whether or not to wear hats while performing regular duties. Chief Blackwell would also like the public to know that he is willing to discuss changing the police department’s logo back to the old school version with the crown in it instead of the bland one being used now that looks like an advertisement for an urology group practice.
Local Man to Serve Jail Time for Altering Posts on Site No One Has Ever Heard Of
Federal prosecutors brought charges against a 38-year-old man from Dry Ridge, Ky. for cyberbullying, and a federal judge sentenced him to five months in prison and two years of probation for his crimes. Michael Pullen was reportedly found to be in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and will have to report to a federal work camp in Ashland on Oct. 21 to begin serving his sentence, and his attorney has pointed out that the case is costing taxpayers a $14,000 legal bill and part of the $30,000 a year it costs to incarcerate someone. Pullen’s crime was breaking into people’s accounts on a social networking site called SodaHead.com and replacing posts that he felt were racist or homophobic with unfunny lines like “I’m super fancy. Why don’t you call me fancy pants?” The defendant originally faced more than a year in prison before being offered a lesser sentence in exchange for promising to help authorities figure out how to log into their personal Myspace accounts and also letting them know if anyone still uses that site anymore.
Seattle High Schoolers Suspended for Confederate Flag Shirts, Nation Still Thinks They All Wear Flannels Every Day
As teenagers, it is often difficult to react accordingly because humans are still pretty young and stupid at that point. Tahoma High School, located in suburban Seattle, is a place where this scenario was demonstrated recently. In an ill-advised political statement, two juniors decided that the appropriate response to a sophomore student’s decision to display a gay-pride flag was for them to wear Confederate flag T-shirts to school and piss everybody off. It was reported that one of the students wore the symbol for the pro-slavery crowd around his neck while on campus. School officials suspended the students for an unspecified violation of the school’s dress code. In addition to keeping Tahoma High School from turning into a place where intolerance is permitted, administrators also want the suspended students to realize that they have no business supporting the Confederate cause or ideology since back when the Civil War was being fought the only thing going on in the state of Washington was a bunch of bears fucking in the woods.
Minimum Wage Leaps 10 Cents, Now Just a Few Dollars Less Than What People Need to Survive
A lot of people think that poor people wouldn’t know what to do with money if they had it. Thankfully, minimum wage across America is so low we’ll never have to see how that would actually pan out. Minimum wage in Indiana and Kentucky is a measly $7.25 an hour for non-tipped employees, and Ohio’s Department of Commerce today announced that it cares about its economically trapped residents just a little bit more than neighboring states, as minimum wage in Ohio will rise 10 cents to $7.95 an hour effective Jan. 1. Employees who receive tips as part of their income will get an even more old-timey-sounding raise of five cents; bumping their hourly wage from $3.93 an hour to $3.98. Although the minimum rates of pay allowed in America make it impossible for those earning them to ever do anything fun or go anywhere, there are hopes that these tiny raises will entice minimum-wage workers to stimulate the domestic economy and dine out once a month at an establishment featuring bottles of ketchup and other condiments at the table that they can eat for free.
Former State Rep. Forgets to Mention DUI When Renewing License, NBD
Back in 2011 when State Rep. Robert Mecklenborg was arrested for drunken driving in Lawrenceburg, Ind., the story got a lot of attention. Mecklenborg was in the midst of a conservative-led effort to pass the “Heartbeat Bill,” legislation that would have prohibited abortions after only six weeks. What made his name more interesting during this time was that at the time of his arrest he had Viagra in his system, along with the company of a 26-year-old woman. At the time, Mecklenborg called the incident “a personal matter.” Recent events have shown that that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. While applying to renew his license, Mecklenborg says he didn’t read the paperwork he signed and inadvertently lied about his DUI and subsequent arrest, which led to his resignation. Mecklenborg could have faced harsher penalties, but a disciplinary board ruled that his paperwork snafu “did not constitute an intentional act of dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” Some legal experts believe that the former representative deserved harsher punishment but noted that they were leery of calling him on the carpet about forgetting about his DUI because his lawyers could blame it on all the boner pills he was on at the time.
CONTACT ISAAC THORN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2013.