4 News Stories That Prove That Cops Shouldn't Be Comedians
Everybody gets bored at work, so we understand the primordial impulse to spice the day up with some good ol' fashioned kiddin' around. But when you're a police officer who's tasked with defending citizens from themselves using the judicious application of deadly force, the monkeyshines should probably be saved for those hours when you aren't carrying a gun. And you sure as shit shouldn't pull the following pranks while wielding a badge, such as ...
Lightheartedly Inciting Violence Against the KKK on Twitter
Apparently, some people still haven't realized that things you type on the Internet don't just disappear into a consequence-free universe of dancing unicorns. Take this, for example:
You have to admire his entrepreneurial spirit.
That's the Twitter account of a cop in Memphis, who took to the Internet to speak his mind about a local KKK rally. We're not trying to get anyone to feel sorry for the KKK, but when you are an officer of the law, you really aren't supposed to encourage people to throw bricks at other human beings, not even if the targets in question are shit-bearded racists. He took things a bit further by using the one word that guarantees you instant FBI attention:
Not to mention the all-seeing eye of the grammar police.
He claimed that he was only joking -- and we admit, his stone-faced suggestion that somebody blow up a bus full of people is both witty and topical -- but it turns out that the FBI takes that kind of shit pretty seriously. The officer was suspended for doing, well, the exact opposite of his job.
Pretending to Be a Flood Victim on the News
Toronto has experienced flooding recently, so the local constabulary has been doing everything they can to make sure nobody slips and drowns in the middle of the goddamn street. The effort included plainclothes officer Nickolas Dorazio, who was approached by a news reporter after having spent the better part of the night corralling a bunch of stranded commuters safely off of a flooded train car.
In a move that shows just how fast one can go from "hero" to "total dildo," Dorazio decided to play a goof on the reporter and pretended to be one of the unfortunate flood victims, as nearly drowning inside public transportation is hilarious.
Dorazio praises one of his fellow officers for valiantly lifting him in his powerful arms and carrying him to safety, which normally would've resulted in an appreciative laugh from the officer in question and Dorazio would've been forced to reveal his ruse to the reporter. Except there was nobody else around, so Nick boldly drags the joke on for two more uncomfortable minutes like a terrible comedian at an open mic, giving a false account of his injuries and where he had been going on the train.
"I was heading to the barber, to get this disaster shaved off my face."
What's baffling is that there is absolutely nobody else within earshot, so Nick is doing this whole charade purely for his own amusement. But hey, if you can't make yourself laugh, why bother?
Taking a Picture with a Porn Star While Wearing a Unicorn Mask
As promised, here is a picture of a cop in a unicorn mask:
Was he still issued a baton? If so ... why?
That picture is from the Twitter account of adult film actress Andy San Dimas, who was ejected from a Pirates game for wearing the fantasy horse head and dancing in the aisle like one of the animal-faced blow job ghosts from The Shining. The police were called to escort her from the stadium, and judging by this photo, we're guessing a one Sergeant Wayne C. Unicorn saw an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
Bizarrely, the Pittsburgh Police Department is treating the incident very seriously, seeking to punish the cop in question for conduct unbecoming an officer ... just as soon as they figure out who the hell he is.
Detective Buzzkill is on the case.
Blasting Darth Vader's Theme from a Squad Car
For the past several months, at least one cruise in New York City has been rolling through the boroughs blasting "The Imperial March" from Star Wars (aka the song that plays every time Darth Vader enters a room). To the average citizen, this gesture probably comes off as cheeky or mildly confusing. But to a homeless person on the fringe of pharmacological hallucination? A Crown Vic roaring down the street in the middle of the night blaring the Galactic Empire's theme song is basically a fire-breathing mechanical dinosaur.
"Yeah ... I'm gonna need to see a badge number."
It all started back in March when a man walking his dog in Midtown heard the iconic film score drifting slowly up the street and was surprised to see that it was coming from a police cruiser tooling on by with its emergency lights on. Then earlier this month, a Brooklyn resident spotted the Imperial Street Cruiser as it trumpeted through Prospect Park, driven by a pair of cops who were "laughing like stoned high-school kids." (To be fair, this is exactly the kind of thing that a lot of us did as stoned high school kids.)
Representatives from the NYPD have assured people that they're looking into the matter, but efforts to locate the offending cruiser have proven difficult, presumably because every time they question the two officers on patrol in Prospect Park, they feel the sudden and inexplicable urge to announce "These aren't the cops we're looking for" and tell them to move along.
