Yesterday while patrolling a parking lot, one of our newer students apparently completely spaced on the alphabet and, panicking a little, starting making new phonetic codes up as he radioed in license plate numbers. “V,” which is supposed to be rendered “victor,” became “Virginia,” etc. But what really took the cake was his impromptu offering replacement for an “F,” which is supposed to be “foxtrot.” What was the first “F” word that sprung to this kid’s mind?
Monsieur I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Or That You Still Read Those Novels With My Chisled Jaw and Windswept Mane On the Cover PS - Do You Remember When I Was Hit In the Face By a Duck, himself!
We are all positively dying to unravel his thought process on this one!
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov
Definately human.
The interesting thing about working at a university is how much information, equipment, and expertise is available to you. So when a plastic bag filled with large bones is found buried on the grounds, it’s the work of a moment to ask someone from Anthropology to come over and verify that they aren’t human. Just in case. Or, less professionally, when one is hungry, one can just scamper over to any of the cafes, food halls, or centers that provide sustenance for cheap prices.
Alternatively, using campus resources can often put one in an awkward situation.
In the library there is a very nice media lab where you can covert anything in any format to any other format you please. Now I’m pretty technologically illiterate, but even I can appreciate that sort of thing. And for the first time I got to use it yesterday when Lt. Citrus gave me a sack full of VHS tapes and told me to convert them to DVDs. How neat, thought I, and off I trotted.
I got a crash course in using the towering masses of machinery and, after snatching a book to keep me company (another benefit of a university setting), I got to work. There was a lot of loading/unloading tapes, keeping an eye on the screens, finalizing data, etc., but mostly it involved waiting for the tapes to run fully (which could last from a few minutes to a couple hours). And I even watched a couple: guy holding an audience hostage because God told him he was supposed to be supreme dictator or Earth, rioting at football games, your average wierdos…you know, the usual.
However there was some pretty dark stuff too and when converting those I taped paper over the screens (because I am of the somewhat old fashion opinion that an individual’s personal tragedy is nobody else’s damn business). During these tapes, I kicked back with my book until I was rudely disturbed but a gentleman marching up to me.
You've been recording investigation documents, vital to court proceedure, medical records, and department case archives, for entirely TOO LONG. You will now be punished!
“You’ve been here for a long time,” he accused.
“Yes, and I apologize, but I am working on something important on behalf of the University. I’m nearly done. Do you need the machines?”
“No,” he said snappishly . “I just think you’re being inconsiderate taking up so much time.”
Not really prepared to handle this sort of time management vigilante-ism (side note – not one person had previously needed to use the machines or asked me when I would be done), I only blinked.
“You’re probably not even doing anything remotely important,” he continued, crossing his arms and turning up his nose. “What are you working on?”
I felt an eyebrow climb at his tone but answered in a chipper voice, “Well I’m transferring a video taken from a homicide scene investigation. Then I’ll have to transfer the autopsy tapes as well, care to watch?”
His eyes bugged for a moment and then he slunk off.
Like I said, the equipment and resources amassed here are fantastic, but the ability to see some people in all there snippy, self-important silliness might be my favorite part of my job after all.
I really am surprised and dismayed whenever it is reiterated to me that the general public thinks our department is staffed with morons. I don’t know where this idea comes from – that anyone who works at/for a police department has the IQ of a deck chair – but really, can we let it go?
So when you call up the parking office, asking us to remove a car from our records because you won’t be driving it anymore, we take pause. Because, you see, we have access to your state records and your class schedule. We can see that you live far enough away from campus that walking could be uncomfortable, we can also see that you are sill enrolled in classes. We also know that, with your student parking privileges removed, the only place your car could park on campus would be a visitor lot. And we know that you know that parking in visitor lots while still a student is forbidden. And finally, we are able to guess that a man still enrolled in classes asking us to remove his parking privileges, while living too far away to walk to campus daily, might be trying to find a loophole for parking in visitor lots.
Most vitally, we know that checking visitor lots regularly for people who have already tried this trick hundreds of times, turns up at least half a dozen like minded people a day. Here’s your ticket. Also, I have a Twitter friend for you.
We’re not idiots. And you’re not as clever as you think you are. We really have seen it all before, and have prepared accordingly.
Allow me to disabuse you of a seemingly common notion: the internet is not anonymous. No really, it’s not. Yes, there are steps you can take to protect your identity and privacy, but anyone who really wants to figure out who is posting those trollish comments at the bottom of a youtube video probably can.
From a police perspective, this anonymity myth is particularly funny. We’ve had instances with theft that we’ve traced from Craiglist, and abuse of animal carcasses (not as kinky as it sounds) that we’ve tracked from Facebook. The bottom line is, if you do something wrong and then publish photos, accounts, or step-by-step instructions somewhere online, it is really easy to find you and punish you.
So, when a kid shared on Twitter that he was jumping curbs in his car to park in visitor and handicapped parking, it was the work of a mere moment to look up his name on the campus directory, see what car he drove, and slap a ticket on it. And when he came in huffing and puffing about why he’d got a ticket because “he hadn’t done anything wrong,” it was immensely satisfying to tilt a computer screen at him to display his own confession, broadcast for all creation to see, and watch him turn 12 shades of red.
Truth is, dear World At Large, if you really are so silly as to tell everyone what you’ve done and where you are, do expect someone to show up and hold you accountable. Because someone probably will. And if you are really so narcissistic that you have to share every detail of your life, even your petty criminality with us, you have much larger issues to deal with.
“Fellows who know all about that sort of thing – dectives and so on – will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get rid of the body…”
– P.G. Wodehouse
So, on Friday we had a majorly important visitor. One of international consequence, influence, and meddling. His security detail/entourage/People were on campus days in advance and had to be herded around the whole university. I had to put together information packets for them detailing our VIP’s time down to minute increments. It was a well-knit, flawless operation.
Until the grounds crew, digging around the Law School, unearthed a large plastic bag of large bones: partial leg bones, ribs, and coccyx.
Cue flashes of Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Dexter, and Hannibal Lecter. As you can imagine, it was a thrilling, suspenseful hour or so until we got an Anthropologist to inspect them (Sidenote: I really think all police departments should be located on university campuses. Think of the treasure trove of experts at your fingertips!).
They turned out to belong to a deer. What a let down.
Nevertheless, the weekend was a welcome event after the excitement. Monday has come way too early.
Small Dog Syndrome 