It’s difficult to explain how dumb some folks are; reading an AP story out of Eau Claure, Wisconsin. ( link provided in title bar )
“Attempts to do a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges. The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the "Jackass" movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire.”
“Attempts to do a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges. The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the "Jackass" movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire.”
“Jared W. Anderson, 20, suffered serious burns to his hands and genitals, according to the criminal complaint. Randell D. Peterson, 43, who sprayed lighter fluid on Anderson and lit him on fire, was charged with
“Witnesses told police that Anderson, who was drunk, volunteered to do the stunt Sunday after watching the movie, the complaint said."
Where to begin…okay, start with the folks who made a movie that would be popular to the Dumb and Dumber crowd, a movie which has made enough money to “justify” making it. Then the next step would be the general population that would spend any amount of time or money watching that film; are we getting a picture of our voting base?
Jared W. Anderson, I imagine his parents are so pleased that he didn’t mention them by name while being interviewed. Luck is a strange lady, Frank Sinatra made a record and lots of money on that premise; Anderson will survive and go on to produce offspring, damaged genitalia and matching brain cell activity. I wonder what the “W” stands for, knowing that his mother would have used his complete name while pointing out that only an idiot would do something so dumb.
I’ve gotten down to Randell D. Peterson; the “friend” who helped “set this off”. Why was he charged with a criminal act? I mean, once more for effect, I mean, my best Arlo Guthrie I mean… If we put all the stupid folks in jail who’d be on the ballot to send to Washington?
This was bound to remind me of some fool from when I was a police officer; of course, “I only heard about this one”. The statute of limitations has long since passed and since I’ve already retired they can’t fire me for violating one of the standard operating procedures.
Some officer who’d seen far too many of life’s bottom dwellers got a call to a “disturbance in progress”; that’s anything from some guy in a parking lot washing his truck at two in the morning all the way to a full blown riot where the Sharks meet the Jets under a freeway overpass with knives, chains and clubs. He looked over at the empty passenger seat of his patrol vehicle and said to himself, “Hey, I’m a fully trained officer of the law with a really spiffy looking blue uniform; I can handle it.”
“Upon arrival”, he noticed Dumb and Dumber, the names changed to protect the imbeciles, tried to look inconspicuous in the parking lot. Dumb had a very large hunting knife protruding out of his thigh with his blue jeans saturated in blood. Dumber was attempting to console his friend and recover his favorite hunting knife.
“It’s okay, Officer. We was jest foolin’ around with the knife and I accidentally got stuck in the laige (leg)”. For you folks not familiar with the beauty of an East Texas drawl, well, try to imagine being a couple of six packs on top of a Seventh grade education.
His “Lai-ge”, doin’ my best to explain how you make Leg into a two syllable word with a heavy beer odor, “His leg”, sorry, I’ve had to stop while writing this as a stupor or thought came over me. “His leg will be okay, won’t it, Officer? Kin I have my knife back, it was a present from my daddy?”
“We was just funnin’, honest Officer, he never meant no harm.”
That officer, the one I heard about, was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There were a couple of options open to him. He could have Dumber taken to the hospital against his wishes, he could haul Dumb to the slammer and charge him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon even though they “was jest foolin’ around”, “not trying to hurt nobody”. Dumber’s leg wasn’t gushing blood and he didn’t want his best buddy going to jail. They had pretty much sobered up with all the extra excitement; but giving them the knife back was out of the question.
“Ya’all git back in your apartment and I’ll fergit the whole thing”, at least that’s what I’m told that officer said as he tossed the knife into his brief case sitting there in the passenger side of the patrol car where it would have been much better to have had a partner but the City was confident that they could get by on short staff; much as they are today. I heard everything turned out okay, nobody’s leg got infected or had to be amputated, there were no hard feelings between those two good buddies who continued to drink up a storm out there in the parking lot for years, nobody at the police station got into a dither when no arrests were made, no lengthy investigation was made with pages of reports and photographs and no knife ever made it to the evidence room.
Police work used to be left up to police officers, the discretion to let some things fall by the wayside while at other times going the full distance with courts and lawyers. The old rule used to be that if it worked out right it must have been done right; the new rule, you better have an attorney on retainer, either that or an angel on you shoulder.
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