I thought a serial killer was being apprehended in my usually quiet neighborhood late on Saturday morning. There were helicopters swooping up and down the block, and about a dozen police cars on the street.
It seems that a man was trying to break into a house that is for sale, but that happens to still be owned by a member of the local police force. The neighbors spotted him as he tried to wriggle his way into a basement window.
Dan went out to see what was happening. His chat with the neighbors went something like this:
Dan: So what happened?
Neighbor #1: Someone was trying to break into that house, which is owned by a police officer.
Dan: In the middle of the day?
Neighbor #2: That’s when break-ins happen. They do it during the day, when no one is home.
Neighbor #1: Uh, people are usually home on Saturday.
The men laughed. Then a police officer drove his cruiser the wrong way down our one way street, and several of his colleagues laughed and jeered.
What a jovial crime scene!
When I was just a baby bird of a reporter, I used to dig through high stacks of downtown police reports for a local rag in order to write a column about dumb and bizarre crimes on these fair streets of Columbus.
Ah, Naked City, you’ve returned to me.
Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.