Baboon Pirates

Scribbles and Scrawls from an unrepentant swashbuckling primate.

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Location: Texas, United States

Friday, November 04, 2005

Barney Fife Strikes Again

Highly Trained Professionals, Indeed...

For the second time this week, the local gendarmerie have let a prisoner slip away from custody. The first one managed to unshackle himself and pry open a van window while being transported. Police captured him hours later.

The second one I found out about while waiting on a bus to take me home last night, well after dark. There's a cop chopper buzzing around downtown, and while I'm watching it hover, I almost miss the Harris County sheriff's deputy slide to a stop in his cruiser next to the corner. He hops out, and starts flashing a mug shot at everyone, demanding "Anyone see this guy?" To tell the truth, it looked a bit like my brother-in-law after a tequila bender, so I kept my mouth shut. Some lady asked what the guy did, and the deputy replied "He's just been sentenced to death for double murder, but he escaped from the county jail."

About half the commuters shat themselves, the others took another look at the mugshot, and commenced to stare at everyone else's face, just to make sure he wasn't trying to catch the Woodlands shuttle.

Later, after arriving home, I found out that this upstanding citizen somehow found a change of clothes and an ID badge, claimed he worked for the Attorney General's office, and walked right out of the jail.

He's still on the loose, btw.

What peeves me the most is that due to The Man's policy on "violence in the workplace", the only weapons owned by employees allowed in this building is on the hip of the cop in the lobby. Hell, he's out back smoking most of the time anyway. A Concealed Carry permit is OK for visitors, but not for those of us that work here. Since my car sits all day at an unguarded transit center, I don't feel comfortable leaving a pistol in it while I'm at work, and it wouldn't have done me any good last night if it was way out there.

I may suggest that we offer a bank of lockboxes down in the lobby, kind of like the ones used in jails. You come in off the street, put your heater in the box, use your lock on the door, and retrieve it whenever you leave the building.

The Man will never go for it, there's too many scared little bunnies that work here. I've gotta at least suggest it, though. It bugs me beyond belief that we have a "safe workplace", then get tossed to the wolves as soon as we step outside.