Spread ’em!Today we will go geographically through our stories. Why? Well, because every now and then I need a challenge. It’s easy to just write about Florida and boobs. I can do that in my sleep. So, today, you do not get any references to Florida. Not to worry though, I have found several examples of places where the gene pool has completely dried up. While we all have moments where we don’t think our actions completely through – see my story about making love on top of a police car as example “A” – the people I am going to write about today didn’t have a minor lapse in judgement, they are completely brain dead. I am talking seriously stupid. I am talking about people who aren’t qualified to be extras in a porno. The kind of people who start every day stating, erroneously as you will see, “I don’t need to know none of that s**t.”
Let us start in Colorado with the lovely tale of a certain Ms. Shelly Figueroa. Starting her day by getting arrested for trying to run over a cop didn’t satisfy her personal needs (and Dr. Phil says we should try and satisfy our personal needs, proof that Dr. Phil is a thoughtless moron) so she stole his police car and went on a thrill ride.
The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office might want to invest in some stronger handcuffs.
Shelby Figueroa, 18, is facing multiple charges after allegedly breaking free from a pair of handcuffs, stealing a deputy’s vehicle, and leading officials on a high-speed chase through the mountains of Colorado, KUSA-TV reports.
Authorities say they first encountered Figueroa on Sunday morning, near Georgetown, Colo., when she rammed her own car into an SUV belonging to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office . The deputy on patrol handcuffed the teen and placed her in the back of the SUV.
“She’s combative, but she’s in the back of [the deputy’s] car now,” dispatchers were told. Yep, that’s her.
Not for long.
Two minutes later, the 18-year-old managed to break out of her restraints, escape from the cage, get into the driver’s seat and speed away, deputies say, igniting a chase that lasted a half hour and reached speeds up to 100 mph.
Deputies attempted to ram Figueroa off the road several times before succeeding at around 10:30 a.m., according to KUSA-TV. However, KDVR reports that the teen went off the road when she hit a spike strip.
Either way, the SUV flipped over and crashed into a rock wall.
Figueroa was treated for her injuries at a local hospital, and is now being charged with attempted vehicular assault on a peace officer, vehicular eluding, aggravated motor vehicle theft, resisting arrest, driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs, theft and reckless driving.
And, kids, those are just the charges today. She’s eligible for many more. And, thanks to the fact she’s 18 she gets to look at hard time. But, my only question is “Why did she try and run over the first cop in the first place?”
Heading down south and a little west we end up in the thrill packed city of Vaughn, New Mexico. This fun loving little metropolis was stunned, STUNNED I TELL YOU, to discover that you can’t give guns to convicted felons and make them sheriff.
A drug-sniffing dog now is the only certified member of the police force in the small eastern New Mexico town of Vaughn.
Police Chief Ernest “Chris” Armijo decided to step down Wednesday after news stories reported that he wasn’t allowed to carry a gun because of his criminal background.
“He decided the attention was distracting,” said Dave Romero, an attorney for the town.
State officials said Armijo couldn’t carry a gun since acknowledging that he owed tens of thousands of dollars in delinquent child support payments in Texas. Armijo also faces new felony charges after being accused of selling a town-owned rifle and pocketing the cash.
Romero said Armijo is working to clear up the latest case. He said Armijo has not ruled out seeking the police chief’s position again if his case is resolved and the position is open.
According to NBC affiliate KOB.com in New Mexico, Armijo’s annual salary is less than $30,000. Because he can’t own a gun or any ammunition, he sold an assault rifle he owned to Guadalupe Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Sanchez in January for $250, KOB.com reported.
A second police officer in Vaughn, Brian Bernal, was hired in the spring, but he had his own legal problems: In January of 2011, Bernal pleaded guilty to assault and battery against a household member, which prohibits him from owning a firearm by federal law, KOB.com said.
Now, according to records, the only qualified member of the Vaughn Police Department is Nikka, a drug-sniffing dog. Non-certified officers can’t make arrests and can’t carry firearms.
The K-9 police truck of the Vaughn, N.M. Police Department sits in the driveway of former Vaughn Police Chief Ernest “Chris” Armijo on Wednesday, Sept. 26.
But Romero said not having an officer qualified to carry a gun didn’t put Vaughn at risk. “England doesn’t allow police officers to carry guns,” he said. “Sometime the strongest weapon in law enforcement is communication.”
Vaughn, a town of about 450 located 104 miles east of Albuquerque, is a quiet place that is an overnight stop for railroad workers.
While residents maintain there is no crime problem, the town is set deep in what U.S. officials say is an area popular with drug traffickers. The desolate roads in Guadalupe County make it hard for authorities to catch smugglers moving drugs from Mexico.
Guadalupe County Sheriff Michael Lucero said since news about the police chief’s record became public his department has helped patrol Vaughn. But he said those efforts have put a slight strain on his already short-staffed department.
“I visit the town at least once a month,” said Lucero. “The important thing is to keep a presence so residents know we’re there to help if we’re needed.”
Romero said town officials are considering whether to hire another police chief or keep the department staffed with just one officer. He said it’s unclear whether the town will keep the police dog, which had been in Armijo’s care.
When approached by a reporter from The Associated Press at his Vaughn home, Armijo said he had no comment, and he declined to grant access to the canine for photographs or video.
The dog’s kennel could be seen in Armijo’s backyard, and a police truck marked “K-9” was parked in his driveway.
At Penny’s Diner, residents said they were embarrassed by the attention the episode has put on the small town.
“There’s just a whole lot of nothing going on here,” said cook Joyce Tabor. “We have very little crime. It’s quiet. So this really doesn’t matter.”
Armijo told KOB.com in June that he didn’t feel he needed a gun to do his job.
“We have tasers, batons, mace … stuff like that,” Armijo said. “This isn’t a TV show. This is life. We don’t run in every day with a gun drawn. Life isn’t in a pistol grip. It’s how you talk to people. I wasn’t the type of person to go, ‘I’m a cop, now give me my badge and my chip on my shoulder.’ That’s not me.”
Let me see if I got this right. A town so small that everyone could, legitimately, be related to everyone else and they elected the two town felons? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of rehabilitating felons. But handing weapons to a couple of guys who are involved in gun running and violence strikes me as mildly obtuse.
On the other hand, Vaughn is now the only city in the world with a pistol packing pooch calling the shots.
That’s kind of fun.
Moving west we head over to the fun loving city of Phoenix, Arizona. Did you know there’s no daylight saving time in Arizona? They’re not convinced that time zones are real. That whole “world is round” thing just eludes them. And it’s easy to believe that when you read this next story. See, this guy dressed his kid up like a Taliban member and then set him loose on the streets with a rocket launcher and ….. no one said anything for quite some time.
Police have arrested an Arizona man who allegedly filmed his 16-year-old nephew walking city streets dressed in a sheet and carrying a fake grenade launcher, authorities said on Wednesday.
Michael David Turley, 39, was arrested Monday over the making of the video, in which an unidentified narrator says he aims to discover how quickly police in Phoenix would respond following the fatal shooting of 12 people at the screening of the “Dark Knight Rises” Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, in July. What could possibly go wrong?
The bizarre, amateurish video depicts a person with a fairly realistic but fake grenade launcher walking around a Phoenix intersection in what appears to be a blue sheet with dark material covering his head and face.
Made eight days after the shooting at a screening of a Batman movie, the film was posted on YouTube and titled, “Dark Knight Shooting Response, Rocket Launcher Police Test.”
“Given this event, I wanted to run a little test here in Phoenix, Arizona,” the narrator says in the film. “I want to find out how safe I really am, and I want to know the response time of the Phoenix police department.”
The filmmaker claims it took 15 minutes for police to respond.
The first officer finds the filmmaker and the teen standing in a driveway. The officer calmly tells the boy to put down the weapon and the man to put down the camera. He didn’t draw his gun.
Officer James Holmes, a police spokesman, said Turley told the officer they were just filming a movie, and the officer took down their names and left.
After interviewing people who called 911 and later seeing the video posted on YouTube, police arrested Turley.
“It surprised us that he actually put that video on YouTube,” Holmes said.
Not ‘fun and games’
Holmes said the police response took just over three minutes from the first call, and a helicopter and SWAT team was dispatched as backup.
The Anonymous Filmmaker explores how the Phoenix Police Department reacts days after the event at the Century 16 Movie Theater in Aurora, Colorado where a gunman, James Holmes, killed 12 people and injured 58 more at the premiere of Batman The Dark Knight Rises. In our Hollywood style video, a man resembling a terrorist paces around a busy street in Phoenix Arizona carrying a rocket launcher until the police apprehend him. This film explores the response time and reaction of law enforcement within the Phoenix rural community. You will be shocked to see what happens.
Turley was charged with knowingly giving a false impression of a terrorist act, endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and misconduct involving a simulated explosive.
He is being held in county jail on a $5,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 45 months in prison, said Maricopa County Attorney’s Office spokesman Jerry Cobb.
“We take something like this seriously,” Phoenix police spokesman Officer James Holmes said. “It wasn’t fun and games to all the people who were affected by this. We don’t behave like this in this country to prove a point.”
The 16-year-old has not been arrested, Holmes said.
“The video told us what Turley was intentionally trying to do — creating a terrorist hoax for his own personal ideals,” he said.
Turley doesn’t have a listed phone number. He didn’t immediately respond to messages sent Wednesday through the YouTube account.
An attorney for Turley could not be immediately reached for comment.
And I can think of 100 ways this could have gone terribly wrong and all of them end up with his kid dead on the streets of Phoenix.
Sadly it’s not against the law anywhere to be a dumbass. I guess we’ll just have to settle for the charges as delivered. And, I guess it’s good to know that rocket launcher carrying terrorists are welcome in Arizona as long as they don’t have a Mexican accent.
