I Witness News

It must be a different thing to say "I witness news" as opposed to the good people at Channel 13 Eyewitness News, where everyone goes by a first name.  If you see crime happening, it is your civic responsibility to tell the police what you saw so that the perpetrators can be brought to court, where the stories of their sad lives can unfold before a sympathetic jury.

For real, you know what you're supposed to do when you see someone stab someone or run out of a bank with a canvas sack full of money and those magnets and measuring cups and rubber discs for opening jars, all those promotional items that banks hand out. You're supposed to stick around and provide information to the law, so that the bad guys can be rounded up for their day in court (if they can clear their bank-robbing schedule.)

The picture given to police

We talked the other day about the violence that broke out in downtown B'more on the 4th of July. Well, the man pictured here is alleged by the police to be the man who broke off a bottle at its neck and stabbed to death 26-year-old Joseph Calo of Opelika, Alabama.  Someone took a picture of the person that is said to be the attacker, and on Saturday morning, 32-year old Marcus Harris of Baltimore walked into Police Headquarters and gave himself up for arrest.  Police are saying that they received a number of calls fingering Harris as the culprit after that picture that someone gave them was publicized all over town.

Here's the thing.  Who hasn't seen one of those courtroom drama movies where, as the just-convicted guy (who always looks like Joseph Campanella) is being dragged off by beige-clad bailiffs, he turns and shouts, " I'll get you, you dirty rat!"?

Joseph Campanella

This was memorably lampooned on The Simpsons when Krusty's sidekick Sideshow Bob went up for trying to kill Bart 27 times, and hollered, "I'll be back!  They can't keep the Democrats out of office forever, you know!" just before he went to share a jail cell with Scooter Libby and Tom DeLay.

Smile, you crook!

That last part about two crooks who have yet to be incarcerated was gratuitous, and I would remove it from this blog, but there is no button on this keyboard that says "erase."  Tom Delay was convicted of money-laundering charges and given three years in the hoosegow, but he is appealing.  Not to me, but to the judge.  Scooter "Scooter" Libby (born Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby) was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements in a federal trial, but irksome President George Bush stopped clearing brush off his ranch in Crawford, Texas, long enough to commute his thirty-month sentence.  Bush figured that the loss of his good name and reputation was enough of a punishment for Scooter.  I for one felt that "being known as chief of staff to Dick 'Scooter' Cheney" was a blot on any man's good name and reputation to begin with.

Did you ever stop to shudder when you realized that for eight years, your Federal government was in the hands of people named "Scooter"?

I have to hand it to people who are willing to come forward, say what they saw, and then testify in court about it.  There is a part of our culture that eschews this truthfulness as being "snitching."

I don't know if this Mr Harris is guilty of anything at all. I sure as heck was not downtown when all hell broke loose down there the other night, so "idk" "wtf" went on.  Let's hope that the truth comes out without anyone having to fear retaliation.  Chances are, Harris doesn't have high-ranking friends like Tommy and Scooter do.

Scooter.  I mean, really.