May I have some attention, please?

On the local crime beat, here's the story of a young man who was so in need of attention, he went and got himself arrested!

Young Stephen Sprecher was shown to a room at the Ironbar Hilton because lately, it seemed that every time the cops got a call around here for an alarm going off because someone broke the window out of a building - a gun shop, a liquor store, one of those medical offices where you get to be examined by someone who got all 70's in med school - that guy was hanging around, waiting to be arrested because he felt that he needed attention.

 A pane in the glass

Now, I feel sorry for him, but you'd have to ask a psychiatrist or psychologist about a need for attention so great that getting tossed into the hoosegow seems a suitable solution.  Keith Richards, no stranger to attention-getting stunts himself, once said there is no such thing as bad publicity.  And he proved it time after time, most notably by falling out of a palm tree while trying to get a coconut.  And of course, the flamboyant guitarist has plenty of arrests on his rap sheet, but not for anything so pedestrian as breaking out windows of mercantile establishments.

Mr Richards and his partner Mr Mick Jagger wrote "You Can't Always Get What You Want" many years ago, and the hope here is that Mr Sprecher will come to realize that sometimes, you do indeed get what you need.  He needed attention, and the Baltimore County Police, on behalf of the business owners involved, will see to it that he gets a chance to have every eye in the courtroom on him very soon.

Also on the local crime beat, last Friday evening there was a shooting at the light rail station over in Lutherville.  It turns out that the victim was a man recently convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to serve 24 years in prison.  So, right about now you're probably asking yourself, why is a man who is supposed to be in jail for 24 years riding the light rail?  Well, you see, he has been in work release. 

I posited on Facebook that the proper place for prisoners is prison, prompting a friend to ask if I just felt that offenders should be cast away forever.  Not at all.  But I do feel that they should serve out their complete sentences.  

It's only fair. Their victims deserve nothing less.