A Possibly Interesting and Somewhat Heartwarming Incident

Monday evening Lorraine and I went down to Sunriver for a concert. The artist was Sean Chen, a young pianist. He recently won 3^rd place in the 14^th Van Cliburn competition, and has taken first place in several other prestigious competitions. He did a great job. During intermission, Lorraine and I walked around to the other part of the Great Hall complex so she could use the restroom. I was standing in the lobby. There were people coming and going, with maybe a dozen in the lobby at any one time. Sean was getting his picture taken with several female admirers.

When he was done with them, he walked past me, heading toward the men’s room. About four steps past me he turned, came back, stuck out his hand, and asked, “Were you waiting to see me?” I shook his hand, and told him I was waiting for my wife, but then complimented him on the first half of his concert, and said that I was looking forward to the rest of the program. He said “thank you”, and went on his way. A very personable individual. I thought, “How many guys who do concerts all over the world, play with some of the finest orchestras, would be concerned that maybe he had slighted some huddlehunce lurking in a lobby, outside the concert hall restrooms in Sunriver, Oregon. My guess would be, not many.

What Was Their First Clue?

The staff at an eastern Washington jail thought that maybe an escape was in progress. How did they figure this out? 

They found a rope of sheets from a jail window down to the ground. "Eureka!" They thought. "Somebody's either drying out a bunch of bed sheets or just maybe they're planning an escape." So they locked down the jail, moved the men from that cell too another cell, and I suppose recovered the sheets.

An interesting aside: The window the sheets were hanging from was 4 feet tall, but less than 5 inches wide. The report did not say anything about the inmates being very thin. 

Some Days Nothing is Gonna Go Right!

   If you don't believe that, ask this guy in Tampa Bay, Florida. He needed a ride so decided to jack a car. He picked a car that had two men sitting inside, jerked open the passenger side door, and threatened the passenger with a steak knife. So far, his plan was working out quite well.
     Then both men yelled, "Police" and one of them drew his gun. Our carjacker dropped his knife and ran, but not far, or fast enough.
     Now, I'm not suggesting that this is a good way for anyone to spend their time, I mean jacking cars, but if it is something that you just have to do, a few pointers might be in order.
     First car selection:  Don't pick a car that has more people in it than the jacking gang---and if you're working alone that means one person---especially if the occupants are both adult males. 
     Point of entry:  Don't go in the passenger side. That leaves the car driver pretty much free to do whatever he or she wants to do with the car. Move it forward, backward, honk the horn, or anything else they can think of, including opening the door and running down the street yelling their head off. This is considering that the driver has little regard for their passenger.
     Choice of weapon:  A steak knife is just not that intimidating. Most steaks don't even cringe that much when approached with one of these things. A less than adequate weapon can lead people to think you don't know what you're doing and therefore fail to take you seriously, which can lead to a hostile response on their part. Instead of being scared, they might cause you great pain and suffering.
     Therefore, pay attention to your choice of weapon. If you're going to do the job, buy the right tools. Take a little pride in your career choice, for pity's sake. 
     Leaving the scene of a botched carjacking: You must prepare for the eventuality that the carjacking is unsuccessful, in which case you'll need a plan to leave the scene. This will take some training. To prepare, practice running three blocks as fast as you can. Don't pay attention to the traffic at intersections. If you can't dodge through traffic while running flat out, without getting clipped by a vehicle, then you might not be cut out for this line of endeavor. You should be able to make this three-block run in under two minutes. Most people can work up to this level of prowess in about two years. Again, if you're going to choose carjacking as a career, a little preparation will allow you to be all your can be.

How Do You Start a Fight in a Prison Yards?

This may not be at the top of your bucket list, but just in case here goes:
     First, you get yourself a drone. It only has to carry less than a pound. You strap a payload onto your drone---a quarter once of heroin, two ounces of marijuana. and throw in say, five ounces of tobacco, for the non-druggies. Then you fly your drone over a prison and drop your payload into the prison yard. But you don't drop it into the yard as per previous arrangements, but you drop it into the adjacent yard.
     The prisoners who get the payload are delighted, but start fighting to make sure they each get their fair share. The prisoners who paid for the drugs, but didn't get them, break into the adjacent yard to recover what is theirs. The fighting expands, until the guards put a stop to the whole thing. The drugs have probably disappeared. 
     Your experiment has been a resounding successs. But before you try it again you might want to rethink the possible uses for your drone.
     The above scenario actually happened in Ohio, so we know it works.
       

From Uncle Vellanoff's Journal

Yes, That's Her

     As we traveled around the country, our show producer/director was always looking for new material for the show---particularly anything of a humorous nature. Surprisingly, one source of humor was the courts. So when we weren't rehearsing, several of us would sit in on local court cases to glean what material we could. Several of these cases we worked up into skits for our show.
     One such was: A woman shopper was leaving a department store when a man grabbed her purse and ran. A store clerk called the police. The woman was able to give a good description and the police were able to apprehend the snatcher in a few minutes.
     The police hauled the thief back to the store and got him out of the car. They told him to stand there for a positive ID. The thief replied, "Yes, Officer, that's the lady I stole the purse from."

I Should Have Shot You!

     Another case was the armed robbery of a liquor store. Part way through the first day of trial, the defendant fired his lawyer and declared that he would represent himself. The judge warned him about the folly of doing this, quoting the old adage, "A man who represents himself has a fool for a client and the client has a fool for a lawyer." Then the judge ordered the trial to proceed. Everything was going fine until the defendant was examining the woman manger of the liquor store.
     The lady declared that he had been the robber. The defendant got angry and shouted at the witness, "I should have shot your head off!" Then after a couple heartbeats, stammered, "If I'd been the robber."
     It took the jury then minutes to come back with a "Guilty" verdict.