In an ideal situation, a population is sufficiently policed at a rate of one to four officers for every thousand residents. Urban and more densely populated areas obviously need more assistance, driving the American average up to a little over two officers thousand people.
Jericho, Arkansas, boasting a whopping seven cops for one hundred and seventy-four people, flouts this convention in order to bring its people real safety.
Unless, of course, they dare to complain about it. In court.
Jericho, like many other armpit hamlets, is in dire financial straits. It cannot support other emergency services, such as a standing fire department, despite the steady stream of income generated by the city’s many speed traps and the liberal use of radar guns in people’s driveways. Speeding is so rampant that other calls for service must go unanswered! I can only hope that one day I can take solace in knowing I’m being robbed because the cat lady down the street must be nabbed for doing fifteen in a school zone.
Like any good mob, the entire police force showed up to support their fellow officer when the fire chief complained to the judge about the liberal application of velocity law. I’m willing to bet the cops thought the jealousy the firefighter (and all other hose jockeys by extension) have over being excluded from the “[insert city name]‘ finest” club is why he had sand in his vagina. At any rate, the hearing ended with Don Payne making haste to a hospital in Memphis. The officers shot him for daring to speak out and were probably banking on reasonable health care being inaccessible in the boonies. If these fools were really as gangster as they wanted the townspeople believed, they would’ve shot the judge for being a witness, but I digress. There is also talk of missing money; seems the nearest sheriff’s department expects to be paid for the use of its equipment.
Don’t you feel safe? I sure as hell do. Who knows what will happen to the Jerichoites without officers to protect them now that the department is shuttered?
Oh. Wait. Nevermind.
–DC
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5haXSW0np0eqNFStaxdAeRzXQzBkAD9AG58C03