PETER BUFFA -- Comments and Curiosities

Bad guys: 0. Costa Mesa: 10. Two thumbs up to Costa Mesa’s finest and

their chief chief-in-charge, Dave Snowden. The city was ranked as one of

the safest in the nation in the year 2000, with a 16% drop in violent

crimes.

It’s the latest bit of good news in a long run of pleasant surprises

about crime trends over the last few years -- i.e. the crime biz is down

almost as much as the dot.com biz.

One major factor is the “graying” of the American population, as Baby

Boomers (like someone you know) get more, umm, gray. That’s good news. I

guess. And I think it’s true. When I was younger, I could commit two or

three crimes in the same day. Now, I rob one bank and I’m exhausted.

I think the biggest thing we have going for us, though, is that the

people who are ethically challenged also seem to be as dumb as a

doorknob. Ever read the police files? I do. It’s that little section

where they tell you what the bad people have been up to.

“Harbor Boulevard: Vandals spray-painted offensive words on a building

in the 3300 block at 2:17 a.m. Tuesday. Bamboo Street: cellular phone

reported stolen from a car in the 2400 block at 5:42 p.m. Friday”

That kind of thing. They used to call it the police blotter. Now it’s

the police file or police log. No more blotter. What did “police blotter”

mean anyway? Were the police sloppy? Did they all use fountain pens? I

don’t get it.

You can learn a lot from the police log. I read it religiously. It’s

part of my newspaper routine -- front page, local news, sports, crime

report, obituaries. I only read the obituaries to check the ages. If

everyone who crossed over yesterday was at least 80, I feel better. If

they were 50 or less, I worry. That’s terrible.

Anyway, the big crime news may be good, but the little crime news is

always interesting. If you read the police file, most of it is small

potatoes. We are grateful for that, don’t get me wrong. But again, it is

another lesson that the bad guys and girls who are doing this stuff will

not be working for NASA any time soon.

“If you’re going to steal something, steal something big,”my

grandmother always told me. Read the crime report, though, and you’ll

find that people gladly risk going to jail for some very odd things, a

lot of it near worthless.

The old standbys, like televisions and stereos, I can understand. But

what about garden tools, lawn gnomes, cinder blocks and ski boots? Cell

phones are big.

Exactly what is the plan when you reach inside someone’s car and

snatch their cell phone? With the exception of some high-end models, cell

phones these days go for about $70 or get thrown in with the calling

plan. And, of course, you don’t plan to use it, do you? Call just one

person or business that is connected to you in any way and large,

stern-looking men will be at your door the next day.

Some of the petty theft is beyond petty and downright bizarre, like

this one from an Orange County city which shall remain unnamed: “$650 in

steel beams were reportedly stolen from the front yard of a residence

between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. May 18.”

I don’t know how many steel beams you get for $650 these days, it’s

been so long since I bought any. But $650 worth of steel sounds really

heavy to me. Plus, there is usually a lot of daylight going on between 10

a.m. and noon, at least in Newport-Mesa.

So let’s review. A thousand or so pounds of steel, a front yard,

daylight, a big truck, bad guys. Exactly how does this work? And if I may

further inquire, once you have your steel beams on board and tied down,

now what? Where do you cash in your steel beams?

By the way, how do they know the exact time all this stuff happens?

“Lemnos Drive: A really expensive thing was stolen from a parked car in

the 700 block at 1:22 a.m. Wednesday.” How do they know that?

“I was just getting back to sleep, Officer, when I heard someone in

the driveway. I’d say it was about, I don’t know, 1:22 a.m.. Maybe 1:26.

I was half-asleep.”

Believe it or not, peeping Toms are still out there in our own

backyards, literally. Even if you’re sick enough to do that, how dumb do

you have to be to sneak around in someone’s flower bed, peeping through

windows and hoping they don’t have a Doberman? And why is it always a

peeping “Tom?” Are there no demented Garys or Bills out there? There must

be.

The other thing that keeps me coming back to these things is the dry,

emotionless style in which the police files are done -- a direct

descendant of “police speak.”

“The suspect, a female, and the victim, a male who appears to be the

spouse of the female, were involved in a disagreement which at some point

escalated to an altercation. The female suspect vacated the premises and

subsequently returned with an aluminum bat of the type used in the

playing of baseball, which she used to cause the victim to become dead.”

So there you have it. Remember, police file first, then the obits.

It’s good for the soul. I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays.

He may be reached via e-mail at [email protected].