Digital Disappearance

Ahh, the electronic age in which we live.

If you submit a badge request via the link on our products page that allows you to design your own badge, and you do not hear back from us within one business day, call us. The computer ate your inquiry.

For reasons we have yet to divine, a certain number of electronic inquiries are no longer reaching us. Some are, some are not. Frustrating, to us, because it represents lost business, and to you, because you need badges!

So, please, kindly follow up with a phone call if you do not get a timely response, while we continue to search for the electronic thief.

Emergency Cigarettes

From the Police Blotter:

A 20-year-old man called 911 because a convenience-store clerk would not sell him cigarettes without an ID.

The customer told the officer who responded that he thought police might be able to verify his age to the clerk.

The officer informed the customer that was not a proper use of the 911 system.

Cells in Cells

Here is a product from a New Jersey company that has caught our attention.

It is called the "Bloodhound," and it is designed to enable officers to scan real-time for unauthorized cell phone activity in correctional facilities. Given that cell phones smuggled into prisons is a significant and growing problem – prisoners continue to conduct their lawless activities by phone – this is a terrific product.

Aside from being able to detect cell phone activity, the device can detect the exact location of the caller using a direction finding antenna.

How serious is cell phone activity in correctional facilities? According to the manufacturer of this product, Berkeley Varitronics Systems in Metuchen, in 2008 corrections officers confiscated 847 contraband cell phones in Maryland prisons, 2,809 cell phones in California prisons and 1,861 cell phones in Mississippi prisons. That’s more than 5,500 phones in one year in only three states!

You can learn more about this product at http://www.bvsystems.com/ .

Smile

From the Police Blotter in a southern New Jersey town:

A Carmel Road resident reported two screens cut on her gazebo. The cuts were in the shape of smiley faces. She believed that the vandalism took place on Thursday night.

Well, at least it is a better grade of vandalism than the symbols of hate that have been seen elsewhere...

The Service Was A Crime

Charges have been dropped against a group of college students who, maintaining that the service they received was "lousy," refused to leave a tip in an eastern Pennsylvania restaurant last year.

Because they were a group of eight, the restaurant added an 18% gratuity to the check. The collegiate diners paid the bill but refused to leave the tip, with the result that the restaurant called the cops. The police took two of the group into custody and charged them with theft of services.

Upon review of the case, the District Attorney recommended that the charges be dropped, based largely on the simple notion that we all understand: Tips are optional. True, one should generally tip less, not zero, for poor service, but while the restaurant’s service may have been inadequate its response appears to have been excessive.

Creep Show

The strange-looking character in the photo is Rodney Alcala, who this week was given a death sentence in a California courtroom, for five murders committed in the 1970s.

While the thought of this guy being a serial killer is disturbing enough, just as disturbing is the news that in 1978 he appeared as one of the bachelors on television’s then-popular "Dating Game." This was in the midst of his killing spree, as some of the murders occurred before and some following his game show appearance.

In 1972 he had been convicted in the rape and beating of an eight-year-old girl, which tells us a great deal about how lax the screening process was at the "Dating Game."

The "Dating Game" was, in many ways, a precursor to today’s popular "reality" shows. Unlike game shows prior to that time, the "Dating Game" did not simply award prizes of cash and merchandise, it awarded actual dates to the winning "bachelorette" and bachelor.

Which causes us to wonder: How much better is the pre-show vetting process for today’s "reality" shows?

Photo courtesy Michael Goulding

Clutch Play

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, earlier this year:

Stick Shift Thwarts FedEx Hijackers

In an apparently ill-conceived caper, several men briefly hijacked a FedEx van yesterday afternoon and tried to navigate it through rush-hour traffic in Center City before abandoning the easily recognizable vehicle and fleeing.

The plan – if there was a plan – did not include an accomplice who could drive a manual transmission, police said.

At least two assailants, one with a firearm, seized the van around 4 p.m. at 16th and Pine Streets and attempted to drive it before forcing one of two FedEx employees to operate the stick shift for them, police said. The other employee was able to get away and call for help.

The hijackers bailed out at 11th and Market Streets and possibly fled in a burgundy sedan, police said. The men may have initially emerged from the sedan to take the van and the sedan then followed the van, but investigators were still trying to sort out witness accounts.

"Our guys are both safe," said FedEx spokesman David Westrick, who thanked police for responding quickly.

Westrick chuckled when he noted that the suspects "had some trouble driving a standard clutch vehicle."

Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said he personally speculated about an inside job, but was more inclined to believe that the perpetrators "weren't the brightest thieves."