T o be sure, comedian Jeff Foxworthy has gotten more than a little mileage out of his famous “you might be a redneck” routines.
In a similar spirit of irony, I present “you might not understand law enforcement.”
• If you’re the subject of a law enforcement investigation and you look an investigating officer in the eye and call him a “stupid blankety-blank,” you might not understand law enforcement.
• If officers in the booking department of your local jail ask you how things are going “this week” as they check you in, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re a convicted felon who has guns lying all over your living room and you call to have an officer come to your residence because you’re mad that your neighbor’s dog came onto your property, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you have a live-in female caretaker and you beat the living daylights out of her because your refrigerator contains no fruit punch, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you steal a bunch of stuff out of a vehicle in a church parking lot and you can see peoples’ faces in the church’s windows while you’re doing it, and then moments later you drive right past the local police station on your way to your hideout that’s all of two blocks away, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re being held in the county jail on a minor charge and you assault multiple jailers while they’re simply trying to move you from one cell to another, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re a man in your mid-20s and you’re not bothered by seeing blood pour out of your girlfriend’s face after you punch her lights out with a closed fist, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re on a first-name basis with three or more deputies, and they all can tell when you’ve been at a given location because empty beer cans are there that bear the brand they know you drink and are crushed in a way they know only you crush them, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re already incarcerated and compound your troubles by getting into a physical altercation with a corrections officer, and then further bury yourself by mistaking the jailer for a
snack and taking a bite out of his or her midsection, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you and your former wife get into a physical altercation at her house and she subsequently calls the cops, and when they arrive you then flee from the scene right through a wooded area where the two of you have eight flower pots with marijuana plants growing in them, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you steal a bunch of stuff from your landlord and then place much of it in plain sight around your residence so he can see it with little effort, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you’re on the run after murdering someone (allegedly) and use your cell phone to call a friend or relative, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you call the police to come to your house when a “domestic” scuffle breaks out, but fail to put away the drugs and paraphernalia sitting on the coffee table in your living room, you might not understand law enforcement.
• If you call to complain about the neighbor’s horse pooping in your yard but forget to hide your potted marijuana plants before a deputy arrives to investigate, you might not understand law enforcement.
Note: All of these anecdotal tidbits were derived from incident reports submitted by local law enforcement officers.
Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Past versions of his column are posted on the blog page at www.houstonherald.com. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.