Blathr Wayne Lorentz

What is Blathr?
Showing blathrs with the tag “Police.”

Woah, Nelly

Thursday, November 16th, 2023 Alive 19,196 days

The Houston Mounted Patrol yielding to a Metro Light Rail train.

If you see a train honk at a horse on Main Street, you might be in Houston.

❖ ❖ ❖

More flashy is more safety!

Friday, August 25th, 2023 Alive 19,113 days

A Midtown traffic stop

Remember when police cars had just one, single rotating red light on their roofs?

This Harris County constable truck has over 50 flashing lights on it. Is a truck with 50 flashing lights more safe than one with 49 flashing lights? If more flashing lights is better, why not a hundred flashing lights?

❖ ❖ ❖

Thatʼs 11:16PM

Wednesday, August 16th, 2023 Alive 19,104 days

Something that didnʼt need to be a region-wide alert

Do you want to get people to disable emergency alerts on their cell phones? Because this is how you get people to disable emergency alerts on their cell phones.

But at least the police destroyed some innocent guyʼs entire house with a tank making the arrest.

❖ ❖ ❖

Time to get a different rain jacket

Monday, May 23rd, 2022 Alive 18,654 days

A picture of the outside of the 8th District police station in New Orleans, because you canʼt go inside a police station and expect to be able to take pictures anymore

The Eighth District police station in New Orleans has an unusual feature. Iʼve seen lots of police stations with gift shops and museums before. But inside the gift shop in this police station is a vending machine that spits out swag.

I slid my credit card through the reader, punched a button, and out popped a New Orleans Police Department ball cap. Very cool.

I think that many people donʼt know that the New Orleans P.D. sells hats, shirts, tote bags, and other branded items. At least it seems like the people who live in the Eighth District donʼt.

Early the next morning, I went to a bodega near Esplanade to get a newspaper. It was raining, so I wore my rain jacket, which is kinda-sorta safety yellow, and my new N.O.P.D. hat. There were some locals sitting around drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. The store was out of newspapers, so I asked if anyone knew where I could get one because none of the stores near my hotel had any.

“Near my hotel” let them know I was a tourist. But until then, they said they thought I was a cop. When I told them I got the hat out of a vending machine at the police station, they were not happy.

I can understand why they were upset. If I can unintentionally make people think Iʼm a police officer, imagine what someone could accomplish if they were actually trying.

❖ ❖ ❖

Cop shop

Saturday, March 12th, 2022 Alive 18,582 days

The Houston Police Museum

The Houston Police Department has its own museum. Your reaction to that may indicate where you were raised.

Iʼm East Coast, so I had never heard of such a thing until I started exploring the west. The first police museum I came across was in Phoenix. But it seems the concept has spread across the country, and a police museum even opened in New York in 1998.

I wonder if thereʼs a gift shop.

❖ ❖ ❖

Coffee cops

Saturday, August 14th, 2021 Alive 18,372 days

A sign advertising free coffee for police officers, firefighters, and hospital workers

Thereʼs a weird kind of hybrid bar -slash- epicurean bodega near my home called District Market that gives free coffee to cops and other essential workers. Thatʼs nice.

People make a lot of jokes about cops and doughnut shops thinking that itʼs nothing more than a lame stereotype, but few understand that thereʼs a historical reason for that association.

America used to be littered with all-night coffee shops. This was because people used to stay out later, as they didnʼt have much entertainment at home. People also used to work later because a lot of once-massive industries demanded it. And more people worked overnight shifts than they do now. Stopping at a coffee shop or a diner on the way home at 2am was a perfectly normal thing to do. People also used to work harder, so in some cities there were 24-hour cheap steak joints, but thatʼs a story for another time.

Because these coffee shops were open in the small hours, they were often the targets of criminals. A clever way to attract police officers to your late-night noshery in order to repel criminals was to offer the badged free coffee, and sometimes free doughnuts.

Whether District Market is giving away free coffee in lieu of paying for improved security doesnʼt really matter, because itʼs still a nice thing to do. And the whole notion of “free coffee” which used to be ubiquitous in American society has almost disappeared today.

❖ ❖ ❖

East bound and down, loaded up and truckinʼ

Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 Alive 18,362 days

Annie keeping an eye out for bears

“Dude, there's a Smokey on your tail. Floor it!”

❖ ❖ ❖

Stumptown 911

Thursday, November 28th, 2019 Alive 17,747 days

For the last month Iʼve been pummeled with advertisements for the Portland Police Department. Theyʼre so desperate for people theyʼve started holding job fairs here in Vegas, and presumably other nearby cities.

The ads claim the starting salary for a Portland police officer is $67,000 to $95,000. Too bad Iʼd be terrible at it.

❖ ❖ ❖

Circle of trust

Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 Alive 17,522 days

Police roll call in Las Vegas, New Mexico

6:00am, 43° in the town square. This is how the morning police roll call is done in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

❖ ❖ ❖

Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 Alive 17,458 days

A guy getting handcuffed by MetroCops

Meanwhile, outside my office window, in the middle of traffic…

❖ ❖ ❖

Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 Alive 17,361 days

A woman caught by a bush

If youʼre fleeing from the police, donʼt try to hide under the bush in front of my office window. Because when the cops catch up to you and you try to run, your purse will get snagged on the branches, and no amount of texting will keep you from being frogmarched down to the curb in handcuffs.

❖ ❖ ❖

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018 Alive 17,346 days

A song and dance man

Todayʼs lesson from the office window: If you tell the cops that thing they found while frisking you is a harmonica, be prepared to sing and dance.

❖ ❖ ❖

Friday, October 19th, 2018 Alive 17,342 days

Does it count as being “late” for work if the door to the building is blocked by cops frisking a lady?

❖ ❖ ❖