Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Dumbest Criminal, Judge, and Bigotry

From the front page of the Scott County Daily News, October 12-18, 2012 (This newspaper is distributed in Scott County, Virginia, as an "edition" of the Kingsport Daily News from Kingsport, Tennessee):

"In what could the episode on 'World's Dummest Criminals', Gate City police arrested a woman on a felony charge of breaking and entering after she called police to report a burglary."

The wacky story of how a separating couple brought the police into a quarrel about the present ownership of their home is worth reading for a chuckle, but I'd like to call attention to the errors in this lead paragraph:

1. "Could be..."

2. "...an episode..."

3. The News of the Weird label is "Least Competent Criminals."

4. The word is "dumbest."

5. Considering the probability that charges will be dropped, after these former friends have to go into court and apologize for wasting the police's time, it's hardly accurate to classify this couple as "criminals." Meanwhile, this same edition of the Daily News has failed to follow up on the story of a real criminal, whom Scott County residents will recognize as one of the world's dumbest.

According to Sheriff John Puckett's all-caps report, this would be "TRACY ADAM ROGERS, 34," resident of "DUFFIELD REGIONAL JAIL," to which he was returned last week for "PROBATION VIOLATION (7 COUNTS)."

As reported during the last month, Tracy Rogers was released on probation, to everyone's surprise, after being arrested for parent abuse for the fifth time. Many creditors, landlords, and other residents of Scott County might sympathize with the urge to beat up Tracy's foul-mouthed deadbeat father, but since most of us are not alcoholic jailbirds, we have controlled ourselves. However, in September police found Tracy Rogers beating his 85-pound paraplegic mother (while drunk). This report prompted readers whom I observed to utter comments like, "They'd better send him away for life."

Probation? For the fifth identical charge? What was the judge thinking?

Now, where does "Dumbest Bigotry" come in? Gentle Readers, several Daily News readers have told me I ought to be working for the Daily News. Since it's a low-budget locally-owned paper, I followed up on this suggestion only when the Daily News advertised for technical support--including, but not limited to, proofreading. One of the proprietors of a business that advertises in the Daily News every week called me about this job opening, enthusiastically recommended the proprietors of the paper to me and wanted to recommend me to them with equal enthusiasm, and even offered to drive me to and from the interview.

While living in Washington I acquired more technical support experience than the average Kingsport resident, and the proprietors of the Daily News were definitely interested until they read down to the last quarter of the printed form they'd handed me. Although the job description said nothing about driving, the form contained a few questions about my car. I answered, "Not applicable." I don't own a car. I am a competent driver in an emergency, and will drive only in an emergency. If hired for this job in Kingsport, I said, I would spend the work week in an apartment in Kingsport that a relative was trying to rent out, and walk to work; the distance would be less than a mile. However, the body language of the proprietors could hardly have been clearer--"We don't want to work with anyone so different from us as to consider walking to work."

So as a result they've hired a technical support person who lets lead sentences like that one get through, and has also printed mistyped phone numbers in paid ads and at least one special supplement that averaged five or six errors per page...but at least this person owns a car!

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