Good Citizen Award Times Two

Flickr.com Photo

The most recent episode of the police "highlights" contained a story of good citizenship which made me say, "I am going to award that guy a medal."

Too late though, because...

...it appears the City of Minneapolis is already taking care of it.

I love the police highlights listserv, as regular readers know. I think it's better than a daytime soap opera. These are indeed "the days of our lives."

So here is the tale: on the 700 block of Queen Avenue North, officers were dispatched to a report of three men breaking into a house while the resident was at work. Officers responded quickly, and were able to capture the three suspects within half a block of the crime.

The back door of the residence had been kicked in, screens cut. The victim arrived home and identified his property. It was the next door neighbor who called 911 and--here is the icing on the cake of crime--took photos of the suspects. The crime lab processed the scene so you know what that probably means: prison time. No fooling around with pleading the crime crap down to trespassing and so forth. These thieves are going down.

Well, at least ONE of them is going down. The suspects were 14 years old, 15 years old, and 18 years old. However they already had, respectively, 11, 6 and 13 police records.

The report also noted the 911 caller will be nominated for a citizen's award. I don't know if that's something formal, or if this is just something written expressively in the highlights report along the lines of "Give that guy a medal."

It was Napoleon who commented on the ability of a mere "scrap of ribbon" to raise the morale of troops and encourage their fighting spirit. Even if this citizen is going to be formally recognized, I'm still (hereby) awarding the caller my own "virtual good citizenship award," and formal recognition in the blog-o-sphere.

The image above is a Flickr.com image from New York City, and is called "Progress."

Let us take a moment to revel in this small victory, citizens. Then consider: if calling 911 from behind your venetian blinds is this much fun, imagine how much fun it is to DRIVE AROUND AND LOOK FOR STUFF.