Police Seeking Hard-Boiled Cop to End Sniper's Spree

sniper operating in the region of outer-Washington, D.C. continues his random assault on citizens, adding more to his bodycount which includes a cross-section of the entire community with no apparent connection to each other. Nine have been victims of the sniper, seven of those have not survived. As the crimes continue to escalate, investigators are desperately seeking a brilliant-but-self-destructive hard-boiled cop to end the nightmare.

"At this point," said FBI liaison on the case Match Tidwell, "we are sorting through a list of D.C.-area-based detectives with personality issues who can unite the search for the sniper and make the case personal. Preferably someone who drinks a lot to forget the past case, say, a sniper shooting he failed to prevent 5-10 years ago. We are examining former cops and 'washed-up' investigators especially."

When asked what they were doing about the sniper, Tidwell rolled his eyes and said, "Were you not listening?"

Speculation that the new lead investigator, when chosen, would have a partner could not be made by the department at this time.

"There's always a possibility," said some cop in a general's outfit standing next to Tidwell, "say, a grizzled old veteran. I would personally prefer to assign a green young recruit straight out of the academy, someone who's still hung up on the rules and would make for a nice by-the-book personality to off-set the lead investigator's self-destructive behavior. But we're playing this by ear. It's always possible the cop chosen will insist he work alone—it's personal."

No names on the short list of officers or former investigators were given.

The plan is the latest to quickly resolve the string of attacks by the unknown sniper, dubbed by the media, or perhaps just this reporter, as "Oswald's Ghost." The necessity for a different kind of cop was realized Monday when police found a "Death" tarot card with the message to cops saying, "Dear policeman, I am God" scribed on it. At this point the investigating force of city and county police, state troopers, and FBI realized they are more than likely dealing with a very cliché-killer personality type, and to offset the awful TV-mentality violence they needed a cop to match his wits.

Brock Johnson, an expert on cinematic crime investigations and salad bars at the University of Ratsass, Maryland, painted a vivid picture of the man, the cop, sought by the police.

"What they need right now is someone who can take a cursory look at the crime scene and determine how the victims are connected," Johnson said. "Something like, 'Christ! Why didn't we notice it before? They're all wearing Members' Only jackets!' Not that, of course, that's stupid, but you get what I'm saying. There must be a common link that we're missing if the cliché—what did you call him? 'Oswald's Ghost'? That's good, he'll love that. I'd call him the Turd Burglar, but that's just me."

The police's choice to find a new, more cynical and emotionally-burdened investigator was a correct one in Johnson's opinion.

"You're not going to catch this guy with good old-fashioned police work and canvassing the area. He's apparently got a score to settle, let's say his father sexually abused him or his overbearing mother had an anal fixation and used to administer suppositories, something real fucked-up to explain his behavior. This new investigator the police are seeking, let's call him Coyote for now—he should be haunted by the failure to save someone in the past, preferably by another sniper. If he can have a personal history with the suspect, that would be fantastic, but we're not counting on it. Mostly, we want a big finish to the case where, shortly before catching the perpetrator, Coyote smacks a hand on the desk and stands up with the deadly utterance, 'Shit! There's two of them. We're looking for a pair of snipers.' That would completely rock."

Rock indeed. What a glorious day for news!

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I'm not kidding, what a shithole. You think they'd post a sign at the state line or something, letting everybody know they're wasting their time even coming inside. I should be able to sue New Mexico for false advertising since they call it a state and from my experience in other states I didn't expect it to suck so bad. Granted, there are enough people in New Mexico that this could get real expensive real fast, which is a problem the guys in line behind me will have to deal with.

And I think they're even doing it on purpose, trying to fake people out that New Mexico's a fun place to be. In Albuquerque (known to the locals as "Albu-crack") there's a cartoon mascot called the Albuquerque Turkey on all the signs, smiling and pointing the way to helpful destinations like the methadone clinic. And I shit you not, most of these metal signs have bite-marks in them next to the bullet holes, like some cartoon-hungry asshole thought the Turkey looked delicious way up there on his perch.

My first day in Albuquerque I got hit by a drunk driver, while I was eating at an Arby's. He came out of nowhere, and that fucker ate my sandwich. The only thing I can hope is that some of the abundant broken glass in the dining area got mixed in with his Horsey Sauce and he spent the night shitting out ground asshole and cursing Arby's big-hatted name. Now whenever I go to Arby's I use the drive-up window and keep one foot on the gas.

It really makes you wonder, though, who the hell is this Arby guy? What a freaky name. And I bet he drove his wife crazy, talking about roast beef all the time. "Jesus, Arby, try some pasta for once. And no, I don't think it's legal to make a breakfast cereal out of beef ends." I'm not sure what happens when you don't vary your diet at all, but I imagine the guy crapped like one of those Play-Doh Silly Factory things.

That's a talent you don't hear much about. Every cool bastard in the movies can blow a smoke ring, but what about the guy who can clench his anus and lay out a star-shaped log? That's the dude I don't want to piss off. Not that it's a dangerous talent really, but I don't want anybody with that kind of spare time daydreaming of ways to jack me up.

I used to love daydreaming myself, until somebody told me it doesn't count if you're asleep at the time. Screw that, I can think of a lot better things to do in my office chair than staying awake. And besides, I don't know what kind of voodoo shit you have to pull off to be dreaming and awake at the same time, I'll leave that to the insane and all those lazy shaman pricks out there. Granted, it probably helps pass the time when you're stuck some place boring, but the last thing I need is to scream out "Elephants!" and piss myself right in the middle of jury duty.

That reminds me, those jury duty guys probably think I'm still on "smoke break," the gullible bastards. I'm thinking of ducking back in there in a week or two before they catch on, you know, make an appearance for a few minutes and then pause the trial so I can go "take a piss" for the rest of the month. It's a lot like high school, only the judge is real slow on the uptake with the practical jokes. I swear that guy's drank Secretariat in glue form via his coffee by now, it's amazing.

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Emil's Note: You won't believe your luck and mine, Rok readers! Did you know that, after the initial Sept. 11 attacks on American soil, nerves-of-steel columnist Rok Finger wrote his thoughts about the event for commune publication? For some reason known only to the Red almighty, it never ran. Maybe too controversial for its "barely coherent handwriting" and with uncommon levels of coffee staining, but it's been a decade, the standards have changed, even drastically lowered, and I'm willing to run what Señor Bagel did not. So here to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the commune's Oct. 1st return to regular publishing, enjoy this nose nugget from a time gone by…

Good people, there are no words to describe what I am feeling today. Though "fuckdammit" and "cuntballs" are pretty close.

Here it is, Wednesday morning, and I have endured, with the rest of America, watching those glorious towers fall yesterday in New York City. Some bad shit also happened in the nation's capital, but I was getting a sandwich when they covered that. To hit the World Trade Center, all of those casualties, all that property damage done, it's the greatest tragedy of our lifetimes, or it would be, if all those people who were around during Pearl Harbor would hurry up and die off. Myself excluded, of course.

We must not rush to conclusions on this. No matter the anger that we all feel, it's more important than ever to remember the tenets of our judicial system. I trust as soon as the president comes out of hiding he will remind us that it's not enough to assume who did it, to round up every suspect and throw them away in prison for the rest of their lives without giving themselves a chance to prove their innocence at trials. No matter how it might seem, we need to investigate this great tragedy, find those responsible, wherever they are. Even if we already know who did it.

That's right: Mall developers. It was bound to happen, all of that beautiful expensive real estate taken up by those shining silver towers jutting up from the ground like twin robot erections, not a Sbarro or Spencer's Gifts among them. The best designers in the world couldn't make escalators that go up that high, and we knew it the whole time, we knew we were asking for foreign mall developers to come and give us the business. I keep hearing that the casualties might have been worse in the afternoon, after all the teenagers had gotten out of school, but I still wish it had been earlier in the morning, when only the old people were walking the towers.

Nor should we go out into the streets of our own country, like a mob, and take out our frustrations on people just because they're part of the same group. I've known many mall developers in this country, and no matter how scummy they are, some of them are good people. Why, here in Flatbush we have one of the world's most beautiful malls, not built as a beacon of commerce but as a town center, complete with a garden and library. True, the garden is mostly made up of Chinese food and goes by the name Mandarin Garden, and the library charges preposterous prices for every book you check out, but this is the town center of the 21st century. Mall developers have brought us that, good mall developers, not the monsters who knocked down our big buildings.

Some people have been quick to ask that the military involve themselves in this conflict, but I ask, what could the military do? The damage has been done here. The injuries we've suffered as a nation doesn't give us the right to go stomping around the rest of the world, throwing out weight around, exacting vengeance like a pissed-off Mel Gibson—not unless we get Mel Gibson himself to do it. Man, that guy's star will never fade. No, I say the military has no place in this. We must ask our brother nations and sister nation (I'm winking slyly at you, France) to join us in ending mall developer terrorism, forming a coalition of peace to arrest mall developer terrorists and dismantle their organizations. It's the wisest and most constitutional course of action, but I don't have to tell our president about doing the right moral thing. I look to you, Mr. President!

One final thought: Let this horrible scar in our modern history be a reminder, not a wasted opportunity. This closeness we all feel today should not be lost or forgotten. When I first got news of the tragedy, I saw a hot dog vendor hugging a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan—that's right, mortal enemies locked in an embrace, right out in the open. Just this morning I looked out my window and saw a child savaging my lawn with a flaming roll of toilet paper and I didn't have the heart to interrupt his fun. Things are getting back to normal, however slowly, but we will never be the same, and if we are all quick to remember we're more alike than unalike, we can be better from this.

As for the responsible party (cough, cough, mall developers, cough), don't worry. They will be brought to justice, even if it takes us another ten years. But not one single year longer than that, do you hear me? Not one.

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