Chabo's Journal: Yep, this was a good day!

Note: This is a continuation of a series of stories written by a central Texas police officer named "Darth Tang", which are being archived by Chabo, with no editing. Read more about this project.

This story was originally posted on September 12, 2002.

A bit of background: my burg is one of four in Texas with elected Chiefs of Police. We're civil service in our PD, so it doesn't really matter. However, our current Chief is just a super guy, the best Chief I've worked for.

Normally, we keep the local media in our corner, and things move smoothly enough. About a year ago the paper got a new female reporter, call her Dee, and assigned her to the police beat, amongst other things. For unknown reasons, Dee came to hate the Chief.

Last spring was city elections. Dee loudly backed an upstart patrolman who challenged our Chief, rallying the liberal/minority elements behind him. They conducted a door-to-door campaign, town meetings, radio programs, the whole nine yards. Other than his announcement and one interview, the Chief ignored the whole election.

The Chief drew 79% of he vote. Dee left the paper.

This morning, I pulled Dee over in a traffic stop. I hadn't even had time to say a word when I reached her car window before she blew up. She accused me of harassing her in retaliation for the failed election; she accused me of corruption, racisim (we're both white), sexual harassment, police brutality, and called me everything but kind. She was going to call the FBI, 60 minutes, and the Ashcroft himself. Finally she wound down.

After a moment of silence, I spoke. "You left your purse on the roof of your car. It fell off two blocks ago; I picked it up. Here." I handed her the purse. "Have a nice day."

The look on her face was, simply, amazing. Yep. Its a wonderful thing to do a good deed and cause someone to make a complete ass of themselves, all in one fell swoop.