Given that the Los Angeles Titanic has devoted a world record 83 inches to virtually forgotten Christine O’Donnell in the last two editions — But, Boss, she’s a Republican and she’s in trouble. Oh. — and given they still have not admitted that Swishie quietly has sneaked death panels back into the law through, shhh, Medicare regulation, it is a near miracle they shoehorned in a news story this morning awaaaay back on page 25:
“Release of officers’ names barred”
Mazel tov to the cops of Long Beach on the final day of the year.
Thanks to Judge Usually Honest Joey DiLoreto, those beacons of Long Beach bravery finally have caught up with a nifty policy that the stouthearted Culver City Police Dept. has been shlepping since the 1970s, back when good, ol’ Chief Ted Cooke was even rosier cheeked than he is on this New Year’s Eve.
The policy? Sort of a home board game version of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
It’s called:
Hide, boys, hide. Here comes the snoopy public again.
Judge Usually Honest ruled yesterday that city hall may not release to the media the names of Long Beach cops involved in shootings.
There have been so darned many Long Beach cops using citizens for target practice in recent years that the boys in the media have been thinking about scheduling a formal season for cops to bump off residents who annoy them — just like baseball and football. In the World Series, Long Beach could play Culver City. If we get lucky, one of those honorable departments might be wiped out.
I say, give Judge Usually Honest a Purple Heart. Somebody around here must have courage.
Swishie can glue the Heart to Usually’s chest on his way back home from Hawaii.
Shoot, back in the day when Teddy Cooke ruled Culver City with golden fists, Teddy didn’t need no Judge Usually Honest to hide his boys from the press and public when they burnt themselves.
You see, officially, nothing untoward ever was committed by the gilded and the guilded members of the Culver City Police Dept.
Teddy did not have to hide shootings from the technically breathing media because they were more attracted to cabbage unveilings and carrot-namings at their favorite groceries.
Cop shooting?
No chance, the chief would say. The whole force was out playing tiddly-winks with the homeless at the Beverly Hills Fun ‘n Run ‘n Gun ‘n Shun Club.
Whenever a foolish person had the temerity to inquire about a Culver City cop playing Pull the Trigger on a Citizen at an Embarrassing Time, Teddy just said, “Next case.” Everybody who feared Teddy at City Hall — the whole cast — responded, “Yes, sir, Your Worship.” With that, the card games promptly resumed, until a certain regular boldly suggested one deathly dark night that the Chief of Police of Culver City, shall we say, abridged the rules. And you thought “once a cop always a cop.”
Duck, Here Comes the Future
Teddy, you see, was a visionary.
He invented Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell so long ago today’s gay boys were straight and glad of it, back in the giddy 1970s.
Embarrassing incidents at the Culver City cop shop have been buried under a bulging Vesuvius of baloney — my teacher called it lying — for so many decades, Teddy may be the only man alive who even remembers when truth was king.
His Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell legacy is flourishing down to this afternoon.
Just last spring, a uniformed gentleman from the Police Dept. of Culver City blasted a suspect in the daylight of mid-day.
I didn’t read it in the newspaper.
The department, shall we say, umm, discouraged coverage of it. And got away with it for about the 1,000th straight time.
What shooting?
The cynics may try to tell you fiction doesn’t sell as well as it once did. The cynics would be wrong.
If my diary is correct, discouragement of shooting coverage was the last day this year on which the otherwise winless Police Union had reason to smile. Wanly.
