"Granddaddy" to me was Jacob Dexter Bowers. He was an amazing old man that said his "bedtime" prayers on his knees well up into his 80's, until his knees wouldn't bend that much anymore. Nobody in his family ever heard him use profanity, but he used the term "John Brown" so much as an adjective that he became known as "John Brown." He would say, "Look how fast that John car is going!" or" This John Brown thing has never worked right!" He used the term so much, he became known as John Brown. 

John's statement of pure amazement when something just couldn't be believed was, "Well, I'll be John Brown." When you read about these amazing, but true, incidents, you might just mutter, "Well, I'll be John Brown." 

Who's In Charge Here? 

The July 9, 2003, issue of Associated Press Online reports in a Domestic News article headlined "Man Goes to Court to Get His Drugs Back" about an amazing conflict in Chowchilla, CA. The amazing part isn't the headline, but the state vs. federal conflict. 

A 42 year-old male, who had a pound of medicinal marijuana seized by police when he was arrested for possession of marijuana for sale, has gone to court to get the dope back, saying he needs it to ease chronic migraine headaches. A local judge ordered Chowchilla police to return it, citing a 1996 California referendum legalizing marijuana for medicinal use. 

Police Chief John Robinson pulled rank, instead, calling the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. They said releasing the drug would be a federal felony violation by the Chief: trafficking and distributing narcotics, so the freezer bag full of pot will remain in an evidence locker until federal agents pick it up. Robinson said he's following a 2001 u.s. Supreme Court decision that declared the state medical marijuana statute does not take precedence over federal drug laws. [Now if CA courts will just agree that the federal Supreme Court outranks them! ... Ed.] 

What a Gas!

The Associated Press State & Local Wire on July 22,2003, described a Bunkie, LA incident headlined "Marijuana found in auctioned car." The new owner of a 200 1 Ford pickup truck bought it from a dealer, wl\o had purchased it at auction. Its new owner brought it back, saying even after the tank was filled, the gasoline wouldn't last for long. Mechanics found a problem with a truck's gas tank: 200 pounds of marijuana compressed into secret compartments inside of the tank. 

Officers do not know who previously owned the vehicle or where it came from before it was sold at the auction. Officers confiscated the gas tank and drugs, but left the truck with the car dealership. Bunkie officers placed the marijuana in a police evidence room, but the odor still permeated the air at the back ofthe jail. Many officers said they could stay in the room only for a little while before the odor forced them out. They said the federal Drug Enforcement Agency would be asked to take over the investigation. 

Boom Box Booms

A Charleston (WV) Gazette article by Chandra Broadwater in their April 8, 2003, edition illustrated why Property Rooms should confirm that destroyed property is really destroyed. 

It appears that two county maintenance workers may have removed a portable radio from a trash bin at the rear of the County Sheriff's Department evidence room, which deputies were in the midst of cleaning. Located in the basement of the Sheriff's Department, the evidence room is cleaned out every year. "He might have known that it was going to be thrown away and wanted to see if he could use it," a spokesman said. 

Police now believe a small pipe bomb was inside the radio, which blew up when they plugged the radio in to see if it worked. Both workers were injured, with one requiring hospitalization.

Investigators roped off a section of the parking lot behind City Hall with caution tape as detectives, assisted by the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the state fire marshal's office, attempted to collect the pieces of the 15-year-old radio and reconstruct the scene.

"It was just a freak accident," the spokesman said. "The closest thing we've had to that was when a guy was driving around with a trunk full of dynamite about 10 years ago."

DNA Indicted for Rape

An internet mail list sponsored by Police Futurists International has publicized an announcement made on August 5,2003, by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He stated that their prosecutor would issue indictments for sexual assaults against people who are known only by their DNA profile. Charging the unidentified rapists by their DNA profile alone will "stop the clock" on a 1 O-year deadline to prosecute, he said in announcing the effort. "On the day that we find out who that rapist is, whether it takes us 10 years, 20 years, 30 years or more, he will have his day in court," he said.

While the strategy has been used sparingly in New York and elsewhere in the past, Bloomberg said it would become "business as usual in our city." The first stage of the project will single out the cases from 1994, because they are fast approaching the 10-year deadline.

Bloomberg said the statute of limitations has been rendered obsolete by advances in DNA evidence, and called on state legislators to abolish it.

Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, said circumventing the statute of limitations would also make it more difficult for suspects to defend themselves since evidence may have disappeared and witnesses may have died. His group focuses on the use of DNA to exonerate wrongly convicted people. "The whole purpose of having a statute of limitations is that it's more difficult to defend yourself in a case that's been hanging out there for 20 to 30 years," Brooks said.

Not Standard Procedure

The Associated Press State & Local Wire on August 2,2003, published an article from Pennsylvania headlined "Officer charged with coercing sex from drug suspect."

It was reported that a police officer pulled over an 18-year-old woman and two other people on July 23 and took a marijuana pipe from them. Before releasing them, he told the three they could go to jail for two years and be fined $2,000 for having the pipe.

The following day, the officer allegedly called the woman and asked her to meet him at the police station. There the officer and the woman went into an evidence room where they talked about the charges. [Do you think she signed the Property Room access log? Ed.] The officer gave the woman the pipe he had taken from her, another pipe from the evidence room, and the painkiller Vicodin. Then they went to a Department meeting room where they had sex. The woman later told police she believed that if she had sex with the officer she would not be prosecuted.

The officer, who has been charged with rape, official oppression, and other charges, was arrested after police taped a telephone conversation during which he allegedly acknowledged having sex with the woman.

Save Money for Bail

A St. Petersburg Times article by Brady Dennis published on September 9, 2003, described the ultimate crime spree gone bad. Three young Florida men, 19 and 20 years old, all of which had previous arrest records, were driving along in their 1983 Toyota Tercel. In the car they had 1.34 ounces of rock cocaine, drug paraphernalia (including a digital scale) and more than $1,000 in cash. As they raced along approaching what they thought was the tollbooth for the Selmon Expressway, they decided to save a buck and blow past the gate. They did, and in seconds they were forced to the curb by military vehicles and were swarmed with military police carrying machine guns.

It seems that the errant youth had mistaken a high-security gate of the MacDill Air Force Base for the tollbooth. All three men were booked without bail on charges of trafficking in cocaine.

A Tampa police Captain stated, "See what happens when you ignore a toll!" He added, "They were (messed) up. Any time you try to drive onto a heavily guarded military base thinking it's a highway entrance, you're playing with a few cards short of a deck."