It was a Christmas miracle while it lasted

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/12/2011 (5063 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I guess I knew that it wouldn’t be forever.

But, boy, what fun while it lasted.

Earlier this week, I posted what I thought was the best police press release I had seen in a while. RCMP from St.-Pierre-Jolys (not really our area) had cracked the Case of the Missing Cattle.

Turns out that there hadn’t been a cattle rustler — but maybe it was some rustling in nearby trees that tipped off the Eastman rancher that his missing cows had just gone wandering. They were found in some bush, about a mile and a half from home.

But the kicker was the closing line. In absolute deadpan cop-ese, the press release intoned: "Two cows remain elusive."

I laughed. Heck, I still do, just thinking about it. The humour comes from its perfect combination of official, high-sounding language, used to describe something as pedestrian as a couple of cows who won’t come home.

It might not have been the best police press release of the year (I should keep track) but it was definitely the best in a while.

And yet — it was just the beginning.

The next day, Brandon police issued their daily press briefs, and it contained this gem:

"The male suspect had allegedly punched the female and the female suspect had allegedly struck the male with a shoe and small porcelain figurine. Both were placed under arrest."

Again, the pedestrian nature of an injury-free fight between two people combined with the bizarre detail of the "small porcelain figure" added up to a very funny line. When I posted the story on the Sun website, I made sure to include that detail, and I highlighted it in the Facebook and Twitter posts.

We got some high praise from Twitter user MonsterSatire for it, too.

And even then, more was to come. The highlight of the week — and this is a week that includes Christmas — has to be the story that RCMP released from Killarney on Tuesday.

Officers responding to a disturbance call found an open door with smoke coming from inside the home. I can only imagine the adrenaline they must have felt as they burst in, prepared perhaps to battle back the raging flames as they hauled out the incapacitated people inside.

Instead, when police followed the smoke down to the basement, they found a guy sitting on a motorcycle, revving the engine, and spinning the tires so fast that the basement carpet had caught on fire.

I had to include that in the headline: "Where there’s smoke, there’s a guy revving a motorcycle in the basement — and it was so good, I made it the tweet, too.

Even the Winnipeg Free Press acknowledged my genius, taking the story and headline verbatim for their site and twitter feed, too (that’s allowed, by the way, we’re sister papers).

And the fun kept coming even as the stories got darker.

There were some scary moments in Minnedosa, I’m sure, as a family wondered what had happened to their 13-year-old daughter (now home safe) but the case was cracked after a break-in went wrong for the guys she was apparently with.

The owner of the town’s Motor Valley Lodge, hearing a noise at about 4:45 a.m., came downstairs to find two people near his beer cooler.

He gets into a shoving match with one suspect and manages to lock him in the beer cooler (talk about being careful what you wish for, right Mr. Burglar?). But it’s what happens next that really cracks me up. The other suspect "apologized to the owner and fled," according to police.

Can you imagine that scene? It’s nearly five in the morning, you and a buddy have busted into the local vendor to pick up a couple of cases, and before you know it, your buddy’s locked in the cooler and the owner is coming for you, too?

So you apologize before you hightail it? I guess … I guess manners matter?

I would love to know how that apology plays out in court.

"Your Honour, my client immediately showed remorse for his actions."

Sadly, the trail of amusing police press releases appears to have ended. We’re back to rural tedium with Wednesday’s briefing from the Brandon cops. All that’s on the blotter is a stolen stock trailer.

I guess that’s better than the dreaded "Last 24 hours: Nothing to report."

But that’s how we know we live, by and large, in a safe, boring town.

Perhaps I’ll be thankful for that, this Christmas.