The 2013 Bum Steer Awards
Now with special advice from the Texanist!
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"SIR, PLEASE DISMOUNT AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN'T SEE IT AT ALL TIMES"
After police arrested Joseph Farley for unicycling on the Kemah Bridge in the nude, police chief Greg Rikard observed, "Obviously he wasn't armed. That we could tell."
The Texanist’s Advice: The way to drive in Texas, as the highway sign says, is “Friendly.” It doesn’t say “Drive Buck-Naked—The Texas Way.” Just put some damn pants on. It ain’t that complicated.
LAW AND ODOR
Police, stay just the way you are. Love, Bum Steers
TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE FIFTEEN GALLONS OF FROSTY GOODNESS
Austin police officers Ricky Hollis and Brian Spain were suspended for failing to direct “their time and attention to the business of the department,” after a citizen reported seeing the two uniformed officers pull up to a residence, load a beer keg into the trunk of their unmarked patrol car, and drive off.
MA’AM, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FAST YOU WERE STANDING?
Houstonian Natalie Plummer was arrested for “standing in the street where a sidewalk was present,” a charge she claimed police trumped up because she’d been waving a sign warning drivers of an upcoming speed trap.
WE’RE GONNA NEED YOUR GUN AND YOUR BADGE. BUT YOU JUST HOLD ON TO THE REST OF YOUR HARDWARE
Rookie Houston police officer Miles Stedman Dumas was suspended after being arrested in Galveston for assault and indecent exposure. Galveston police said Dumas stabbed a man outside a nightclub during a fight set off by Dumas's flashing his pierced genitals at bar patrons.
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD OVERNIGHT
After ignoring efforts by the management to close down his wedding reception because of the late hour, Harris County deputy Kevin Meyer was arrested by the same Harris County constables who had been hired to work security for the event.
SHE CLAIMED IT WAS ALL TWO BIG MISTAKES
Among the allegations leveled against Galveston County constable Pam Matranga in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former deputy was the charge that self-described “chunky chick” Matranga had twice pulled her shirt over her co-worker’s head and stuffed him into her cleavage, forcing him to approximate an act known as “motorboating.”
The Texanist’s Advice: Few jobs come with such pressure as law enforcement. But the Texanist has little sympathy for those who crack under this pressure and start flashing their genital piercings or motorboating their colleagues. Keep it together, people. We’re counting on you.
BLAME THE MEDIA
When it comes to royal screwups, they’re the crown prints.
THE NEWS-JOURNAL REGRETS THE TERROR
A bomb scare that drew massive law enforcement response was caused by a suspicious device in a Longview News-Journal newspaper box, which turned out to be part of the machine’s equipment left exposed by a hasty service person.
GOOD THING HER BOSS AT THE CLUB NEVER LEARNED ABOUT THAT SLEAZY DAY JOB
The Houston Chronicle fired Sarah Tressler, its recently hired society columnist, after a weekly paper reported that Tressler was also writing Diary of an Angry Stripper, a widely known blog about her night job as a topless dancer.
GUESS THAT BLIND PHOTO EDITOR DIDN’T WORK OUT AFTER ALL
The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung ran a wire story about the British Open accompanied by a photo of Tiger Woods captioned, simply, “Sandusky.”
IT ALWAYS PAYS TO GO NEGATIVE
The Round Rock Leader ran a reader poll asking, “If the election was today, would you vote for Obama or Romney?” but offered responses of only “yes” and “no.” “No” won with 56 percent.
THE BOXES WERE FINE—IT WAS THAT GHASTLY OLD MEDIA INSIDE THEM
Citing “environmental concerns,” Janice Daman, assistant dean of the University of Texas’s College of Communication, banned Daily Texan boxes outside the recently opened Belo Center for New Media, even though the building is the new home for the School of Journalism.
The Texanist’s Advice: “The media” come in for enough abuse these days. Fellow ink-stained wretches: please, let’s not bring any more of it upon our trade.
SCHOOL SUCKS
Sure, Texas education is lousy, but, relax, college will teach them everything they need to know. Right?
URINE TROUBLE EITHER WAY
Parents of a Klein ISD seventh grader appealed the district’s decision to sentence their son to one month at a disciplinary campus for urinating in a water bottle during class. The family’s lawyer claimed that the boy had no choice after his teacher refused his repeated pleas to let him go to the restroom and told him, “I hope you pee on yourself.”
NOW SHOWING: RED FACES
After 5,700 fifth-grade boys were bused to a screening of the film Red Tails, a Dallas ISD spokesperson responded to community outcry by explaining that only boys were included because there wasn’t enough room for the girls.
HE ALSO DISCONTINUED THE JOURNALISM SCHOOL BECAUSE HE DIDN’T LIKE STRIPPERS
When he learned that he could not legally refuse to register a student based on his suspicion that the student was gay, Thom Campbell-Amons, principal of the Taylor Career Center, in Beaumont, discontinued the evening cosmetology program the student was trying to register for, even though several students were already enrolled.
LET THAT BE A BRUTAL, MISGUIDED LESSON TO HIM
Two Judson ISD kindergarten teachers were suspended for dealing with a purported class bully by ordering 24 of the six-year-old’s classmates to take turns hitting him.
BUT NOT AS SORE AS HIS PARENTS
According to a lawsuit filed against the Peaster Independent School District by parents Amber and Michael Tilley, of Weatherford, a school nurse and counselor called their eight-year-old son “dirty” and “filthy” and forced him to take a shower in the school infirmary, where he received a scrubbing so rough he was sore for days.
HEH, THEY SAID “JOHNSON”
The cover of a program handed out at a University of Texas graduation ceremony listed the host department as the “Lyndon B. Johnson School of Pubic Affairs.”
The Texanist’s Advice: The youth of Texas, to whom we will soon be entrusting the future, are not educated solely by marathons of standardized test prep. Young ones also learn by way of example. So let’s keep it simple: don’t harm them, don’t be mean to them, and don’t act dumber than them.
CELEBRITIES
Sure, they’re famous. But that don’t mean we can’t make fun of ’em.
IT WAS JUST HIGH TIME
Representatives of nonprofit group Capital Area Statues claimed it was a coincidence that the public unveiling of Austin’s new Willie Nelson statue took place at 4:20 p.m. on 4/20, an informal holiday celebrating cannabis.
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