Cop stories are fun and educational

Is there anything more entertaining than the police blotter?

Probably, but I can’t think of what it would be at the moment.

Two incidents in Newport Beach this week reconfirm, if there was

ever any doubt, that people will do things on booze and drugs that

they couldn’t dream up, let alone do, when they’re sober.

Wednesday, a 21-year old man with the profoundly Celtic name of

Christopher Jude O’Conner stormed into the Newport Hills Animal

Hospital on San Miguel Drive at 11:40 a.m. He said he had to have

some phenobarbital ASAP, which is an abbreviation for really fast.

When the folks at the animal hospital explained that though they

pride themselves on their customer service, handing out prescription

drugs just for the asking is a bad idea on many levels.

O’Conner said he absolutely, positively had to have the

phenobarbital right away. In fact, it was an emergency.

When they inquired as to the exact nature of the emergency, he

said he had to have the phenobarbital because his cat was having a

seizure. Immediately following that startling announcement, O’Conner

muscled his way past the hospital employees, found the pharmaceutical

stores, snatched some pills and made a run for the border.

The authorities were summoned, and O’Conner was quickly found in a

nearby park, although bringing him to the ground went less quickly.

In fact, it was a genuine, all-out,

“you-grab-his-legI’ve-got-his-arm” Donnybrook by the time it was

done, with one Newport Beach police officer treated for minor

injuries.

“When they tried to take him into custody, it was quite the

altercation,” said Lt. John Desmond of the Newport Beach Police

Department.

“Quite the altercation” is law enforcement terminology for a

“you-grab-his-leg-I’ve-got-hisarm” Donnybrook. After all the huffing

and puffing and cuffing were done, it turned out that O’Conner hadn’t

grabbed phenobarbital -- a powerful barbiturate that is used to treat

seizures and insomnia but can also be highly addictive -- but

phenylbutazone, the animal equivalent of aspirin or ibuprofen, used

to treat arthritis in patients who are nonhuman. In return for

practicing veterinary medicine without a license, to say nothing of

assaulting a police officer, O’Conner was arrested and held on

$100,000 bail as a guest of the County of Orange.

Not dumb enough for you? Don’t touch that dial. There’s more.

Meet Julio Marquez, 33, until recently a resident of Santa Monica,

but now a neighbor of Christopher Jude O’Conner in the county’s big,

stony resort in downtown Santa Ana.

Thursday, Newport Beach police got a call about a man smoking

methamphetamine near the Wedge, which would be reason enough for

concern, except that when Julio sits down to smoke some crystal meth,

he likes to do it nude, in the buff, or as they say in Texas --

“nekid.”

Worse yet, while in his inexcusably natural state, Marquez

approached and groped someone at the Wedge -- a male someone -- who

promptly went into a full windup and hit Marquez in the snoot, really

hard.

By the time the police arrived, they found Marquez nearby on

Belvue Lane, dazed, confused, bleeding and speaking a language that

no one at the scene or anywhere else on this planet would recognize.

Was it a tough case to solve? Wait. Let me think, no.

A number of witnesses had seen Marquez doing his thing on the

beach, while removing every last stitch of clothing he had on his

person, then approaching the man who realigned Marquez’s nose when

Marquez grabbed him. While Marquez was being taken to the hospital to

have his nasal restoration looked at, back at beach, police found

drug paraphernalia and some papers with Marquez’s name on them.

Will either of these make this year’s dumb crimes best-of list? I

doubt it. It’s tough to win when you’re under the influence.

It’s the people who do this stuff stone cold sober who always walk

away with the Palm d’Or at the Dumb Crime Festival -- like Ron

Hoffman of Crystal, Ky., who walked up to a parked Pennsylvania

police cruiser and hacked up the light bar on the car’s roof with a

machete.

When the two troopers returned to their car, Hoffman dropped the

machete and immediately gave himself up. When the troopers asked

Hoffman if he’d be willing to share a few details of his plan with

them, he said, “I’m sorry. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to

do.”

Down the road in San Antonio, 45 year-old Amy Brasher pulled into

a gas station when the oil light in her car came on and asked the

attendant to check it while she used the restroom. When she came back

and saw the hood on her car up and no one around, she slammed it

shut, and drove off in a tire-squealing, rubber-burning, full-tilt

boogie.

The reason no one was around was that the attendant was on the

phone to the police describing Amy’s car and the 18 tightly wrapped

packages of marijuana that he’d found stuffed inside the engine

compartment. Much like the Pennsylvania state troopers and the

machete man, the San Antonio police were dying to know what Brasher

was thinking when she pulled into the gas station to have her oil

checked with 18 bundles of marijuana stuffed in the engine

compartment.

“I didn’t realize you have to lift the hood to check the oil,”

Brasher said.

Not nearly as dramatic but no less worthy was this exchange

between a Florida state trooper and a man being booked on a drug

charge.

Officer: “What is your D.O.B.?”

Suspect: “What’s a D.O.B.?”

Officer: “Your birthday.”

Suspect: “May 5.”

Officer: “What year?”

Suspect: “Every year.”

There you have it -- a cautionary tale for anyone considering a

life of crime. Don’t attack a police car, remember your birthday, and

if the oil light comes on while you’re running drugs, ignore it.

I gotta go.