Tag Archive for: police

Occupy Water Tower: The Revel’s in the Details

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Water Tower Stand-Off; photo via napa.patch.com

News overload! We’re all scanning the headlines. Hundreds of them, sometimes, in a single day. And only a few select, tantalizing, provocative links ultimately earn our coveted click-through.

What a shame. Because if you scanned right by this item, well… you missed some amazing details.

Man ends water tower occupation after six hours

You can read the whole story now if you like, but how about I make it really easy and clip just the best funny, sad and ironic details?

The broad scenario: In Napa Valley, California, Adrain Madrigal, a mentally disturbed hispanic man, “occupied” the top of an old tannery water tower for 6.5 hours before being taken into custody.

Six stunningly incredible details:

  1. Throughout the day, Madrigal could be seen climbing in and out of the water tank through a hatch. Why it’s amazing: Cartoons as reality–the old “escape hatch” move, a classic Looney Toonie setup!
  2. A helmeted, rifle-bearing SWAT agent made efforts to reach the man, but he repeatedly evaded them by moving to the other side of the water tank, using a pivoting ladder that is attached to the very top of the tower.
    Why it’s amazing: More Looney Tunes fun–a modern-day Bugs Bunny evading the shotgun-toting Elmer Fudd via swinging ladder!
  3. Threw a heavy metal can filled with rocks at officers on watch below. Why it’s amazing: Premeditation! He must have actually prepared by carrying rock-filled cans to the top of the tower.
  4. Authorities initially tried to persuade Madrigal to come down, offering him cigarettes and tacos. Why it’s amazing: Don’t know exactly why. It just is.
  5. Six hours into the standoff, with the sun going down, he began shouting for “agua.” Why it’s amazing: He’s on a water tower! The irony! Not to mention the fact that he took canned stones to the top, but forgot to bring along water, tacos and cigs.
  6. Madrigal came down from the tower around 5:50 p.m. after repeatedly asking authorities at the scene for water. Why it’s amazing: Could this be the start of the oft-predicted water-centered conflict and conquest? Yes, it is obvious that political authorities with access to water are using it to oppress those without! Right now, right in California!
  7. Madrigal may be the same person a manager found on the property Tuesday, who said he was looking for a job. He was told to return early the next day. Why it’s amazing: Occupy Water Tower. Wake up people, it’s not about tacos and cigs. It’s about jobs and water. And that’s a fact. 

Hold It! Code 3!

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Were Scotland Yard’s phone operators playing it too loose with trips to the loo? You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so the bosses have devised an unintentionally-hilarious new procedure to keep tabs on toilet “productivity” metrics. From couriermail.com.au,

Toilet break now a ‘Code Three’

NO longer known as a number one or number two, when phone operators at Scotland Yard take a toilet break they will have to log it as a “Code Three” so police can monitor time wasters.

Britain’s Metropolitan police said the new rules would stop staff at the police head quarter’s control room from taking unnecessary breaks.

The operators will have to log toilet visits as a “code three” on a bath-specific database.

Staff are fuming about being so heavily scrutinised.

Employee Paul Drew wrote in a staff magazine: “Everyone I have spoken to about this finds it deeply offensive and humiliating.

“It would be interesting to know what the public or the Met can possibly gain from making notes of such intimate details.”

Superintendent Russ Hanson-Coles, told the BBC: “Our primary role at central communications command is to be available for the public to contact and it is vital that we make the best use of our resources.

“Staff in this environment have regular breaks that compare very favourably with outside industry so the need for extra personal breaks should be minimal.”