Watching for the Rozzers

No one ever said that living in Portland, Maine, would be dull.

I'm at the  NorthStar, waiting for the evening's tango events to eventualize, munching on a piece of cheese I found in my pocket.

Actually, it's from a larger slice that I bought at my favorite cheesemonger - K. Horton's, in the Market House.

Getting Mrs. Beadle out of the garage - it's just a little too cold to walk - I noticed that there were police cars flying all over downtown, heading East, toward Munjoy Hill (at whose foot the NorthStar is situated).  

Lot's of cop cars.  Lot's and lot's of cop cars.

I have a lot of respect for the police - both as a band and as a profession.  Just out of high school I got a job as a Special Deputy Sheriff in Tulsa County, working out of the offices of Dave Carpenter, Sr., whose son, (Dave Carpenter, Jr.) was my drum major during my first year in marching band at Central High School).

It was fun - when I wasn't having dogs (and we have BIG ass dogs in Oklahoma) turned out on me, or getting guns pulled by angry husbands ("Hey it wasn't ME that beat the crap out of your wife in a drunken fit...").

So I'm sympathetic to the police, even when knowing I was driving with an expired license (I'm legal now!  I'm legal!!) and I'm waving just to keep them from looking at my expired inspection sticker.

It's not their idea to come up with stupid laws - it's just their job to enforce them.

So it's kind of neat to see them on the run toward downtown and flying into Monument Square.

Apparently someone went to the bakery stand in the Market House and grabbed cash out of the till (this is what my favorite cheesemonger tells me - I love that word "Cheesemonger".  Somehow "fishmonger" isn't so romantic - but I don't know any tall, ice-blue-eyed fishmongers with long, long red hair - but I digress ...).

Bad idea, to grab cash and dash so close to the main downtown cop shop.  The rozzers were rolling from all over the peninsula and they seemed to have caught the guy.

How cool is that?

When the Orchard opened we had a chat about "loss prevention" and the attitude is that by being proactive - by giving good customer service, basically - we give people a chance to make a good decision about taking stuff that they don't intend to pay for.  I like that logic.

So there we go again.  The good guys win and maybe someone will have a chance to make better decisions.

Or not.