I love reading police logs. It’s a lifelong passion, really, that started when I was an inquisitive pre-teen with a healthy curiosity about the seedier endeavors within the larger community. Benign schadenfreude for both the victim and the aggressor blossomed as I poured over the accounts of the robberies, the assaults, and the arrests. Perhaps that sounds sociopathic, but I like to think of it as me learning right from wrong from the viewpoint of American law enforcement. After all, it’s not a crime until you get caught.
The typical police log recounts run-of-the-mill traffic stops, vandalism, larceny, and suspicious activity, but usually there is one unusual item sufficiently bizarre and/or vague enough to capture my imagination ( for example, “A report was taken from a hotel guest who said a woman assaulted him and broke his dentures”). I am also fond of the items that turn out to be nothing (for example, “Report of suspicious bones were determined to be from an animal and were old” or “Responded to Weald Road for a noise complaint and found it was brothers and sisters ‘goofing around,'”).
The Boston Police Department’s public logs are maintained in a blog and available in RSS, which is how I read them. Crime statistics are aggregated (Non-fatal Shootings: 10 Non-fatal Stabbings: 6…) and several crimes per day are highlighted in detail, either because of their severity, notoriety, or weirdness. It is in the weirdness category that the police log ghost writer excels, injecting humor and irony into the factually impassive prose.
There is no better example than this classic post from yesterday’s BPD blog, ingeniously entitled Way too early for Christmas music & for some neighbors in Southie it was also way too late.
At about 4:04 am, on Saturday, November 8, 2008, officers from Area C-6 (South Boston) responded to a radio call for loud music in the area of 5 Shepton Terrace. On arrival, officers spoke to several residents who stated that one of the tenants was playing his music much too loud. As officers approached the location in question, officers could hear Christmas music being played at an unnecessarily loud level. When the tenant answered the door, officers instructed him to lower the music due to calls made to 9-1-1. Officers further advised the tenant that people were having difficulty sleeping due the loud Christmas music. With the music turned down, officers left the location. However, a short time later, officers were called back to the same address for the same reason (noise complaint). Upon arrival, officers were able to hear the loud Christmas music. When officers knocked on the door, the tenant answered the door and began swearing at the officers.
Officers arrested Kevin Foley, 54, of South Boston and charged him with Disturbing the Peace.
