Court Room Humor

Here are some quotes from the court room of stupid questions posed by lawyers. Not to be outdone, here are witnesses giving some stupid responses to questions.

Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July 15th.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
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Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
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Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget? Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?
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Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.
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Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.
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Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
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Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.
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Q: Now doctor isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
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Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
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Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?
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Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
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Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
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Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?
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Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
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Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
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Q: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.
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Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.
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Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
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Q: How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?
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Q: Were you not shot in the fracas?
A: No, I was shot halfway between the fracas and the navel.
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Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

Police and Guns

Police have guns. There is a reason and it may seem obvious. It only makes sense that police have guns. Well, not so fast. There is a disturbing trend developing and you won’t believe where it is happening.
Princeton University, Columbus State Community College (OH) and San Francisco Community College (CA) are only three of the many institutes of higher learning where the on campus police do not carry guns.
You may remember when you were in college coming across your campus police. They are generally not as threatening to the students as a city police officer or deputy sheriff. I have even been there and seen how shocked people can be when a campus police officer arrests them. By the way, this is too late in life to realize they are actual police officers. Campus police are still police. They have arrest powers and come in contact with the general public traveling through or on campus. Despite what university administrators would like to believe, they are not only contacting students. They do arrest “bad guys”. This means they arrest the same people the city police officer does and are subject to the same threats.
At some of these institutions the campus officers tried to appeal the university’s policy to OSHA as an occupational hazard. It seems very obvious to me it is an occupational hazard to do police work without a gun. OSHA actually disagreed. They decided it wasn’t a safety issue for the police to work without guns.
Now, let me make this clear… my post is not an attempt to debate gun control. I only wish to point out a few ideas and arguments for police to carry guns.
First, there has been an increase in school shootings. Is there any doubt this is taking place across the country? From Columbine (CO) to Virginia Tech (VA) and Northern Illinois University (IL) there is an epidemic of school shootings. Where does this leave the students? Unprotected and at the mercy of a motivated coward taking human life like it is a video game.
Second, there is only one option available to the unarmed campus police officer when a school shooting starts – Run! It would be suicide to do anything else. Who is left to protect the students? No one.
Third, why have campus police if you are going to disarm them? Just have security guards. How safe is a campus without armed police officers?
Fourth, unarmed campus police can just wait for the city police or sheriff to take care of the problem. How long will it take for them to get there? One minute? Two? Three? Three minutes would be very quick of a response time. Consider how many people can be shot or killed in three minutes?

So why do police have guns? There are several reasons and here are a few.
We carry and train with firearms because police officers have a sworn obligation to save lives and sometimes deadly force is the only way to stop a person from committing a terrible act. Our goal is to stop the person causing the threat. We would like to be able to stop them without the possibility of killing them, but we don’t have a Star Trek “phaser” we can set to stun.
The firearm is merely a tool we use to make the bad guy stop. A firearm is nothing more than a tool. Shooting a firearm is primarily a mental exercise. Some basic physical skills are also needed, but mastery requires the proper mindset. Part of that mindset is pre-deciding that you are capable of killing another human being under the proper legal and moral conditions. This sounds very harsh but these legal and moral conditions are in defense of yourself or another. It is important for there to be those in society who are willing to stand in defense of justice and other’s freedoms. The majority of the Judeo-Christian world knows the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. This was mistranslated in the King James Version. The original language of the Commandment prohibited murder. Murder is an unjustified killing.
No police officer who is true to the sworn oath and obligation they accepted wants to kill. They are motivated however with a drive to save the day and protect the innocent. In order to do this effectively you must be prepared. This preparation includes having all the tools necessary to perform your duties. I would suggest to you having a gun is vital to being prepared and a necessary tool for not just campus police but all the police forces across the nation.

Life lessons- I learned all over again.

We just returned from a family vacation. We rented a beach cottage just south of St Augustine Florida and stayed there for the week. Despite having worked the midnight shift for years now that I ride a desk as a detective I have found the joy in being a morning person. I enjoy getting up early around 5 AM. At the beach I went for a run along the beach each morning. I would stay out there and listen to the waves and watch the sunrise. It was a magnificent sight. I am amazed at the wonder of God’s creation. There is so much order and brilliance to the design of His creation.
As I sat along the beach wall I was impressed to review several aspects of my life. My marriage, children, faith, career were just some of the things I would think about. I tried to prioritize things and set them in order each morning of the week. As each day passed by the inevitable return to the routine of everyday life got closer and closer. As much enjoyment came to me sitting there each morning I began to long for the return of being home.
So, I learned (truthfully, I would have to say I “re-learned”) some life lessons sitting there contemplating everything before me. First, life is best enjoyed day by day. Take time to stop and enjoy the moment. The moment will not last forever. The kids grow and change every day, compliments fade away in time and youth grows to experience as time passes by. I learned this watching the sunrise each morning. Each morning the sunrise was different. That first morning the sunrise was incredible. None of the rest had the same effect on me as the first morning sunrise.

Second, share these moments with those you love. We should take time to give to those we are closest to. This means stopping to give your opinion, knowledge and experience to them. The most important people in my life are my family. Because things change it is essential for them to know how we feel about them. After the first morning I would return from my run and wake up a family member to come watch the sunrise with me. We would talk and share time together while the world woke up around us. It was a special time I hope they each remember. I will always remember these times and I know they impacted me.

You know, here’s the interesting part… the sun comes up each morning. For a dozen years I raced the sun home each night from working the midnight shift. When I was late getting home and the sun was already up I would be upset, not only being late but knowing how much harder I would have to work at going to sleep with the sun up. If I had only paused to enjoy the moments… now I wish I would have stopped to wait for the sun to come up. I could have had these experiences and relearned these lessons a long time ago.

These are two pictures I took on the beach during vacation.

Why do cops seem so mean?

I have been hearing a lot lately about how “mean” cops are and how the cops are sarcastic at inappropriate times, laughing at other people’s tragedy and pain. When others would cry, give up or cower away from situations the cop will laugh, make fun or run to the danger. I believe the answers are in the two following explanations.
First, as with most cops I know- I was always going to be a police man. From the time I was a little boy I knew this was what I was going to do. There was something in me that always drew me close to this type of career. This is a noble profession which in time changes you in many ways.
Once cops are in this type of work it brands itself on them-searing their soul and causes them to see the world differently than before. This causes them to view the world through filtered lenses. The more profound and intense their experiences are with the circumstances of this profession the hotter the brand and deeper the searing on their soul. The deeper it goes the more affect it has on the filters they view the world through. This searing is a form of protection and important for them. They can’t allow it to take them to a place where they are past feeling. This does however create a level of separation from the inhumanity they see every day.
That doesn’t mean everything is all bad. There are many good experiences in this profession. There are the lasting relationships which are built over time or in an instant. My life is intertwined with fellow officers because of making life and death decisions together, being long time zone partners, training new recruits together or just coworkers who become good friends.
Now, understanding how this profession can affect a cop’s view of life I can tell you more about the other reason they seem “so mean”.
The second reason cops seem “so mean” deals with society being made up of three different types of people. They are described as the sheep, the wolves and the sheep dogs.
The sheep are happy with things the way they are. They spend their day with their heads down eating the grass. They take no concern to the dangers of their world and follow each other around the pasture. They would not harm anyone. They are kept in the pasture by the sheep dogs that corral them and nip at them when they get too close to the woods. The sheep do not see the wolves in the trees. They do not understand the need for the sheep dogs and hate that they are “so mean”.
The wolves are in the woods along the sides of the pasture. Sometimes they make their way into the fold of sheep. They would hurt anyone and take anything. They are aware of their world, always on the hunt and are a danger to the fold. They hate the sheep dogs.
There are sheep dogs who watch the fold. They protect the sheep from the wolves. They are vigilant and aware of their world. They keep the sheep in the pasture by nipping and barking at them. They would give their life for the sheep.

The sheep are people in society. The wolves are the criminals. The sheep dogs are the police. The sheep do not believe the sheep dogs are necessary. They do not appreciate the sheep dogs until the wolves appear.

This analogy can explain why police seem so mean. They are mean because they see the wolves in the woods along the edge of the pasture and are constantly protecting the sheep.

The next time you come across a mean cop try to remember the position of the sheep needing the sheep dog and imagine the wolves are coming.