Thursday 16 May 2024 09:10:24 1715868624

Jonestown paper, lessee. About the same. Telly had this the other day and I forgot it. Marion Berry - OK I know he's deceased and don't speak ill and all that but if he did ill in his life can I speak about that? Berry, not that Marion Barry (I might have liked him better) was the first district congress-critter for a few years, five or six terms back then. We had some real winners then - Bill Alexander, Blanche Lincoln - Arkansas still hadn't had enough of dims yet. Anyway he used to go on the local Jonestown radio and pontificate about how evil Republicans were. Like all dims he had nothing constructive to contribute, just Republicans bad. But he got a street named after him. It runs over some street I always forget, maybe Nettleton - nah, I'll check next time I'm over there. I usually drive over it at some point whenever I'm in town and usually under it as well. I don't recall ever seeing a pedestrian on it but the pedestrian feature is getting an upgrade. It's only a half million from the big government, I guess Jonestown taxpayers are putting up the other million. Whatever, to be fair Jonestown does have more people without cars these days, but then they got that bus service. Dunno if that requires subsidies or not - most public transport does. Enough of that.

Spike in killings over in Left Memphis, two in three days. They said three shot and killed so I guess there coulda been more shot but not killed. I like the way the WMPD says "...they are determined to provide justice to the families and victims of senseless violence." Nice to know (is there a non-senseless kind of violence?) - I'd hate to think they're just not gonna do anything, the way it is some places . Makes me think of the lawyer coming out of the courthouse with a just-arraigned-for-something-or-other client and saying "My client is innocent of these charges and we intend to prove it trial." What else is he gonna say? Do like Arthur Kirkland? One of my favorite Al Pacino rants btw. Loved the one in Scent of a Woman too. This just in - another shooting-killing.

Okey-dokey, West Memphis gonna do some justice, what else we got? Earle is in Crittenden County too but a good ways from West Memphis. It's on highway 64 just over the county line. Just a few miles back into Cross County is Parkin. What's left of them.


Both towns used to run speed traps on 64, sometimes an old police car they got somewhere or sometimes the local constable with a blue light on his car. Never amounted to much, nothing like Gilmore. One little town over around West Memphis back in the day when Slick Willie began infesting the White House and got those 100K new police officers deployed - remember that? - well, police departments were invited to apply for a handout from the taxpayers (by the usual route that goes through the IRS) and they could buy police cars and hire police officers and fight crime. A lot of little towns did just that, bought a police car and hired a cop to collect revenue from people that traversed their jurisdiction a little too fast. Cop in this little town is out just running his speed trap and making money for the city and...

Ya see, a lot of these folks didn't hire trained police officers, just stuck a badge and maybe a uniform (a motorist ticketed at Gilmore reported an officer with a star magic-markered on a T-shirt) on some dude, probably someone with connections to city government. We're talking city government in a town with a few hundred people. So this cop lights up a motorist and he's writing her a ticket and what happens? An old coot drives up and interferes with the officer. That is, he walks up to the lady who's getting cited and advises her that they aren't inside the city jurisdiction. Cop beats the old coot up. Old coot lingers a few days in a coma and dies.

Doncha love small towns in... well anyway the cop gets indicted for some sort of homicide, manslaughter maybe, and a trial date is set. Trial time comes around and he flees. Eventually he is found and returned for trial only to be acquitted. There's other details that would clarify but this isn't the time or place. This is about Earle, where recently some nefarious activity was uncovered by the authorities. Well, just about everybody in Earle has left so probably not a lot of business and jobs so why not? The article is short but if you know the area it makes sense.


































https://www.kait8.com/2024/05/15/jonesboro-considers-new-pedestrian-infrastructure-overpass/ https://www.kait8.com/2024/05/16/2-shot-killed-west-memphis-within-three-days/ https://wreg.com/news/local/machines-seized-in-gambling-raid-at-2-arkansas-stores/