The subject came down out of the tree and explained to the officers he found it entertaining to sing from a tree.

January 28, 2012 11:00 AM

Incident reports from police departments can be boring, staid affairs. Not so with those from University of Texas at Austin. This week's highlights include a budding horticulturist with a marijuana growing habit, a non-alcoholic student with catlike reflexes and a man who enjoys singing in trees. Via TM Daily Post.
posted by Leezie (22 comments total)

The police get reports of a stolen mountain bike, stolen wallet, and single cannabis plant grown in public. Take a guess which is the only one to merit a present-tense investigation
posted by crayz at 11:12 AM on January 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

the lesson from crayz's comment: ALWAYS steal from potheads.
posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 11:15 AM on January 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

Madison Police Incident Reports have better narrative.
posted by symbioid at 11:16 AM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Some of the best use of language today occurs in the police log of the Arcata Eye.

3:56 p.m. A man in a gray beanie and sweat pants visited his woeful financial fortunes on a Valley West laundromat, repeatedly defrauding it of chump change by unspecified micro-diabolical means.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:19 AM on January 28, 2012 [14 favorites]

God, I miss Austin.
posted by ColdChef at 11:19 AM on January 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

fifteen beat me to it: I adore Kevin Hoover's wit and prose down in Humboldt County.
posted by Kakkerlak at 11:22 AM on January 28, 2012

That column is the best. I know "Keep Austin Weird" is a marketing slogan, but people take their responsibility seriously.

(I keep meaning to start a twitter/tumblr with pictures and/or anecdotes about the day-to-day weirdness of the city. But that would involve leaving the house, and it's cold.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:27 AM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nothing beats really small town police blotters. These are from the Flathead Beacon police blotter (Kalispell and Flathead county, MT):

Tuesday, 12/27, 10:35 a.m. A man on Third Avenue East reported finding a gloomy, sad poem on his door.
Wednesday, 12/28, 8:10 p.m. A man called in to talk about some bad vibes he was getting from two guys in a gas station on Hwy. 93 South.
Thursday, 12/29, 11:05 a.m. A Somers man claimed that his dog fought with a stray and won.
Thursday 12/29, 11:54 p.m. A missing 2-year-old was found sleeping under his toy basket.
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:44 AM on January 28, 2012 [4 favorites]

This entry in the Arcata Times contains the phrases "pooch-bedazzling" and "deranged rollerblader" and I hereby declare the Arcata Times the winner forever.
posted by Diablevert at 11:51 AM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Weirdest thing about Austin: 56°F is considered cold.
posted by DU at 11:52 AM on January 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Arcata Eye, of course. My apologies.
posted by Diablevert at 11:53 AM on January 28, 2012

Previously on the Blue: Rochester, NH police blotter.
posted by dhens at 12:07 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why would someone singing in a tree be worthy of police action? Was he singing offensive songs?

I'm tempted to begin climbing trees and singing in protest of this oppressive behavior toward my tree-singing brethren.
posted by winna at 12:59 PM on January 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

The paper here in San Luis Obispo (and its website) has a pretty entertaining "What's Your Emergency" feature, which has gotten some exposure of the Criggo.com 'funny clippings' blog: 1, 2, 3, 4.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:00 PM on January 28, 2012

From Diablevert's link, a complete story in two sentences:

11:35 a.m. A caller complained that the people upstairs in a Samoa Boulevard apartment complex were being noisy and dragging things across the floor. But the GPS locator said the call was coming in from another location elsewhere in town.
posted by likeso at 3:05 PM on January 28, 2012

I prefer the sherriff's report from the McKenzie River, OR Reflections newspaper/
posted by reenum at 5:56 PM on January 28, 2012

This entry in the Arcata Times contains the phrases "pooch-bedazzling" and "deranged rollerblader" and I hereby declare the Arcata Times the winner forever.

Also "uber-aggro-annoyo."
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:23 PM on January 28, 2012

Once on campus I was helping one of the UT police officers set up a conference room for a presentation on safety, and while I was getting the projector set up, the officer giving the talk asked me if I subscribed to Campuswatch. I said of course I do, I love it. He then introduced himself as Darrell Halstead, the man behind Campuswatch.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:55 PM on January 28, 2012

From kittensofthenight's link:

7:04 a.m. A Kalispell man reported that his wife was making fun of him on Facebook.

I love this so much I might as well marry it.

So, I'm assuming that all calls to police/emergency services are required to be recorded (as in "documented," not just audio recorded), and also available for public perusal? I wonder who was the first to recognize this as a rich mine for comedy gold?
posted by taz at 12:28 AM on January 29, 2012

6:33 p.m. A loose horse made “strange” tracks in the snow on a Farm Road resident’s property. The property owner suspects that a prowler and a horse have been sneaking around.

Kalispell is apparently full of mysteries. Of all the words I'd use to describe the perambulation of loose horses, 'sneaking' is about at the bottom of the list, right above 'lurking whilst twirling horsey mustache'.

I am possessed of a strong desire to immigrate to this strange land.
posted by winna at 2:31 AM on January 29, 2012

Way back in my undergrad days we used to love reading the police briefs in the student paper. At least once a week - and sometimes close to once a day - there was a report of some guy nude somewhere. In the library stacks doing some self-flagellation, outside a dorm I'm the bushes, somewhere. I figure 90% of the "out in the bushes" exhibitionists were just drunk and peeing, but the library stacks creep, ugh. Funny thing though, around my 2nd year at the school the woman who wrote the police briefs graduated, and the number of naked guy posts in the column plummeted dramatically. So either the library mad whacker was in her graduating class too, or she was cherry-picking the reports to keep them interesting....
posted by caution live frogs at 6:49 AM on January 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Those UT incident reports get passed around our (local Austin) twitters and tumblrs regularly.
posted by immlass at 9:34 AM on January 29, 2012