Anecdotal comedy
At first it seemed like a segment from Movie of The Week, when the police car pulled up behind a pickup and requested that the driver step out.
Instead, the truck sped away with the officer in pursuit. Off road now, into a wooded trail and then through what was probably an abandoned farm. The truck gets mired down in a sandy section, so once again, the officer runs up beside the truck and knocks on the window. The truck leaves, again, and the officer returns to his vehicle, where he is stuck on top of an old stump. He runs to the trunk and grabs a small fire extinguisher, at which point the camera pans out and you see that there is a fire burning beneath the car. Within a minute or so, the vehicle is fully engulfed in flames and the second police car is on scene. Some citizen has phoned in and reported that the perp has been seen swimming across a river, full clothed. I’m not sure of how much time has elapsed. This is obviously a documented case of “high adventure”.
True adventure. We’d stopped the channel choice on the most recent episode of COPS. Familiar theme music, and a Saturday Night Special of strange perps. This was the first time I’ve ever seen the police come out looking like fugitives from the Keystone era. The website even provides the identity of the unfortunate officer; he’ll never, ever, leave this story behind.
The second segment pans to a perp wearing a C.O.P.S t-shirt as he backs up and kneels down with his legs crossed and his hands behind his head. The brand is everything in reality TV. Just like a train wreck, you can’t turn away even though you know such programming is bad for you. Maybe I’d better keep surfing, because such material is probably an addiction. Who needs comedy when reality is so much funnier?
