Axe Cop

"One day, at the scene of a fire, the cop found the perfect fireman axe. That was the day he became Axe Cop"


So begins Axe Cop, an online comic strip that is drawn by Ethan Nicholle (age 29), and written by his younger brother Malachai (age 5). According to Ethan, his father has 'very healthy loins.'

The strip is wonderfully drawn, and the storyline should be familiar to anyone who thought or said anything at the age of five.

Read Axe Cop here.

Spoiler: Don't get too attached to Axe Cop's partner, Flute Cop. He becomes Dinosaur Soldier in the first episode!

Why am I losing respect for cops and the justice system?

Let me count the ways...

Twenty-one lousy days! And some sort of conditional suspended sentence at that? Are you friggin' serious?

If I went on this sort of a rampage, they'd be piping the sunshine in to me for many a long day, I feel quite certain of that. But apparently this asshat of a cop gets some sort of a special deal?

Let's recap, shall we?

He downs a couple dozen drinks. Commandeers a car, while lying about being a Vancouver cop. Threatens to "destroy" the driver -- who has since died, though the circumstances of that death are never explained in the article -- though based on this asshole's conduct I'm more than prepared to believe he killed the poor son of a bitch to keep him quiet.

Then he instructs the driver to take him to another nightclub, where he meets two other cops -- one of which is a "use of force" instructor at the local police academy, for the love of friggin' Mike.

Too drunk to control himself, he gets into a fight with a hapless friggin' newspaper seller that doesn't snap to quite quickly enough for this little nascent brownshirt -- so he and said instructor assault the newsie so savagely his doctor still won't clear him to drive months later? An assault, I should add, that a number of bystanders said was racially motivated?

And when the real on duty police show up, what do these three pricks do? Try to pin it on the victim, naturally.

Thus confirming what I've always known. That when it's called a police state, it's NEVER a good thing. Why didn't they just taser him already? Dead men don't talk, after all.

These pricks should remember that their ability to police ALWAYS depends on their perceived legitimacy.

The second the citizens they're purporting to defend start to believe they're just being preyed on... well, then it's a whole new violent bloody mess of a ball game.

After all, when they kick out your front door, how you gonna go? With your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun?

Ducks Offed

The Leader-Post is reporting that a Regina police officer drove over a bunch of ducklings this weekend. And a heartbroken eyewitness says it was avoidable.

I know accidents happen when animals wander onto the road but, Jesus Christ, driving over ducklings?

Bad decision and terrible PR for police. Boo!

Tough On Crime...But What About The Causes Of Crime?

I have to get this off my chest, but first, the following caveats:

1.) I recognize and appreciate the very, very tough job the police do.

2.) An adequately-funded police force is essential and politicians who cheap out on this are rats.

3.) A good cop is more than worth his or her weight in gold.

Okay...so an unamed but reliable source I know quite well had a friend graduate from Saskatchewan Police College today and as a result this person attended the graduation ceremonies.

And this individual of my acquaintence was irked by the pro-Saskatchewan Party speech given by one of the commencement speakers, Saskatchewan Police Commission Chair Mitch Holash.

Holash reportedly told graduates how lucky they were to begin their careers after the last provincial election, when there's been a change in the Saskatchewan government's direction. He spoke about a "paradigm shift", and now there's more resources for police (apparently he used the word "blessed")

This implicitly suggests the NDP were poor supporters of the police by comparison.

I have a few problems with this pro-Sask. Party propoganda. First, sending an underhanded political messageto graduating students is a crummy thing to do, period--whatever the speakers' political affiliations, or the fact that they're a political appointee or whatever.

Second, I'm not at all convinced the Saskatchewan Party will be more effective supporters of law enforcement than the NDP were--and if they are, a chunk of the credit has to go to the economic boom that really only got rolling in the last three years. We all recognize the Sask Party government waltzed into office in a sweetheart situation. Let's see what they've built with it after four years.

Third, this speech really rankles because the Saskatchewan Party government seems, to me, to lean towards an overly-simplistic understanding of crime, making them less effective than the NDP were. If you're really serious about reducing theft, vandalism and violence, you need to address the factors that help create it: poverty, unemployment, racism, hopelessness.

I don't think Sask Partiers generally get that.

One of the first things the Sask. Party did after coming to power was yank funding from Station 20 West in Saskatoon, a planned inner city centre that would've brought health and other services to a stressed community. Of paticular note was the plan to set up a grocery store in the centre.

For a lot of reasons, large grocery chains like Safeway and Superstore don't set up shop in inner cities, and this creates a situation where lower-income households have a hard time buying food. This grocery would've filled a critical need by providing local, affordable groceries to a community that can't neccessarily just hop into a car, drive to a box store and buy $200 worth of groceries for a week.

Premier Brad Wall called to Station 20 West a "mall" and said government shouldn't support malls. The result: poor families in a high-risk neighbourhood have a hard time buying healthy food for their kids.

Wall didn't get it. And because he didn't get it, a community with high crime rates lost an important facility that would've made it stronger.

Fighting crime isn't just about hiring police and sending them out to catch bad guys. You fight crime by building resilient communities. So far I've seen nothing to suggest the Sask. Party will be better at that than the NDP were.

And that means police graduates aren't waltzing into a community where they have more support from government. If anything, it really means they have less.

What happens ...

... when the local media doesn't have enough people to cover things such as police activities? The creator of two of the five most popular television shows in American history goes back to his old job -- a Baltimore sun crime reporter -- and in his opinion, it doesn't look good. Anyone think that blogs alone are going to do that kind of investigative journalism that's important in a democracy? Me neither.

Tip of the hat to Lawyers, Guns and Money

The 'Mad Bomber' Of Saskatoon

Nice to know that the police department that brought us David Milgaard, Neil Stonechild and the starlight tours is working with its customary efficiency. Since owning a chemistry set is enough to have the SPS arrest you for possessing explosives, anybody playing HALO 3 should be arrested as a someone leading a terrorist insurgency.

(Hat Tip to the Zach Bell Show)