News

Police Beat

by Charles Mudede

Black on Blond/University District/Mon May 5/4:30 am: Officer D. W. Umpleby (like my name, Mudede, you need two tongues to properly pronounce Umpleby) reports: "The victim, a white 32-year-old female, and the suspect, a black 45-year-old male, had been dating over the past year. (The victim is married but living apart from her husband.) A few days ago, the victim broke up with the suspect because he had lied about his age [he said he was younger] and [conversely] because he acts immature. The suspect was upset about [getting dumped] and today left several phone messages on her answering machine.

"The first message was at 4:24 am and stated that he was going to tell everybody at the hospital she worked at that he was fucking her. [In] the next message, which was at 4:28 am, he yelled, 'You were born a liar and you're going to die a liar. It's not over until I say it's over.' He also said, 'Go see if your car is still there, if all four tires are flat. You'd better sleep with your eyes open. I'll bust the windows, spray paint your car, flatten the tires. I'll get you fired, you Russian whore.' He again called at 4:31 am and continued to call her a whore and other such names. He called yet again at 4:33 am and said, 'You're a whore. I'm going to see your husband tomorrow and tell him that his wife is fucking a black guy. What's he going to say then? I'm going to tell him we've been fucking for over a year.' At 4:38 am, he called and said, 'This will be the last time you fuck me over.'"

The victim stated that she hasn't heard from him, nor seen him, since the phone threats.

The Woes of a CEO/Downtown/Thurs May 8/5:39 pm: Recently, a downtown company that's going through hard times was, like many companies in our depressed city, forced to lay off several employees. (The company is also having problems paying the laid-off employees their past earned wages.) On the day the employees were notified of their termination, Monday May 5, several company cell phones went missing. The next day, one of the laid-off employees made several phone calls to the company's CEO (at his home and work) threatening to do damage or take items from him to make up for the money he was owed. Officer Darnall reports: "[The laid-off employee] said, among other things, 'What if you don't find your car in the morning? I might lose my apartment because I'm unable to pay rent, so what have I got to lose in coming after you and your property?'" The next night, another laid-off employee called the CEO and said if he wanted the cell phones back, he had to pay her $1,000, $200 of which was due the next day (May 8). Two other laid-off employees have made threats over the phone to the CEO, one saying that he was going to "beat the crap out of him."

At this point, all Officer Darnall could do was offer the besieged CEO a card with a case number.