Mack
Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Beach Bicycle Bingo
Lifeguards
in Galveston are now armed with guns.
Perhaps those little whistles didn’t carry enough authority: “Hey, you
with the Mickey ‘n’ Minnie’s Great Beach Adventure floatie! Stop at the safety limit or I’ll shoot!”
No,
really, David Hasselhoff of Baywatch won’t
be pulling a made-in-Austria Glock from his mankini.
The Galveston Daily
News
(http://galvestondailynews.com/story/331978/) reports that a
new type of police officer, called the Galveston Island Beach Patrol, now pedal
along the sea wall in order to keep the peace, suppress littering, and enforce
the beach-ban on alcohol. They are certified
lifeguards, certified police officers, and certified fashionistas.
A
photograph features two bicycling officers wearing fetching lemon-colored tops,
black knee-pants, sneaks, bug-eyed sunglasses, and plastic turtles on top of
their heads.
The
handlebars of one of the law enforcement bicycles appear to be decorated with
tennis balls, lemon-colored tennis balls.
The
cyclists don’t look like police officers; they look like two errant members of
a boy-band on spring break. Perhaps when
making an arrest they address the miscreant with “You have the right to be
marvelously in awe of my simply fabulous outfit.”
There’s
nothing that speaks of the majesty of the law like mixing tactical gear and
really cute tops.
The
newspaper reports that the officers “have made contact with more than 8,000
tourists” (whatever that means) so far this year, and have “taken 7,219 regular
and environmental enforcement actions,” reflecting the reality that even local
governments never employ one or two simple words to make meanings clear,
choosing instead to cobble together a forest of polysyllables that need
translation. Anyone who would write
“environmental enforcement actions” should be relieved of his official City of
Galveston thesaurus.
The
officers appear to be carrying too much already, so tossing a thesaurus would
be a start. In addition to their pistols,
badges, and radios the officers must also lug around sacks containing (this is
a direct quote from the newspaper) “medical and lifesaving gear and…a tourism tool
kit with brochures about Galveston, water safety and stickers and stamps for
children.”
Clearly
someone missed the lesson on faulty parallelism.
What
air-conditioned genius thought it a good idea that police officers patrolling
on bicycles or on foot in the gasping heat of a Texas summer should have to
pack tourist brochures, water-safety brochures, and goodies for children next
to the field dressings and the extra ammunition clips?
“Anything
you say or do can and will be held against your admission to the maritime
museum, which is where you stole that car, and here are some profusely
illustrated folders about historic Galveston for when you sober up, some
discount coupons for the Beach Burger-Barf Shack, and, hey, some stickers for
the kids.”
What
will officers on patrol be expected to do next?
Career counseling?
The
reality is that police officers on beach duty must observe, make quick
life-or-death decisions, and deal with violence, drunks, heart-attacks,
struggling swimmers, drownings, missing children, and other demands made upon
them by crowds of vacationers who often aren’t as safety-conscious as they
might be. Should officers also have to
add a sort of fold-up visitors’ center to their burdens?
Whatever
the Galveston beach patrol officers are being paid, it isn’t enough.
-30-
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