Owasso, Oklahoma, is my hometown, which I’m visiting right now. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the city – open skies and strip malls and a church on every corner – which I can appreciate so much more now that I’m no longer living there.
The view from my parents’ backyard.
When I’m home, I always make some time to peruse the Owasso Reporter. In addition to the pageant queens and local parades and the occasional sex offender story, in recent years the paper has also included all the police calls and arrests from the week. They are generally a riot and make Owasso seem like the the oddball suburban town that it never really was.
Browsing the past week’s calls, many of them struck me as more poetic than droll, so I thought it might be interesting to rearrange some selected calls from the week into an imagined day in the life of my hometown. You could almost build a very atmospheric movie or novel out of these slices of humanity. (Street addresses have been omitted.)
10:54 a.m. – Check person. Elderly man all dressed in white staggering. Out with subject. Arrest.
1:43 p.m. – Accident no injury. Parking lot by the baseball field, vehicle was backed into by a semi, Mountain Dew truck. Report.
2:06 p.m. – Found property all. Someone left a crate box of chemical bottles on the corner near the church. Handled.
3:26 p.m. – Found property all. Small piece of luggage placed on her driveway, she has had problems with neigbors and is afraid to open it, would like officers to check on it. Unknown if this found property or supplemental. Recovered a large amount of jewelry. Report.
3:33 p.m. – Follow up all. Caller thinks the man that stole her radar detector a few months back just walked into the store, saw her and then left. Report.
3:56 p.m. – Check person. Kids are swimming in Three Lakes pond behind the gas station, caller asked the father to not allow them to swim, he said no. Handled.
4:56 p.m. – Check person. Subject passing out fliers for restaurant, took a large hand full and just threw them into the air and let the wind blow them around. Spoke with manager of restaurant to have the subject come back and clean up his mess.
5:20 p.m. – Follow up all, reported at PD. Caller advised that his house was broken into on May 31. He has filed a report with Rogers County and has been in contact with Rogers County deputy, who advised him that officers from Owasso has located a bag of jewelry on the same day and that they would need grandma to identify it. Handled.
7:32 p.m. Vandal in progress all. Subjects are rocking the Timmy and Cindy statue. Handled, subjects are no longer playing around the statue.
8:30 p.m. – Juvenile nuisance/truant/other. Parking lot, gray shirt, brown hair, is waiting on a boy to get out of the movie to fight with and is out arguing with his ex-girlfriend, blonde, teal shirt and jean skirt. Handled.
1:08 a.m. – Check person. Four Hispanic males chugging on some beer. Handled.
1:39 a.m. – Check vehicle. Silver Dodge truck, keeps driving by a stop sign that has been run over. Handled.
2:21 a.m. – Disturbance loud noise/music. Loud music. Handled, officer advised they pinky swore to keep it down.
To my great joy, I just discovered that the crime blotter is now published online for me to enjoy from anywhere in the world. What a wonderful gift from the town that made me what I am today.
muahaha! Those crime reports are certainly nothing like the one’s in my small paper! Intensely satisfying to read, and and I especially like the jewelry one and how it got wrapped up with someone finding it and then someone missing it.
Oh, and the officer who pinky swore to keep the music down! Why don’t more people do that?
I found someone who knit the Grass pattern on Ravelry! Your fame is spreading! I took a screen shot so you could take a look, but I’ll delete it after a while since I don’t want to infringe on the knitter’s copyright or whatever…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paranee/542110325/
I aways love reading my small town blotter. But I have to say, yours are so creative, this place sounds like nothing I’ve ever seen. They put a lot of detail and time into their blotter. Any place that pinky swears is somewhere I’d like to visit. Your parents are lucky to have such a nice view also.
What a small world! I live in Owasso! Love your blog!
How cool! I’m leaving for New York again this morning, but I’m always a little sad to leave Owasso.
I can hear the theme song for the tv show now. . .
Pinky swore! Love it!
I live in a small town – my police blotter provides a similar read. I remember when someone was reporting that his iPod had been stolen from the dashboard of his unlocked and open-window car. And someone reported that beer had been stolen from the fridge on the front porch.
What a small world indeed, I was born in Owasso! I love that small town, though after living in California for so long I don’t know if I could move back. What a beautiful place to visit though.
Hey, who knew? I suppose we’re all interconnected in unexpected ways!
Oh my gravy, I didn’t know you were from Oklahoma! I’m from Oklahoma City, although I would prefer a smaller town. How nifty!
What an absolute riot!
hillarious!
I went to high school in a SMALL farm town in Upstate New York. Our crimes were always pretty rediculous, too, tho the crime blotter wasn’t printed til years later. I remember the time some kids stole the tops off the tables in the park… They were these odd concrete tables – a round wheel of a table-top perched atop a base of sorts. Some truant kids rolled away all the table-tops and that was the biggest news for a week or two. ROFLMAO