Updates

-- Last week this space mocked the Food and Drug Administration for its plans to assess a $14,000 fee on small distilleries that had switched production lines to creating hand sanitizer in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Well it turns out that this blog is read by the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, because he directed the FDA to not only not collect the fee but to remove it from the Federal Register. You may say that's because he read about it in one of the mainstream media outlets that reported on this matter as well, but until you produce conclusive proof that he does not read this blog I'll say it my way and you can say it yours.

-- Last May 4 some officers of the Lethbridge Police Service in Lethbridge, Alberta Canada responded to emergency calls about a person with a weapon in front of the Coco Villa Galactic Cantina. On arrival they observed a person in white plastic clothing and a helmet obscuring their features holding a black weapon of the general size of a rifle. They immediately ordered the person to drop the weapon and get on the ground, using force only when the subject failed to immediately comply with police commands. Officers also warned people away who were attempting to interfere with the performance of their duties. The subject was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car while both she and the Cantina owner were questioned, and she was released when it was determined that no crime had been committed.

That's the way that the Lethbridge Police Service would like the story told, but people who remember it know that account leaves out the fact that the white plastic clothing and helmet were a Star Wars "stormtrooper" costume and the weapon was a chunk of plastic shaped like a "blaster." And it leaves out that the woman wearing the costume was trying to get to the ground in the mobility-limiting armor when she was shoved down hard enough to get a bloody nose and that the people warned away were recording this whole textbook exercise in stupidity on their cell phones when they were threatened with arrest for doing so, and that the owner was threatened when he was yelling that the woman was his employee, dressed up for a "May the Fourth Be With You" day at the business.

The Lethbridge Police Service did not investigate its own officers' conduct -- although you'd think that admitting you were smart enough to know your officers erred and how would be the wise course of action -- but turned it over to the Medicine Hat Police Service and the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team. Those bodies, after a thorough review of the evidence that took only seven months -- two months faster than the development of a vaccine for a brand-new virus the world had never before seen in humans -- have decided that the incident warrants the filing of no criminal charges against the officers.

Which, OK. If the investigation was trying to see if the officers' errors rose to the level of felony crimes I'd have to agree. And maybe even misdemeanors are a little excessive, but you'd think there's be something that they could at least write someone a ticket for. Like maybe "Failure to recognize one of the most ubiquitous characters of one of the largest movie franchises in history on a pop culture holiday dedicated to that franchise." Or, "Failure to differentiate between inert plastic toys shaped like no known firearm because they are meant to be fictional ray guns and actual firearms." That one probably with aggravated circumstances, because it occurred in broad daylight instead of some dimly-lit alley. Perhaps, "Failure to understand that if a stiff bullet-proof vest makes moving around harder to do then a head-to-toe suit of stiff plastic might make it even more so."

But no. So now any disciplinary action will come as a result of an internal professional misconduct investigation by the Lethbridge Police Service. My personal recommendation is that all of the officers be required to do foot patrol wearing Princess Leia's metal bikini for at least one full week. That has the advantage of potentially punishing whichever Lethbridge resident called police to begin with, by making sure he or she is exposed to the sight.