04-23-2008, 04:09 PM
Sorry we have such a Dork #2 man. This was so embarrassing!
Tom Lyons, Herald-Tribune wrote:
Reliable source on crime? Not exactly
Published Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Urban legends that have been debunked again and again manage to live on because uninformed and perhaps gullible people are often totally willing to pass on rumors as fact.
On Friday, I heard, once again, a legend that's not quite as famous as the albino alligators attacking people in the New York sewers, or children's rub-on tattoos laced with acid that cause kids to trip when applied to the skin. (Note to less astute readers: BOTH ARE TOTALLY FALSE!)
This one is about the shocking danger of flashing car headlights.
But the entertaining thing isn't the much-traveled urban legend itself, but the man who was giving it to a roomful of innocent victims who had every reason to assume he knew what he was talking about.
At a forum for Republican candidates for Sarasota County sheriff, held at the Sarasota Yacht Club, a woman in the audience told the speakers she had heard, through contacts in the school system, that there is now a lot of frightening gang activity in the Sarasota area. She told a particularly awful horror story of girls being gang raped and beaten to force them into joining gangs.
"You're right," responded Larry Dunklee. "That is happening."
Dunklee is the second in command in the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, and is hoping his experience and in-house knowledge will get him elected sheriff as boss Bill Balkwill steps down.
In his answer to the woman, Dunklee went on to warn the gathering that gangs could be a threat to them, too. He warned that if another driver ever flashes his headlights, they should never flash back because it is a gang thing. Gang members will turn and chase the car and beat the occupants, or worse.
The crowd buzzed with this shocking news.
After the forum, I told Dunklee I wanted to get copies of any Sheriff's Office reports on gang rapes to force girls into joining gangs, because I didn't think this newspaper had reported that happening here.
The hemming and hawing began. The in-the-know law enforcement administrator told me he had only meant that the Sheriff's Office has been gathering intelligence on gangs, and so he knows surprising things kind of like that might have happened.
For instance, he said, there was the specific example he had brought up himself: The flashing headlights story.
I said I wanted to ask about that, too. I said I'd read that story before, several times, in news accounts explaining that it was just an urban myth that has been passed around the nation, and to several other countries, for well over a decade, always said to be a shocking new trend that cops are allegedly worried about.
I said he could look it up on Snopes.com, perhaps the best urban-legend debunking site.
That site lists many press accounts in which knowledgable law enforcement people repeatedly debunk the story. But I asked Dunklee if maybe he had news of a copycat gang here really doing the flashing thing and attacking someone.
Dunklee clearly had no idea about the legend. He backpedaled again. He hadn't meant that was actually happening, either, necessarily, he said. He only meant that intelligence reports, based on interviews with jail inmates and such, had listed this headlight flashing thing as a local gang activity.
That's mighty impressive intelligence gathering, and I'm glad Dunklee is all over it.
I should have asked him if gangs here are also drugging people to harvest a kidney to sell on the organ-transplant market.
I hear the victims wake up in a bathtub full of ice, and ...
Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4964.
Tom Lyons, Herald-Tribune wrote:
Reliable source on crime? Not exactly
Published Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Urban legends that have been debunked again and again manage to live on because uninformed and perhaps gullible people are often totally willing to pass on rumors as fact.
On Friday, I heard, once again, a legend that's not quite as famous as the albino alligators attacking people in the New York sewers, or children's rub-on tattoos laced with acid that cause kids to trip when applied to the skin. (Note to less astute readers: BOTH ARE TOTALLY FALSE!)
This one is about the shocking danger of flashing car headlights.
But the entertaining thing isn't the much-traveled urban legend itself, but the man who was giving it to a roomful of innocent victims who had every reason to assume he knew what he was talking about.
At a forum for Republican candidates for Sarasota County sheriff, held at the Sarasota Yacht Club, a woman in the audience told the speakers she had heard, through contacts in the school system, that there is now a lot of frightening gang activity in the Sarasota area. She told a particularly awful horror story of girls being gang raped and beaten to force them into joining gangs.
"You're right," responded Larry Dunklee. "That is happening."
Dunklee is the second in command in the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, and is hoping his experience and in-house knowledge will get him elected sheriff as boss Bill Balkwill steps down.
In his answer to the woman, Dunklee went on to warn the gathering that gangs could be a threat to them, too. He warned that if another driver ever flashes his headlights, they should never flash back because it is a gang thing. Gang members will turn and chase the car and beat the occupants, or worse.
The crowd buzzed with this shocking news.
After the forum, I told Dunklee I wanted to get copies of any Sheriff's Office reports on gang rapes to force girls into joining gangs, because I didn't think this newspaper had reported that happening here.
The hemming and hawing began. The in-the-know law enforcement administrator told me he had only meant that the Sheriff's Office has been gathering intelligence on gangs, and so he knows surprising things kind of like that might have happened.
For instance, he said, there was the specific example he had brought up himself: The flashing headlights story.
I said I wanted to ask about that, too. I said I'd read that story before, several times, in news accounts explaining that it was just an urban myth that has been passed around the nation, and to several other countries, for well over a decade, always said to be a shocking new trend that cops are allegedly worried about.
I said he could look it up on Snopes.com, perhaps the best urban-legend debunking site.
That site lists many press accounts in which knowledgable law enforcement people repeatedly debunk the story. But I asked Dunklee if maybe he had news of a copycat gang here really doing the flashing thing and attacking someone.
Dunklee clearly had no idea about the legend. He backpedaled again. He hadn't meant that was actually happening, either, necessarily, he said. He only meant that intelligence reports, based on interviews with jail inmates and such, had listed this headlight flashing thing as a local gang activity.
That's mighty impressive intelligence gathering, and I'm glad Dunklee is all over it.
I should have asked him if gangs here are also drugging people to harvest a kidney to sell on the organ-transplant market.
I hear the victims wake up in a bathtub full of ice, and ...
Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4964.