cheat sheet – Memphis Flyer

Greg Cravens

The Memphis police department reluctantly admits they have somehow lost track of precisely 62 registered sex offenders. This is rather disturbing news. What was the point of having us — uh, we mean them — fill out all those forms, and making sure they didn’t move anywhere near schools, and do all sorts of creepy things, if you can’t even keep track of them?

City officials in Munford, a community just north of here, staged a traffic accident at the local high school — complete with students covered in fake blood playing the part of injured or dead victims — so the kids would see for themselves the dangers of reckless or drunk driving. The police chief told reporters, “We hope this does have an impact on them.” So to speak.

The good people of West Memphis have started running promotional ads with the tagline: “So Close to Memphis, We Called It West Memphis.” The accompanying slogan is: “Think Outside the Bridge.” And the illustration just shows an expressway — apparently leading to West Memphis. It seems kind of sad that the only thing they could say about their city is that you can drive to it from another, larger city.

A bizarre custody case involving a golden retriever — formerly owned by a man who died without a will, and each of his divorced parents now wanting the dog — came to a quick end when the judge decreed that the two could share custody of the animal. Was that really so hard? Why can’t people work these things out for themselves?

A woman needing a kidney transplant places a classifieds ad in The Commercial Appeal and finds (we hope) a potential donor. Hmmm. If this works out, we may need to add a new category to our own Flyer Market on the Flyer Web site.

Police answer a disturbance call in Bartlett, where they find a homeowner with a broken nose. The husband, it turns out, had called his wife “psychotic,” and she slugged him. Let that be a lesson to husbands everywhere. When your wife asks a question such as, “Does this dress make me look psychotic?” do NOT say yes.

City officials in Lakeland, trying to determine their community’s exact population, are forced to mail out a second census form because so few of the first forms are completed and returned. Well, that should tell them something, shouldn’t it?

This sounds like Greg Cravens

one of those “couldn’t possibly be true” stories, but unfortunately it is not. After a Whitehaven storeowner is murdered during a holdup, police quickly pin the crime on one man — a convicted sex offender who, as part of his sentencing, was wearing an ankle-tracking bracelet that allegedly placed him at the scene during the crime.

Edmund Ford pays off his $13,320 utility bill so Memphis Light, Gas and Water won’t cut off service to his mortuary firm. The city councilman then tells a reporter, “Go do something else now.” No, we think we’ll keep an eye on you — and all the other “special friends” of MLGW — for quite some time.

The state senate unanimously approves a measure that would prevent law enforcement officers from confiscating Tennesseans’ firearms during an emergency or natural disaster. Uh, was this ever a possibility? It seems to us that cops would have their hands full with other things.