Police Blotter Poetry

I got my big break in journalism in the mid-'90s when I was hired on at the Duluth (Minnesota) News-Tribune on a shift that prevented me from partaking in the nightlife, such as it was, except on Saturdays.  They called the position "evening enterprise reporter" to make it sound better than "night reporter."  But when you walk out of the building at midnight, or later if something big happened, the night is no longer young.. 

I got hired in time to catch the tail end of their winter. I got there in February, and it was still the most bitter and crushing winter I had ever lived through. Duluth winters are cold. The city is ringside to the largest surface area of water in the world, and perched on a hill to catch the full blast of the winds blowing down from Canada.

Each shift, I would check up, by telephone, on perhaps 25 smalltown police departments and county sheriffs around "The Northland," a region defined by its ability to pick up Duluth TV signals. But I went in person to check on the status of crime and other incidents in the jurisdiction of the Duluth Police Department. The building was just across the street from the newspaper, so I had little excuse not to do it in person, no matter how freezing cold it was. Many nights I would check the call log book and find nothing worth reporting. The log book contained computer printouts of the notes typed in by dispatchers as they spoke to people calling 911, funky text like a mimeograph on cheap newsprint-thin paper, with odd line breaks and mis-capitalization.

After a while I noticed that among the unnewsworthy entries there was nonetheless a certain sleepy rhythm. So I started writing down the ones that caught my attention.

 

TWO STREET PEOPLE (Almost a haiku)

evening, March 29, 1996

Couple of street people
falling down drunk
Bouncing off the windows of businesses back and forth
Now heading to the Shis Ka Bar
Both wearing parkas

IN THE BASEMENT

03:32, March 29, 1996

Reporting party can hear a banging sound in the basement
Sounded like someone is ``chopping'' something
Access to basement is from inside the house only
Her dog was barking but is now quiet but nervous
Have squad go to back door, is closer to basement door
Husband is coming home
Early or mid '80s dark colored car
Out front with husband now
Everything seems OK in the basement
Everything OK.

 

CULMINATION

April 2, 13:48 p.m.

See reporting party in reference to a threatening letter left under the 
door
Letter is from a John Smith in Apt. 10
Reporting party wanted incident report a matter of record should 
further problems develop.
Appears to be culmination of hard feelings between two former friends. 
Both
Joined 12-step program together, one has relapsed.
Reporting party felt that hard feelings may build up without 
intervention.
Spoke to both parties and all involved agreed to let each other live 
their own
Lives as well as stay away from each other.

 

DOG

April 1, 17:17

Dog running in middle of the street
Chasing cars and causing cars to swerve
Greyish brown dog
Kind of fluffy
Creating a traffic hazard
Has been hanging around the area for the past 4 days
Dog made its way back to possible home at (address)
Owners may have left
Dog unattended for next few days

 

TYPE: KID TROUBLE

April 1, 18:55

On the bridge above Lincoln Park
Stalled blue GMC parked
Bunch of kids were gathered around it and were trying to kick the grill 
in
When they saw complainant they took off
Complainant went by a second time and they were back
A car full of boys and girls
Looked like a blue Corolla or Nova
They took off headed southbound on 24th Avenue West
Complainant said the party doing most of the kicking had on tan 
workboots
That at one point got stuck in the grill
The suspect was hopping around
He did get his boot back however

 

April 1, 19:04

Ralph Robertson is drunk and unwanted.

 

April 4, 11:52

Four rollerbladers doing tricks all over the statue and the street at 
the Civic Center
Unknown who

 

April 9, 13:07

Meet reporting party in the rear parking lot of the Arrowhead Building
She has been observing a male dressed in all black taking pictures at 
an apartment building
``Kitty corner.'' He is standing up on a ledge taking pictures from the 
outside
Into an apartment

 

TYPE: CHECK WELFARE

April 9, 13:40

Female down and crying
Also appears to be drinking
Something. She is on the
Second Avenue West off ramp from Mesaba Avenue, in the shadows
Checked the area -- unable to locate

 

TYPE: NEIGHBOR TROUBLE

April 9, 17:13

A neighbor Ron saw
Ed throw mud onto Bradley's car. Ed was
Not home at this time spoke with his wife
Florance and she said Ron was
Lying. Advised parties to get a hold of
Community police officer and set up a meeting to solve problems
Bradley said it's an ongoing problem Ed
Will spit on Bradley's car other neighbors have
Witness him doing this.

 

April 15, 15:32

Two females fighting in the street
Unknown on weapons
Mother trying to restrain daughter from
Running away

 

TONITE

April 15, 15:40

Reporting party overheard some kids in Apt. 3 threatening to break into 
a car which
Is parked nearby. They are juveniles ages 11-13 -- last name is 
(deleted). She
Heard one of them say "We have to get them speakers out of there 
tonite."
These same kids dumped a pail of water over reporting party's head last 
night. They are
Always left unattended by mother.

 

April 22, 04:27

Car horns honking and people talking about purchasing `nose candy'
They are in the alley next door
1 ticket for consumption

 

MARLBOROS

April 23, 12:09

Person just stole two packs of Marlboro cigarettes
Cream and orange van northbound on Central Ave.
Two other occupants, possible one was a female
White male, 50s, scruffy hair and beard, long black trench coat and a 
hat
"For sale" sign in the back window

 

April 26, 5:26

Dog bite someone on Monday and is supposed to under constant care if 
outside of
The house is now tied up in the backyard
No one around and there are children playing in the area

 

May 1, 1:49 p.m.

Received information from (name deleted)
She said that a Jerry Smith
Had left her house at 11:45 a.m. today
While he was at her house he said that he would kill the next man he 
sees
She said that he was psycho
He claimed he could kill anyone within 200 yards of him and also that 
he had killed a black man in Kansas City
He is driving a gray-colored truck
Smith lives at [address]
He is supposed to have many weapons

Jerry Smith left 11:45

 

Anthologist's Note:  It was with some degree of dispepsia that I discovered that most of the police blotter poems I had once captured have dispersed to the data wilderness due to a corruption on an old floppy disk.  These surviving poems above are as they appeared in the log book except for ass-covering redaction of some names  (but not Ralph Robertson's) and addresses. Like my colleague from Louisville, Dave DeWitte, said:

In my belief
the stark verbal landscape
of the police blotter
should not be edited

The language of cops
devoid as it is
of adjectives, adverbs
can never be changed