Tuesday, August 16, 2005

It's a given that "If it bleeds, it leads" is the motto around the KPTV "news" compound, but, sheesh, do they have to lay it on quite as thick as they did tonight? They must have had to use a dropcloth over the Tele-Promp-Ter to keep the blood off it.

Top Story. Did Sal Hernandez-Jimenez rape and beat a woman in Vancouver? Perhaps. The cops think he did and he's still loose. Kevin Coari, he of the Jerry Mahoney eyebrows, was On The Scene where we heard from a neighbor of the victim who moved in to the apartment complex one day after the crime was committed there. Oh, the irony!

A white male committed a sexual assault on Wilsonville Rd.

There was an assault Sunday night in a Vancouver park. Good thing we live in the Age of Instant Communication, huh, so we can hear about an assault 48 hours (at least) after it happened.

A cat burglary was committed about 4 AM in Salem. Jamie Wilson was On The Scene many, many hours after the fact for no good reason at all other than to show that the KPTV "reporters"will go anywhere the uplink in the KPTV "news" van will operate from. Mike Fisher, Designated Neighbor of the Victim and Grizzly Adams lookalike, talked to us. Shockingly, he doesn't like crime near where he lives. The victim was hit on the head in the comfort of his own home. He can't ID the perpetrator, perhaps because he was hit on the head.

So, the Portland Police Bureau has mobilized a ton o' cops to downtown because of a recent rash of shootings there. This has PO'd some residents of North and Northeast Portland who feel that the concentration on downtown has shortchanged their neighborhoods. A local activist was shown spouting off at some official someone or other at a meeting which was very sparsely attended, judging from the extremely tight shots of him. Rule Number One of TV News: If there's a crowd, they'll show it to you. We were promised that there would be more about this at 10:45.

Of 4 suspects in a racially-motivated attack in Gresham, 2 were in court on Tuesday. The mom of one of them says the whole thing is just a wacky mix-up. You know, the kind of thing that happens on the old sit-coms you see on TV Land in the middle of the night.

In a related story, we got to hear the 911 call from the attack mentioned above. I don't know about you, but I just LOVE hearing 911 calls placed by people who aren't all that bright. They have such an...uh, interesting way of describing what's going on to the operator. [paraphrasing] "These guys are beating up this black guy 'cause he's black and stuff." Welcome to Post-Literate America, y'all.

A sex offender is moving to Gladstone. That would make a good name for a movie or novel, perhaps, but it makes a better piece of scarenalism for KPTV.

A Hazmat fire in Southeast Portland burned a building, causing a $250,000 loss and temporarily closing McLoughlin Blvd.

Governor Kulongoski signed into law that bill requiring prescriptions for any cold meds containing pseudoephedrine on Tuesday. I'll repeat my prediction: Since a majority of meth in Oregon comes from Mexico (according to the cops) and because this law will not affect the importation of that meth in any way AND because it WILL make it harder and more expensive to produce meth locally, the price of meth from Mexico will go up and there will be more crime to pay for it.

Break.

Keri Tomlinson was in News Control to tell us about vandalism locally. It took until at least a full minute into the story before we were told that this was in Aloha. The cops suspect that the vandals who painted 7 vehicles (including a van owned by a small local company), a few structures and a school are kids. That would have a lot to do with the fact that they found some BMX bicycles near the crime scene. This all happened around 3 AM. "Aloha" is Hawaiian for "You're in deep shit, kids."

Bob Harrington was a trucker who was murdered in Vancouver. Some of his trucker friends honored him today with a convoy. No, I won't make a "Breaker, breaker, dead buddy" joke. That would be tasteless.

D. Phillips was arrested in a storage unit after a chase by the cops. He asked to be shot so the cops obliged him, using a Taser, proving once again the truth of the old adage "Be careful what you wish for, as you may get it."

A little boy walked into the Washougal River, nearly drowning in the process. He's in the hospital now, in fair condition.

An 87 year-old man was crossing the street on his scooter and was hit by a dumptruck, ruining the scooter in the process, not to mention the 87 year-old man. The trucker wasn't cited in the accident, although I'm hard-pressed to imagine his defense. "He came out of nowhere on that 2-mile-an-hour Rascal scooter." Damn speed-crazed geriatrics.

Some guy who accidentally killed another guy back in '99 is getting a new trial (sorry for the lack of details here. The crimes were coming fast and furious tonight). Apparently, there's a law that says you can get retried if you didn't have the intent to kill. Man, if I knew that when I was younger and more energetic, the world would be minus several assholes right now.

I should take a pause here and apologize for the general lack of details ("deets" as the kids say) in the next few stories. Seriously, it was damn near impossible to keep up as the body count accelerated between the 10:11 commercial break and the one at 10:21.

Wesley Pruett is pleading not guilty to whatever the hell he did that culminated in a standoff between him and the cops in a furniture store.

A former teacher accused of sexual abuse at a Clackamas high school has entered a "guilty" plea, allowing him to not have to answer to a heap of other charges.

Roger Zettlemoyer, serial DUII'er, who was 4 times over the legal limit the last time he was caught, is going to jail. No, Roger, there isn't a Happy Hour in the lockup. Well, not including the hour in which the biggest guy on the cellblock decides to "adopt" you, that is.

Woodburn police claim that local gangs are recruiting kids at a younger age these days. They say they know of kids as young as 9 or 10 who have been approached by the gangs. This reminds me of the 1976 movie, Bugsy Malone. If you've never seen it, it's a musical about a 1930's gang in which all the parts are played by kids, including Jodie Foster. Very surreal.

Break.

Fire Season 2005

*The Blossom fire is still going strong, having consumed 8400 acres now. It's 25% contained.

*The School fire in Pomeroy has destroyed 200 buildings and is 75% contained.

Northwest Tonight

*Issaquah has passed that new law restricting sex offenders from living within 1000 feet of a school (I erred previously when I said that the previous law included the 1000 ft. restriction). This applies to Level 2 and 3 offenders.

*A woman who is pregnant was pinned underneath a pick-up truck driven by a teen which crashed through the wall of her house. Where? Dunno. Screwed up. Sorry.

*A deadly crash involving a small plane near Prineville is being investigated by the FAA.

Break.

A new computer worm is going around. It's called "worm-rbot.cbq". KPTV didn't tell us this, but it screwed up computers at CNN, ABC and the New York Times, among other places. It infects computers running Windows 2000 and some early versions of Windows XP. It causes the machines to shut down and power up repeatedly.

Pump Patrol. Hey, good thing we invaded a country that produces oil, huh? Prices for gasoline have gone up 9 cents in the past week. Portland is running $2.51/gallon and around Oregon the average is $2.60.

Next up was a pre-packaged piece with a voice over by Wayne Garcia about how to lower your gas expenses. It was a bunch of extremely obvious tips like "drive slower" and "don't carry heavy stuff around in your car." I have a few tips to add to the list:

• Sit behind the wheel of your car in your driveway and pretend to drive.
• Going uphill takes more power and therefore uses more gas, so get out and push your car when at the bottom of a hill.
• See if you can find a car powered by a weed wacker motor.
• A simple syphon (found at any hardware store) will allow you to "borrow" gas from your neighbor's gas tank.
• The reverse gear of most cars is used the least and is therefore the least worn and most mechanically efficient. Drive backwards when at freeway speeds to save gas.

Oh, just to kick you in the ass, economically speaking, one more time, Northwest Gas is trying to raise natural gas prices by 13% for residences. Pretty soon, we aren't going to have to worry about gasoline prices because we won't be driving our cars, we'll be living in them.

A local ballroom closed, leaving a lot of upcoming weddings high and dry so Vancouver business "Memories on Main" is stepping in, offering the parties a place to hold their trysts, even crediting them from the deposits they made to the ballroom.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/News Across America

*A police chase in Southern California ended with the CHIPS shooting the chasee with fresh-ground pepper gas.

*A pregnant woman, due to deliver later this week, is missing in Missouri. The cops have some security video of her from a convenience store to aid in their search for her.

*The shit hit the fan, big time, in Richmond, Virginia Tuesday morning when thousands of people stampeded. The local school district was offering 4 year-old Apple notebook computers to the first 1000 people in line for $50. You can probably figure out what happened. Yup, way too many people showed up and went cuckoo nutzo when the doors opened, trampling each other in the process. If you've ever visited the downtown section of the Capital of the Confederacy, you'd realize that it probably took at least 1000 of the people there to scrape up 50 clams. Last time I passed through, there were abandoned stores two blocks from the governor's residence.

*The theft of a puppy was Caught On Tape in a pet store in Florida. The lack of any sense of journalism is on display nightly on KPTV.

*A bear caused a multi-vehicle crash on a highway in Gorman, California. He was looking for the Pope's bathroom.

*A car driven by a young woman was involved in a hit and run in Chicago. The car hit a woman walking a blind 2 year-old pit bull (was she its seeing-eye person?) The pit bull died but the woman is going to be OK. Some eyewitnesses thought that the girl hit the woman and dog on purpose.

*Hey, speaking of pit bulls, a couple of the nasty little bastards raided a zoo in Michigan, injuring some animals.

*A fire at a warehouse in Missoula, Montana burned the building to the ground.

*KPTV's Angelica Thornton" told us about a couple who are seriously pissed at their local hospital in Brockton, Mass. A nurse there bandaged over an IV needle in their baby's arm, apparently having somehow overlooked the needle. The 'rents want the nurse fired for her gaff. Seriously, how do you not see a needle in a baby's arm, especially if you're putting a bandage over it?

World Tonight

*The deadline for getting out of the Gaza strip has passed. The Israelis who are defying the deadline will not be compensated for their homes and the Israeli government has handed the whole ugly thing off to the Palestinians.

*What the hell is going on with jets suddenly? 1 crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 people onboard.

*A quake in Japan registered 7.2 on the Richter scale and caused a small, harmless tsunami.

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*David Wilson was near the KPTV "news" van to tell us about a deadly shooting that happened back on March 21st. The cops have made no arrests in the case and are offering a $1000 award. Was this story the "followup" we were promised at 10:45? Beats me.

I-Team 12. Usually when we get an I-Team report, it's one of those scummy "hidden camera" things involving the Perverted Justice folks. This was just a story that every news operation is carrying about those "free" credit report offers, dressed up in an I-Team wrapper. Experian is one of the companies that offered the "free" reports which, if you didn't heed the small print and cancel your subscription to, whacked your credit card account for $80. The government says that's a no-no and have made them pay the customers back.

*In another sign of the Apocalypse, it was announced that Metrosexual no-talent Ryan Seacrest will host the New Year's Eve show on ABC TV when Dick Clark dissolves into dust.

Hollywood Buzz

*Madonna fell off a horse and broke some bones. Pour some Kaballah water on the wound, Madonna, why don't you?

*Amy Osbourne, the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon too smart to be involved in that train wreck of a reality show her family produced, has announced she has breast cancer. She has been undergoing treatment and is doing well.

*Lastly, in case you were wondering, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have no plans to get married, opting instead to continue to live in sin.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*Shoved aside by more important news about Demi Moore's (lack of) wedding plans, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, has been hospitalized for an unspecified condition.

*46 year-old Larry Northern was arrested for running down hand-painted crosses memorializing U.S. troops killed in Iraq. The crosses were along West Arlington Road outside President's Bush’s compound where Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan has been conducting a vigil.

*Ken Sinchar and Lori Sherbondy pledged their undying love for each other in the most dignified way they could think of: by holding hands across the drive-through lane of a McDonalds in Pennsylvania. He leaned out the window of his minivan and she stretched out the window of the drive-through. I now pronounce you white trash.