Be Careful Who's Crooks You Arrest

BAYOU VISTA, TX - A police officer who decides to become the chief of a small burg police department should get ready for the flack and politics that goes with the job. I could never understand why a professional police officer would want to work for a bunch of volunteer city councilpeople anyway.
First off, what do they know about policing? What do they know about the law in general? Most of them know little or nothing unless they happen to be a lawyer.
Take Bayou Vista for example. Here is a city that encompasses about one-half mile of territory. I know people with backyards that big. Bayou Vista had about 1600 property owners in 2000. I don't know if they all lived there or what part of that number may be absentee owners who come there on weekends and during summertime.
Anyway, Bayou Vista is not a thriving metropolitan city and villages like this normally hire a policeman that has retired from somewhere else as their police chief. That way they get a seasoned, experienced lawman or lawlady for little money because that person already has a retirement pension from his or her previous job. So, it's a bargain for the little town and usually it's not a high stress job for the chief.
Unless of course you've got one or two volunteer city councilpersons who, for one reason or the other, aren't big fans of cops. Let's say you're a small town councilperson and you bring a couple of criminals into the community to work for you as laborers. Let's say, since these crooks are homeless and from another far away state, you move them into your upscale home, your neighbors unaware that these crooks have become their new neighbors.
Now, let's say that while you're away, your new roommates start prowling around the neighborhood, going into your neighbors backyards, getting fresh with your neighbor's wife and soliciting for drugs. Let's say your neighbors wife is scared to death when this happens and tells her husband and the police.
What would you do if you were the chief of the 3-officer police department when you find out that these two creeps were cozy with the mayor pro-tem. Should you just let it go, ignore the activities of these no-goods, tell the lady and her husband, "sorry, they live with the mayor pro-tem, we can't bother them." Of course not.
So, if you're a cop or the chief, you track these worthless humans down and book them into the Gean Leonard Hotel over in Galveston, soon to become the Freddie Poor Resort. As soon as that happens the top blows off city hall.
It turns out that the mayor pro-tem was previously one of three council members who slashed the salaries of everyone on the police department and some other city employees. No one has figured out the reason for these cuts yet, because there was no shortage of city funds. In fact, Bayou Vista is doing quite well financially. Why these three Muskateers when on a pay slashing rampage is still questioned by many in Bayou Vista.
But here's what happened after the police arrested the mayor pro-tem's new room-mates. The mayor pro-tem, screamed to the press that the cops are retaliating. They're getting even because of the pay cuts is the cry. Of course that makes headlines in the local press and at least one Houston TV station is likely to pick it up.
The people in Bayou Vista know the truth. Most of them are very upset over the treatment of their police officers, and most of them voted against this mayor pro-tem the first time he ran for city council. But what do others think when they read that the police chief and city officials are squabbling?
Bayou Vista is considered an up-scale neighborhood. The homes are on canals, most homeowners own their own boats, they drive late model cars and drink fine wine and champaign. Do they want their mayor pro-tem bringing low-life crooks into their village so he can have cheap labor for his private business?
We think not. We think the mayor pro-tem should be arrested for harboring a fugitive because one of his new room-mates was a fugitive from New Mexico.