August 21: What's Jen Clicking on Between Newscasts?

"I'll keep my freedom, my guns, and my money, you can keep THE CHANGE." - "Bambi," via myspace

Did you see this picture?  A couple of knucklehead sheriff's deputies out of town on a training exercise (they're from Midland; this restaurant is in a different county near Austin) when they have a few beers and end up handing an assault rifle to their waitress and taking her picture on their cruiser.  You can see the police report on The Smoking Gun by clicking here.

Blogger Shaun Dawson has my favorite write-up of this incident:

A group of Midland County deputies were in Round Rock for training when they decided to stop by the Twin Peaks restaurant for drinks. There they met a waitress named “Bambi” – her real name is Vanda Purvis (that's her Facebook profile pic)– and after between 3 to 5 beers each, they invited her out into the parking lot to pose for them with an AR-15 assault rifle.

An off-duty Manor police officer, Brian Wells, was passing by and saw the plain-clothed deputies hand the waitress the assault rifle. He flagged down one of Round Rock’s officers and told them what he saw.

That was when all hell broke loose.

According to the incident report several Round Rock police officers swarmed the area after hearing about the assault rifle.

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Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter said in a news conference: “They did exactly what they were supposed to do” and that his deputies would have done the same thing if an AR-15 was being carried around like that.Painter was particularly irked by part of the incident report, where it stated two of the deputies, Evans and Wright, told a Round Rock investigator “they would hope for some form of professional courtesy” while questioning them.

I tracked down "Bambi's" myspace page and got a chuckle out of the headline quote...

Oh, and she's also posted the picture of herself on the Sheriff's cruiser on there; click on the screen shot above to see the public portion of her profile.  A few of her friends have commented about seeing her on the news.

I love this story because it just goes to show you a few jugs .. um,  mugs of beer can really cloud a guy's judgement.  Who thought this was a good idea?  Click on the picture of the waitress here and you'll see "Twin Peaks" is a thinly veiled, er, metaphor for a Hooter's-esque restaurant which boasts of "Twice as Much Fun" as other restaurants...

Anyway, the deputies' boss was really mad, and said he was mortified as well.  The Midland County Sheriff seemed especially irked by the expectation of "professional courtesy" by his deputies from the officers who came to the restaurant.  He fired the deputy who gave "Bambi" the rifle, and ordered suspensions and reprimands for the others.

Blogger Dawson sums it up well:

The photo was taken with a camera belonging to the Midland County Sheriff’s office and Painter, while showing it, said: “I don’t think it was worth somebody’s job“.

I wonder if the deputies were planning to drive after their “3 to 5 beers each” and would they have asked for “some form of professional courtesy” if they were stopped.

See what else Jen is clicking on...


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