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Eyewitness Misidentification
According to the Innocence Project, “Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.” I completely believe this, because I’ve lived it. I make a lousy witness. When I was 17 years old I worked for a small travel agency. My desk…
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Karma’s a B****
Back in the 80’s I must have been the only Floridian who didn’t realize that Waldo, Florida was a speed trap. I got a ticket. This little town is in the middle of nowhere, and after going through miles and miles of, well, nowhere, you suddenly enter their town and the speed limit quickly drops…
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Bigger Fish to Fry
Today I reported a con artist to the police. It was your typical Craig’s List con, a guy offering a house to rent at a price that was too good to be true. But I figured what the heck? Never hurts to ask. So I contacted him. He tells me the address, and gives me…
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Could we give Black Men a Break, Please?
One of my coworkers had to drive to work the other day with a shattered passenger side window, courtesy of his son and a baseball. Kids will be kids. He had only been at work on the bridge for a few hours when he got a phone call from the police, asking him to come…
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Meeting Linda Mae
A few years ago, on a very cold winter night, I got home from work shortly after midnight and as I pulled into the driveway I saw a little old woman standing on the sidewalk in front of my house. She was barefoot, in her nightgown, standing with her feet wide apart, her arms at…
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The Definition of Integrity
The dictionary defines it thus: in·teg·ri·ty [in-teg-ri-tee] noun 1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. It is the quality I admire most in a human being, and when I see a lack of this quality I’m always shocked and horrified. It takes courage to stand up for what you know…
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Dumber than a Box of Rocks
This happened on the bridge on my day off. Thank God. Two bridgetenders were standing on the catwalk outside our tenderhouse when they looked down to the street level and saw a man vault himself over the railing and plunge 40 feet into the rapidly flowing, extremely deep river below. A woman who witnessed this…
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Just Another Day in My Life
So I went over to my friend’s condo to check his mail while he’s out of town. It was early in the morning, and I pulled up at the bank of mailboxes and stepped out of the car. Then I heard this scream. Not an excited scream like two teenage girls who are playing around.…
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Chaos: The New Normal?
A coworker of mine was describing a situation in which he and his brother were watching TV and they got into an argument which then escalated into a fist fight, and the police had to be called. Just a regular Tuesday night at Chez Coworker, apparently. I remember thinking, “Huh. My whole life, the police…