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Show By Kurt Nul ing Since the beginning of the summer (about four or five months now), the people of Salt Lake have watched in mixed amazement and apathy the antics of the police department. Under the inspiring leaderhsip of Public Safety Commissioner James L. Barker, Jr., and Chief Calvin Whitehead, the department depart-ment began the summer with a well-publicized crackdown on the ladies of the night down on West Second South. This resulted in a few arrests and a lot of embarrassment em-barrassment to those with names published in the newspaper, those fooled by policewomen "decoys." The streetwalker crackdown was followed in August by a massive drive against the most heinous crime in the City jaywalking. In an interview with the "Tribune," a police officer admitted that How they arrived at this figure is a mystery: selling by the pound would mean $13,000 and by the kilo maybe a bit less. The only way 100 pounds of dope is worth $22,000 is if you buy in small amounts (three-quarter-once lids) from untrustworthy dealers, thus violating the first maxim of buying drugs: "know your seller." But $22,000 looks dramatic in front-page headlines and presumably builds public support for their efficient narcotics squads. Maybe by the time the case comes to trial the PR men will have inflatea the value to forty or fifty thousand Jollars. In fact, at this rate maybe the stunt men can decree all crime in the valley halted within a year or so. Even with all the real crime with victims and everything that will continue, it will make a good spot on the Channel Five Eyewitness News, anyway. jaywalking really wasn't a serious problem and jaywalkers usually were more careful than other pedestrians. But the law must be enforced, I guess, at whatever cost. This was followed by a push against hitchhikers, although this apparently was of even shorter duration than the others. Now we are being entertained by still another crackdown, this one o so-called "dirty movies." Repeating the famous crackdown on "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," the forces of law and order have vowed to rid the city of evil and nastiness. The vice squad plans to take cameras and record the obscene parts of certain movies played along Third South (which brings up the situation of sitting in a movie and then hearing the whir of police cameras during the erotic moments I think the audience could sue the City for a refund at least). In the meantime, the narks have been filling the newspapers and local TV news spots with rather silly extravaganzas known as "drug raids." For the past four years every narcotics bust has resulted in "the biggest drug haul in Salt Lake history." The cops even wanted to recruit high school students as undercover agents, but apparently legal technicalities (and possibly the specter of agents skimming off part of the dope hauls) ended that scheme quickly. One recent raid reportedly netted almost 100 pounds of marijunana drying in somebody's rafters. The narks said this was worth $22,000. |