John R. Morales—an actor who played McGruff The Crime Dog, the mascot who encouraged in children an acute suspicion of criminals, but a trusting embrace of human-dog hybrids in trenchcoats—has been sentenced to 16 years in prison, where bites are taken slowly, incipiently out of crime, as well as out of a man’s soul.


According to a CBS report, Morales was pulled over for speeding in 2011, when police using drug-sniffing, non-trenchcoat-wearing dogs discovered multiple pot seeds, along with diagrams of two indoor pot-growing operations. (McGruff always did like diagrams.) After raiding Morales’ home, they then discovered 1,000 pot plants, as well as 9,000 rounds of ammunition and 27 weapons—including a grenade launcher.

In Morales’ defense, while McGruff often warned kids of the dangers of drug usage and their parents’ handguns, he never said anything about grenade launchers.


During his hearing, Morales insisted he was nonviolent, presumably saying he was just holding that grenade launcher for a friend. But like so many members of McGruff’s Safety Club know, guns and drugs are no joke, and the police knew right away they should tell a parent or teacher or U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore, who told Morales, “Everything I read about you makes you seem like a scary person.” It’s believed everything Gilmore read about Morales let her know that he was a stranger, and strangers are danger.

[via The Huffington Post]