I’m not sure if it’s a secret or not, but my Todd Storm columns are based on my own college town police officers in Columbia, MO. A department SO obsessed with busting underage drinkers that it is their primary directive to do so. A department so inept that their SWAT team once shot and killed a fully restrained, dog while raiding a house they suspected was full of marijuana, though all they found was a bowl, a grinder, and a horrified child. Here’s a video of it!

A department so hypocritical that I once witnessed them allow an underage Blaine Gabbert, Gabbert’s younger brother, and an underage Mizzou linebacker to keep drinking at the bar Field House while ticketing every underage girl around the trio. That trio, by the way, later got into a drunken fight that same night.

In short, Columbia police kind of fucking suck. Now there’s a video reaffirming as much. Well, another video. I wonder if they’ll ever try to get that SWAT video removed. I assume that effort would involve CoMO PD raiding YouTube’s offices and killing every dog in the building until the staff agreed to remove the video, not realizing that they were raiding the Vimeo offices by mistake. That might have actually happened. Regardless, this newest video is of a Columbia police officer failing to capture a burglary and sexual-ish assault suspect escaping on bicycle, despite the officer being in his patrol car.

According to KOMU, the suspect being pursued may be responsible for a number of local burglaries and creepy assaults.

Police are still looking for the suspect and believe he may be responsible for several crimes in the last few months. The department said the male riding a bicycle in the video matched a victim description that was provided to police in an investigation of a Nov. 3 burglary and assault on Anthony Street. Police said around 2:45 a.m. on Nov. 3., officers were called to the 1400 block of Anthony Street. A victim told police she was asleep in her bedroom and awoke to a male crawling on top of her. The victim told police she screamed, which caused the suspect to leave. The department said officers then located a possible suspect using the victim description and attempted to stop the bicyclist. The bicyclist avoided police, crashed and led officers on a short foot pursuit. Officers were not able to catch the suspect. The department said it has seven reports of similar incidents. Police did not say the same suspect is responsible, but said the incidents are similar in nature. Police said the victim in the Nov. 3 incident on Anthony Street was also a victim in an Oct. 20 incident. All of the incidents have occurred in the East Campus neighborhood or in housing complexes in downtown Columbia.

From what I’ve heard, East Campus has gotten pretty sketchy lately, in large part thanks to the groping cyclist whom Columbia police just failed to capture. If you see this man, then chances are you’re a girl and he’s breathing heavily in your face as you wake up in the most terrifying way possible. Sleep with mace under your pillow, ladies. If only this guy had been 19 and holding a bottle of Burnett’s. You can bet CoMO PD would’ve taken the bastard down then.

[via KOMU]

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