Bedford Police Blotter

Let me tell you the riveting tale of some would-be juvenile bike thieves who had an ingenious plan snatch wheels from the utterly secure fortress that is...a city library. Wow, impressive.

One idyllic spring evening, precisely at 5:27 p.m., little Johnny and his sidekick thought they'd stumbled onto the perfect crime. Never mind the Wallstreet hustles or Vegas casino heists, no movie director in Hollywood could conceive a plot as thrilling as this stealing a bike from an unsuspecting bookworm on Columbus Road.

The dynamic duo skillfully executed their plan, striking as the sun began to fade. They slipped away silently, presumably pedalling off into the sunset on their ill-gotten gains.

But alas, these bicycle-bungling buffoons forgot one little thing. The ubiquitous surveillance cameras that grace every street corner. Their fleeting life of crime was swiftly brought to a halt by our caffeine-infused boys in blue.

Now, one might expect me to lambast our solid blue crime busters for devoting their resources to such a perilous threat to society. But I can't help but share a certain giddy satisfaction over the look of gut-wrenching defeat that must have crossed those tykes' faces when they saw the flashing lights.

Officers recovered the stolen wheels and delivered them back to their rightful owner, leaving our juvenile delinquents standing in the cold, presumably chewing over their enormously erroneous life decisions.

But before the scofflaw scamps retreated to lick their wounds and pray for sudden invisibility power, the force delivered the last blow. They let mommy and daddy know about their little cherubs' failed exploits. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at THAT dinner conversation.

Once upon a noontide dreary on ye olde Rockside Road, a brave conqueror of capitalism embarked on a quest. A quest of pilfering somewhere between $180 and $200 worth of merchandise from an innocent, cherubic business that had no freaking clue what kind of shit-show they were about to be featured in.

Now, hold on to your hipster man-buns; this isn't some Robin Hood rip-off. This is just a dime-store dickhead thinking he can outdo Black Friday without the proper participation of all the shopaholic soccer moms. Queue up dramatic thunder sound.

Captured in all his glory on state-of-the-art potato cam, this entrepreneurial enthusiast didn't bother to consider that his foray into five-finger discounting would be immortalized in the annals of HD surveillance footage. Guess who's popping up on the evening news and every social media feed from here to Timbuktu? Spoiler alert: It ain't the Easter Bunny.

Bet you didn't see that coming, did ya, Einstein? It's 2026, dearie, not 1826. Businesses have these nifty things called cameras. I understand, it's easy to get the centuries mixed up when your IQ hovers between carrot stick and moderately intelligent pebble.

Anyway, that's it. The looting lout vanished in a puff of cheap cologne and unsound decisions, leaving the business $180-ish worse off and the local law enforcement sniffing his cloud of AXE.

As for the fate of our fearless felon? Only time will tell if he'll be bringing his trade to a county jail in the near future. Stay tuned for updates.

This fantastic foray into fuckery is brought to you by the tireless 'Eye In the Sky Janitorial Services' - We're always ready to mop up the bullshit.

I'm going to tell you a warm, fuzzy little tale from Washington Street that'll wrap your heart in a snuggly blanket of unadulterated absurdity. Just another lovely day in our nonsensical reality.

So, 8:02 in the morning and the city's finest get a terrified call about 'screaming' coming from, of all the menacing hellholes, a frickin' school. Yeah, not a chop-shop, not cheap motel rooms where teeth are kept as souvenirs, but a frickin' school.

The brave knights of the realm, sworn protectors of our peace, buckle up, dial their adrenaline down to 'bored shitless' and roll towards the supposed chaotic pandemonium, which on any normal planet, would be little Jimmy and Susie enjoying a game of tag.

Only in this tin-foil hat world of ours, laughter and playground howls could quite possibly be a sign of a child army amassing or maybe a rogue teacher gone berserk with a packet of Pop Rocks and a can of Coke.

Lo and behold! Wave your surprise flags! The officers find...children playing on the playground. Oh, the horror! Tiny tots frolicking in the sunlight as they master the art of 'tag, you're it!' or 'kick the can' or whatever these kids do these days. A sight sure to curdle the blood of any Washington Street denizen.

And just in case you're wondering how our boys in blue figured it out, I reckon some crack detective work and skills of deductive reasoning Sherlock Holmes would kill for. A real whodunit mystery 'Who was screaming?' was it the kid on the slide or the one in the sandbox?

Well, they check it all out and here's the payoff it all checks out OK. Hell, I bet they even helped push a swing or two in the spirit of community service and public safety.

So there you have it, ladies and gents. Just another day in the laugh-a-minute thrill ride that is Policing 101: Hashing out and figuring out the intricacies of over-zealous citizens losing their shit over kids being kids.

In the heated asphalt jungle of Columbus Road. and Adams Street, where the concrete is cold and the egos are colder, a pre-pubescent kerfuffle kicked off at exactly, oh, I dunno, quarter past five. It was a universal call to arms or rather, tiny limp arms as our brave and undeniably underpaid keepers of the peace got a call about a juvenile-style showdown set to rock the local parking lot.

Now, hold onto your hats for this one, folks turns out this cataclysmic clash wasn't about drugs, turf or a bitchin' trading card collection. No, this was the result of a "personal disagreement." Good gracious, I do believe one of these pre-teen titans must've disagreed over who's got the bigger collection of pimples, or who's voice is beginning to squeak in all the wrong places.

Anyhow, our brave uniformed nannies arrive on the scene to find not one, but two packs of pouty punks posturing in the parking lot. But fear not, this story ends without a single patriotic tear shed. Our officers performed a veritable miracle of diplomacy, prying apart the feuding factions and serving up some stern advice "Play nice now, kiddos!"

And lest you worry about any lingering resentment among these young hooligans, rest assured the parents have been advised to call the boys in blue should any more hormonal hijinks occur. Yeah, that'll solve it.

Stay classy, Columbus Road. and Adams Street, you're a regular Wild West for the under five foot set.

Hallelujah ladies and gents, we got action. And by action, I mean the sort of crap that passes for excitement on Mapleton Ave.

Yeah, that's right. It was 4.21 p.m., prime time for criminal activity, when disaster struck. The chaos scenario? Two Ziploc-bags-full-of-jelly-and-angst kids milling about a vacant home. Lord above, what a catastrophe! Get the SWAT team, call in the National Guard, where's Batman when you need him?

Our concerned neighborhood watchdog, can I call you NeighBo WatchBo for short? got their knickers in a twist with Stop-the-presses idea to pick up that ol' dial pad and lure in the local po-po with a bone-chilling tale of juvenile loitering.

Lo and behold, our boys in blue to the rescue. Armed with something stronger than coffee, and a degree of skepticism stronger than my disgust for decaf, they arrive on the scene. I tell ya, there's more drama here than a Kardashian's family dinner.

Behold, the grand finale. Those juvenile delinquents were doing - wait for it - fetching their ball from the yard. My God, the audacity of youth these days. Ball retrieval? In broad daylight? The nerve!

No issues were found. Nah, not even a single trace of that highly sought after ‘strategically placed weed’ our insightful NeighBo WatchBo had almost guaranteed in his 911 rendition of 'Two boys enter, no weed leaves.'

Moral of our heartfelt Mapleton story, folks? Next time your kid's SuperBounce makes a daring escape to a neighbor's yard, remember there’s probably a neighborhood lunatic watching, ready to call the freakin' cops.

So, close your windows, lock your doors. The ball-fetching menace of Mapleton Ave is still out there people!

You've been entertained, and quite frankly, bored to tears in equal measure by yours truly, Spill By Bill. Sourced from the dreams of the chronically unoccupied, with special thanks to the Mapleton Ball Whisperers.