Wednesday, July 20, 2005

homeless man's five minutes

Will someone please explain to me how a naked man in Center City Philadelphia in broad daylight a) get naked in the first place, b) steal a police lieutenant's car, c) get shot, and d) still cause a major eff-up at the height of rush hour?

This falls under WTF!

O.K., the man was reportedly homeless and it was a thousand degrees yesterday in the city. At that heat index, he did what a lot of people wished they could have done - he stripped down to his birthday suit. Now he's naked and probably causing a few heads to turn.

In comes the cop. I don't know what truly went down cause I wasn't there. It is said that the naked homeless man tried to steal the officer's gun. So the officer naturally shot the unarmed naked man twice (I will assume it was a warning shot since the naked man reportedly had no weapon). naked man is still moving. Officer shoots naked man twice again! Still moving, said naked man tries to and successfully steals the officer's vehicle. The naked man then crashes into a blue Cavalier and finally ends up crashing into a Jersey Transit bus.

This whole to-do caused a major traffic headache in the city during evening rush hour. Commuters were most unhappy (I know - I heard the comments on the radio).

Naked man has since died.

Am I saying anything negative towards the police officer? Well, I do question shooting someone who is naked and presumably unarmed, but I was not there. And I wonder how a naked and injured man can comandeer a police car? Again, I wasn't there. I leave it at the officer was on duty doing his job.

Was the naked man suicidal and want to die in a blaze of news-capturing glory? Did he simply want to get cooler and didn't mean for all the hullabaloo? We'll never know.

Do we even care? By next month, this post will archive and the episode will be stored in the backs of our minds with other news incidents from yesteryear.

Reports will be filed. Insurance claims will be processed. Life in the ciy will go back to normal.

So ends the five minutes of fame of the naked homeless man.

Ref.: Naked Man Sparks Crash, Shooting

1 comment:

Maidy said...

LOL!!! I needed that chuckle! Thank you ... :)