THE SELF-INDUCED COMA

  There's no doubt that booze, liquid stupid, is responsible for many of the jaw-dropping situations a cop encounters. It's as reliable as canned laughter on an unfunny sitcom.  Mike Grimm remembers one such occasion:

 While on patrol late one night, Jack Bliss turned off U.S.41 and headed East on 17th Ave No. to check out a pair of slow moving, weaving tail lights. He pulled the car over and found inside two of Naples' most reliable drunks--who we'll call Boscoe Putter and YeeHaw Bunion. Boscoe was at the wheel.

 Jack bagged them up along with a quart whiskey bottle that was less than half full. As was protocol at the time, Jack marked the level of the whiskey in the bottle before putting it in the evidence room, which in those days was a closet that didn't even have a working lock on the door. (Some cops carried evidence around in the trunk of their car until it was court time)

 On court day, Boscoe appeared and brought YeeHaw along as a witness for the defense. The only problem was, YeeHaw was nearly as drunk as he was the night of the arrest.

 While being questioned by the City Prosecutor, Yeehaw had to keep jerking himself awake as he mumbled and gave incoherent answers to most of the questions. Finally, in exasperation, the attorney tried to pin YeeHaw down to answering one simple question concerning Briscoe's condition the night of the arrest.

 "Tell me" begged the prosecutor, "what was Mr. Putter's condition that night when the officer pulled you over? Was he sober? Was he a little tipsy? Was he in a coma?"

At that, YeeHaw's head jerked up and he was suddenly very lucid.

"Hell no", he shouted, "he wasn't in no coma!  We was in a Ford Falcon station wagon!"

Everyone seated behind the bar, including the prosecutor and the judge, suddenly spun their chairs around to hide their laughter from those in the courtroom audience.

Fortunately for YeeHaw, Judge Tom Brown-- a kindly man--did not charge him with contempt of court for showing up drunk to testify. Good laughs are sometimes hard to find in a courtroom.