Bolts of Thunder: 1 Provo Police Department: 0

These are both a couple years old, but I think they're awesome pictures. Not that the tricks I'm doing are all that hard, but Weston made them look pretty good on his camera. Yes, Weston took these pictures.

 First and foremost, I must officially recognize and welcome Bolts of Thunder's two newest blog followers: Matt Davis and Mike Barlow! Welcome to the team, glad to have you... Remind me to give you a shirt. Not you Mike, you already have one. Don't try and get two when others don't even have one...

So this weekend we had a funny run-in with the cops that once again solidified the incompetence of the Provo police department. It also proved that Tyler is not a little pot-head, which is a good thing. A good thing to not be a pot-head. So we (me and matt) were dropping off Tyler at his place on Friday night after a productive skate session. We pulled off the side of the road next to this fence that Tyler could hop over to get to his house, right on the other side of this chain fence. After we got Tyler out, said our good byes, and were about to pull out, two cop cars came racing up with their spotlight shining at us and their lights flashing. I was trying to think of anything illegal I had done within the past 5 minutes, and nothing was coming to mind. So I didn't panic. The only thing I could think of was maybe Matt had a break light out on his car which required four cops in two vehicles with spotlights and flashing lights to take care of. So this cop (let me describe him for you: mid 30s, had once been fit but too many happy meals were transforming his body into something a little rounder, a buzzed haircut, and little teeth, like Matt's old golfing instructor. But not that little, that guy still had his baby teeth, there were 3 millimeters long, flat on the bottom, and separated by about a centimeter of gum between each tooth. This guy's teeth were as little, but smaller than the other cops', that's for sure) came up to our window, shined his flashlight straight into Matt's confused eyes, and asked, "So uh.... you guys been smokin?" Matt laughed and said, "no". The cop, not satisfied with the first answer, asked again, and shined his flashlight into Matt's eyes again. Matt laughed a little harder than the first time and replied with a very confident, "no." "Alright, you wanna play hard ball?..." the cop must have thought. So he flashed his lights in my eyes and asked me the same question twice, to which I gave the same answer: No.

While they were questioning us in the car, they grabbed Tyler, made him sit down, then started asking him when he had smoked. These cops were apparently obsessed with smoking, doesn't matter what you smoke, when you smoke, how you smoke, which body cavity you smoke out of, they just want smoke. Fill their lungs full of smoke, they want it! They didn't believe Tyler and made him take off his shoes, sweaty socks, unroll his pant legs (they were rolled up, Huck Finn style), open his mouth (word on the street is kids like to eat weed instead of smoke it. Doesn't give you as good a high, but it's rich in fiber and counters the effects of all the hot pockets they eat while playing video games. Keeps em regular...), and they patted him down. Nothing. Not willing to accept the fact that we weren't druggies/drug dealers/associated with drugs in any way, one of the cops said, "No, it's around here somewhere, I saw him throw it!" Then he started looking for a leprechaun and his pot of gold somewhere under a fence. He opened up Tyler's water bottle to make sure it wasn't Witch's Brew, and even got on his knees to look in the deep crevices of the pavement. Nothing...

While that was going on, the first cop, buzzed head cop, came back and sarcastically asked us, "So what we got here... Just two good Mormon boys?" Yes... Yes officer, that is actually what we do have here... So Matt answered "Yup, just two good Mormon boys." The officer wasn't expecting us to play such hardball, so he didn't have a clever, mandatory cop come back in response. He just stared at us, not knowing what to say, so Matt thought he'd help him out a little... "yeah, my brother's getting married in the temple in two weeks." Seeing some obvious discrepancies in our story (you see, we were hardened drug dealers, getting our little friend Tyler hooked on sugar Shmacks and gold crank. But that's against the Mormon code, so he had entangled us with his clever questioning in our web of lies and deceit), the cop jumped on his opportunity to expose us to the light and responded with, "The temple... No shit?!" Me and matt just looked at each other as a cop had been reduced to fifth grade playground rules and come backs. Did we need to respond to such a stupid comment? Should I respond?... I dug deep into my memory bank and pulled out the hardest, most full proof come back I would have used as a ten year old to rebuttal his comment. "Hell yes." Was my reply, to which he had nothing to say. I bested him! He sat there with nothing to say for a minute as Matt laughed at the stupidity of the entire situation, then the cop tried one more time to prove that we weren't who we were claiming to be. An ex-patriot jack-mormon would have no recollection of his earlier days in primary and sunday school, and would therefore have little or no geographical knowledge of temple location. So the cop asked in a sly voice, "So uh... What temple are you getting married in, then?..." He so thought he had me. But I quickly crushed his feeble attempt to ensnare us with the easiest answer anyone who wasn't even getting married would give: "Salt Lake". "Oh..." "Yeah, on August 13. I'm really excited. Here's my ring (I had it in the car in a bag)..." He walked off before I could show him my ring. He stopped asking questions after that.

After we all survived the first wave of interrogations, a different cop thought he'd try and break us. It was the classic case of stupid cop/bad cop. I honestly can't make a clear distinction between who was stupid and who was bad because both cops that talked to us equally represented both groups. Extremely well too. But the second cop thought he'd give it a go. So he had Matt get out of the car, pulled him aside, then told him, "Like, I'm going to be straight with you. We KNOW one of the other two was smoking." He said it with such confidence that for a second, Matt thought one of us had admitted to it or something. But Matt held his ground in telling him that we didn't smoke. Then the cop asked him what he was doing with a 17 year old, and Matt said, "Skateboarding." I think the cop asked Matt where Tyler got his drugs, and even implied that we had sold them to him, but Matt told the cop again that we didn't have any drugs, neither did Tyler. Frustrated, the cop told Matt to come sit down. Then the first cop came back, started shining his lights in our eyes again, asking us the same questions as before. They added a new twist to it with, "Do you have anything illegal in your car? Are you sure you don't have anything illegal in your car?" And Matt told them, "look, do you want to search my car? Search my car or whatever you have to, but get it done quick, I want to go home." The cops answered with an overly enthusiastic, "Yeah, we wanna search your car!" trying to call us out on our bluff. I told the cops that my backpack had expensive equipment in it and to be really careful while going through it. "Oh, we'll be REALLY careful!" one of the cops told me. Idiots... Seriously, real idiots. So the cop said he didn't know which backpack I was talking about and I had to show him. I told him it was the only backpack in the trunk, and it was the huge one bulging out when you open the trunk. He told me he still didn't know which one I meant, so I should show him. I think it was his plan to get me alone so he could interrogate me separately. I went to the trunk and there was my camera bag bulging  out of the trunk, and the only backpack in the trunk for that matter.

So I opened up the backpack and started showing him each little gadget we had. I was really thorough in doing so, I showed him every little lens cleaner we had. So finally the cop said, "Shut it!" So I put everything back in the bag, then he told me to stand up and look at him. So he drilled me in the eyes in one last desperate attempt to crack me and said, "Look, I'm gonna be straight with you. The reason we stopped you, the reason we're searching you now is because it smells like marijuana really bad in your car. Especially in your trunk." No it didn't. "Oh yeah..." was all I could get out. "Yeah, real bad." This was retarded, so I told him, "We were skating and sweating really bad. Maybe that's what you're smelling." He didn't appreciate my response and told me to get back in the car. By this time, Tyler's dad had walked out and was chatting with the cops, 3 cops had thoroughly searched the parking lot for all the illegal semi-automatic weapons and cases of heroin that we ditched when the cops pulled up, but they found nothing, and there was no trace of anything illegal in the car. Disappointed, and still absolutely convinced that we had loads of illicit and illegal whatever hidden in the inner recesses of our car and bodies, the cops reluctantly released us...

Listen up Provo cops! You made one really big mistake that night! You forgot to search one of the most obvious places, my face! Yeah, remember that pube-stained beard I was sporting that night? Turns out that's no beard at all. That's Mary J J duct taped to my face! Can't believe you didn't even notice it. Looks like we practically got away with murder that night... Nice try cops, but you ain't never bringing down Bolts of Thunder!