TIME TO
CRACK DOWN ON PRODUCE AS WEAPONS
LETHAL
FUSSILADE: DEADLY AVOCADOS AND BANANAS
TAGS: NYPD 44TH PRECINCT, DELI WORKERS
ATTACKED,
FRESH
PRODUCE READILY AVAILABLE AS WEAPONS
(This is a work of
satire. All names are fictitious as well
as all quotes.
Please read through and
hopefully get a laugh)
(Wednesday June 14, 2017
Longwood Ave, The Bronx) As the overwhelming majority of Precincts and Patrol
Sectors throughout our Five Boroughs continue to see the merits of the decades long
decreases in all major categories of crime, some Precincts such as the 44th
here in The Bronx have been stricken by a sudden uptick in a new trend on the streets that
the NYPD brass is concerned may spread to other areas. While the NYPD’s concerted efforts to reduce
the number of illegal firearms that flow into our City from the South and
Midwest,have proven effective, street criminals have adopted new tactics and weapons that may pose a
far more serious threat than guns.
On the night of May 29th
two assailants committed a brutally heinous assault on two workers behind the counter of the Stadium Gourmet Deli on 161st Street in the Concourse section of the 44th
Precinct. The entire savagely violent
episode was captured on closed circuit TV monitors in the deli. The assailants were reportedly unhappy with a
meal they had ordered and a verbal confrontation ensued. The disagreement quickly escalated to the
point that the assailants began to pitch
avocados and bananas at the deli workers.
Initially they pelted the two counter workers with individual avocados
and small bunches of bananas. As the
footage shows the assailants rapidly picked up the pace and began bombarding
the workers with handfuls of avocados and bunches of bananas. The ferocious onslaught left both workers
with severe blunt force injuries, cuts, and bruises as one of the countermen suffered
a broken jaw. It was not only the
ferociousness of the assault that had neighborhood residents shaken, it was the
choice of weapons and ease of access to them that has many in this working
class neighborhood on edge.
Chico “Pepe” Lopez, a lifelong
resident of the block witnessed some of the assault from his vantage point just
outside the deli. “I was like…umm...’oly
sheet…those two guys were throwing some heat…I mean like they was throwing
fastballs. I’m surprised the two dudes
that work there were not more fucked up and hurt”.
The first two Police Officers who arrived at the scene just seconds
after the assailants fled were taken aback by the crime scene. “Well first we helped the victims but it was
hard to determine their injuries since they were both covered by mashed
avocados and squashed bananas. These two
guys were basically in shock and the smell of all that exploded fruit was
overpowering”. An EMS ambulance
responded and one of the EMT’s commented “I’ll probably not ever again eat
guacamole for the rest of my life. I
think the smell of any avocado product will give me flashbacks. That’s too bad because I always loved a good
meal from Taco Bell”, he added as the victims were loaded into the
ambulance. Even some of the most
hard-boiled jaded Cops who responded to the scene expressed disbelief by the
aftermath of the horrific assault. “To
see all that fruit smashed all over the place, dripping off the ceiling and
walls was quite a shock. I sure hope
that assault by fruit doesn’t catch on.
If it does we will be in for a long smelly summer”, commented a Patrol Sergeant.
Local politicians, City
Council Members as well as Community activists, vegans, fresh food advocates,
and a small group of protestors from the “Avocado and Banana Lives Matter
(ABLM)” movement all reacted with horror. Cha’qwana
Bella Acosta of the nascent ABLM movement South Bronx Chapter was visibly upset
by the fruit carnage but urged other more militant members of the ABLM movement to
remain calm. “This is a potentially
dangerous event. Once we lived in fear of guns in this neighborhood now we
realize any angry person can just walk into a deli or bodega, grab a few potatoes,
pears, kiwis, or some form of melon and do some real damage to somebody”. Acosta added, “People shouldn’t change their
attitude towards avocados and bananas or any other fruit or vegetable because
of crimes like this. We all need a
healthy diet, some fresh produce that complements our dry cereals, sandwiches, snacks
and everything else we enjoy eating. Eating
an apple or orange after a good solid Happy Meal or some tasty Cuban-Chinese
take-out is important to our children and elderly who often do not eat good”.
Just as the gun control
activists have attempted to hold the manufacturers of bullets and handguns
legally accountable for the violence their products are often used with
criminal intent, the produce industry has come out strongly in defense of their
products. “While we are appalled and
saddened by the violence perpetrated on innocent people by criminals who employ
the use of our products, we feel the benefits of a banana rich diet is very
important health-wise”, said Thomas E. Phlantz, Executive Vice President of
Chiquita Banana North America, the largest importer of bananas that reach
grocery stores and other retail outlets across the country. “You know”, Phlantz continued, “When I was
growing up the biggest fear we had of bananas were in the peel. Nobody wanted to slip and fall on a banana
peel but luckily, the banana peel is no longer a common prop in the tricksters’
toolkit. Remember too, bananas are very
high in potassium, a vital ingredient in a good diet”.
A worldwide advocacy group formed
in 2016, the Washington, DC based World Avocado Organization to promote the use
of Mexican avocados in the United States has issued a strong response to those
who are criticizing the avocado. “First,
I want to say clearly that we are disturbed by the assault in The Bronx, NY,
and will continue to do everything in our power to defend the avocado”,
declared Manuel “Manny” Villalobos, the public affairs officer for the
Organization. Villalobos added, “The
only thing that stands between a bad man with an avocado and criminality is a good man with an
avocado”. He also commented that there
are many other produce items that can be used in criminal assault far more dangerous
than the avocado. “I don’t know about any of you out there who would find items
such as the coconut, pineapple, yam, turnip, sugar beet, watermelon, or rhubarb far more dangerous than the avocado. Frankly,
when compared to being pelted in the face by a hurled coconut, the avocado is far
less lethal. I’d much rather be attacked
by tomatoes because I would likely not suffer life threatening injuries such as
I would from a perpetrator armed with a large cucumber. That cucumber could be used as a club, a
blunt force weapon of opportunity. Think
about that for a few minutes”.
From the Law Enforcement
perspective, the use of produce as weapons represents a concerning new
trend. Captain Joseph Patrick Finnerty
of the 44th Precinct said in an interview, “For a long time we’ve
worked very hard to reduce gun violence and the illicit gun trade. What we are seeing now is troubling. We cannot deny the widespread availability of
avocados and bananas on our streets.
They are both weapons of opportunity and good food, easily accessible, and
virtually impossible to trace. A thief could
smash a cantaloupe over a victim’s head in the course of a hold up. All we’ll
have to work with are the squishy remains of the melon; no ballistics,
forensics or other investigatory tools can be used effectively. That poses a major concern to me”.
In an example of the laws of
unintended consequences, some Law Enforcement experts are laying some of the
blame for fruits and vegetables as street weaponry at the feet of the former First
Lady, Michelle Obama. During her 8 years
as First Lady she worked tirelessly on her main initiative promoting healthy
eating and lifestyles for our youth.
Generous federal grants allowed for much of The Bronx to “Go Green”. The grant money was used to create “Rooftop
Farming” utilizing the vast open acres of the rooftops of commercial and
residential structures as community farms.
The initiative called for the growing and harvest of fruits and vegetables
to be sold right in the communities where the crops were raised. “It was only after we started growing our own
rooftop gardens that we were able to ensure the availability of fresh produce
to the residents of some of our poorest neighborhoods. It was a solid investment of time and
literally all the delis and bodegas sold the fresh produce. For the first time in a long time people had
healthy choices when it came to what and how they eat”, extolled Magrite
Barbosa-Reyes of the South Bronx Urban Farming Board. She added, “It would be sad to see the Police
crackdown on fresh produce. Our children
would be forced to return to their less healthy dietary intakes of Twinkies, Ding
Dongs, Pork rinds, deep-fried everything, Skittles, chips and snacks of all
kinds. We will definitely see a rise in juvenile
obesity rates. It took a long time for
many of these children to begin eating healthy and they would likely slip back
into their old eating habits”.
But, at the core of this
problem is the surge of fruit and vegetable related crime. Professor Ronald McDonnell, an expert on
crimes against persons using unconventional weapons at John Jay College
commented, “Back in the NYPD “War Days” of the late 1960’s through the 1980’s
Police Officers were often attacked from rooftops by belligerents who rained
down everything from common kitchen trash to soiled disposable diapers. I recall one event where three Officers were
held at bay trapped behind a panel truck as kids threw eggs, Kosher pickles, rotten
tomatoes, and corn husks at them until ESU Officers arrived and secured the
rooftop from the assailants. Some of
those Cops sustained bad injuries while others never looked at some food items
the same again. It is my sincere hope
that NYPD gets out ahead of this disturbing trend forthwith. The use of fruits and vegetables as airborne
weaponry represents a very real and growing problem. I just hope no Officer is serious injured
from a flying kumquat or from the high speed projectile an unripened grapefruit can
become in the hands of a criminal with a good arm”.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2017 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2017 © All Rights Reserved
