Public Safety

Welcome back to the GrossePointeToday.com public-safety roundup. We've been gone a while, and we hope we can lure at least some of our loyal readers back. As some of you know, your public-safety correspondent -- that would be me -- got a new job in January, which combined with the other jobs I was doing, meant something had to give. This was one of them. Things are easier now, and I hope to have more time to devote to making the cop-shop rounds and seeing what's up.

But first, a few words about what I missed. About a month into the hiatus, I got an email from a reader saying, "Wouldn't you know it? You take time off and something actually happens." She was referring to the Jane Bashara homicide, of course, which landed like a bomb just in time for February sweeps.

The whole place went a little crazy, didn't it? The leaking police departments, the inane TV-dolt standups outside the Park municipal building, the constant gossip -- it didn't let up for a month. But what really bugged me is how quickly the whole story became a joke.

You couldn't help but laugh at the macabre sideshow of Nancy Grace, Master Bob, the Hinky Meter, the whole nine. I was watching attorney David Griem's press conference on a web stream. He stepped to the microphone and made a joke about there being no truth to the rumor that his nickname among "the S&M ladies" was "Shorty." (I half expected to be reminded to tip my waitress.)

In the midst of it all, it was easy to forget that at the center of the story was a hole, a hole shaped like Jane Bashara. "She was the class of that outfit," someone told me, and I believe it. Once she was gone, it was all a joke. It's not a joke. Let's hope this case gets wrapped soon.

That was at the beginning of our break. At the end? A naked guy running down Mack Avenue in the Woods, freaking on meth.

Now that's a joke.

As for this week? Not so much. The usual drunks, the usual thieves, the usual life of crime here in Grosse Pointe. But starting this week, we're back covering it again.

-- Nancy Nall Derringer read more...