STICK 'EM DOWN.....

Vincent ‘the Chin” Gigante and John Gotti must be spinning in their graves at the state of criminals today. Gone are the days when gangsters had honor and lived by a set of strict rules. Nobody wears fedoras anymore except Jack Abramoff.

The Mafia that we loved and feared is as gone as baseball players who didn’t use steroids. They’ve done away with blood oaths for fear of contracting AIDS. To be considered a ‘made man’ all you have to do is receive a parking ticket or be convicted of a drive-by slapping. People used to laugh at Jimmy Breslin’s fictitious “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” nincompoops believing that mobsters could never be that dumb. Well, think again because the hoodlums today are “Dumb & Dumber.”

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a beautiful, artistic high desert community which doesn’t lack for much except brainy and sneaky clever crooks. Perhaps because the city is a high rent district they spawned low rent thieves. A gang of lawbreaking ninny’s decided to make a big score. They broke into the Santa Fe High School through a roof hatch intending to steal everything not tied down. They first tried to get in through a heating vent but failed, leaving $2,000 in damage. The first question that comes to mind is why would anyone break into a High School? Where they after erasers, chalk and biology text books?

What they decided to steal was 20 rifles from the school’s ROTC program. Police first speculated that they were sent by anti-gun nutcases trying to make a statement. The ROTC uses the rifles in drills and ceremonies, but “they’re almost like props” said the Commandant of the ROTC. The theft was discovered when he arrived on campus to prepare for an ROTC competition later that day. It seems the rifles were made out of wood and are no good to anyone but the ROTC unit.

The geniuses weren’t smart enough to realize that wooden rifles wouldn’t bring much on the black market except at The New Mexico Home for the Silly. No self respecting Pawn shop would give the gang anything but a few wooden nickels for the effort. The City’s fathers are so embarrassed by the theft that they have taken ads in newspapers all over the country inviting a better class of criminals to live in their city. Have they thought about evacuees from New Orleans?