There’s an old saying amongst copy editors as to whether something in a piece they are editing passes the ‘smell test’. It usually applies to something that sounds exaggerated or morally wrong. Basically, does it look wrong, or fake.
So when our Coconut Cop tried to emphasise what a heroic and lionhearted president he would make, he regaled his audience with a tale of when he faced down three dangerous criminals in an encounter which saw 3000 shots fired. Three Thousand? That doesn’t pass the smell test.
After some light searching I discovered that what is known as the North Hollywood Shootout is broadly agreed to be the biggest shootout in American history. Two heavily armed bank robbers wearing body armour faced off 64 armed LAPD police officers resulting in the robbers' deaths plus injuries to 12 officers and eight civilians.
It was such a big event they even made a movie about it, although I guess that is no real surprise as it did happen in Hollywood. (44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out. This is the best quality version I could find on YouTube and it’s really not bad.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PUAd8MvqEY
The point is, it is estimated that 2000 shots were fired during the incident which is why our wannabe president’s claim of 3000 at his incident doesn’t pass the smell test, it being 50 percent higher.
I guess you could conclude he was leading a group of dangerously trigger-happy officers whose aim was so appallingly bad that it required emptying all that ammo at their three offenders. Who, nevertheless must have ended up with more holes than Swiss Cheese simply by the law of averages.
I searched for this incident, without success. Maybe it’s worth making a quick movie to bolster his fearless image ahead of January’s vote.
Tinkerty Tonk...
No comments:
Post a Comment