What an amazing news development to read this morning: "A Metro bus driver accused of punching an off-duty police officer who was dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog has been fired, the transit agency said today." Well, that would make sense. The real surprise here is that it took ten (10) days since this earth-shattering incident to learn that Shawn Brim, 39, is no longer a Metro employee.
Consider what happened here: a Metro bus driver, on duty, stopped his bus at Spring Road and 14th Street NW, saw a cartoon mascot talking to "young people," got out of his bus, BEAT UP the cartoon mascot -- a secret policemen! -- got back on his bus, and continued to work until he was stopped a few blocks later.
He told his supervisor that "he did it to be funny." That was his professional excuse.
A full six days later, Metro officials -- who are not exactly swimming in so much surplus budget cash these days that they can easily pay the salaries of violent vehicle operators who arbitrarily interrupt their work to attack crime-fighting dog mascots, for pleasure -- realized that maybe they should fire him. Four days later, we hear about it.
And yet, Washington residents should still thank Shawn Brim for doing this, especially since he didn't permanently maim McGruff or anything. He "did it to be funny," and, well, what beautiful execution! Funniest insane D.C. story of 2009, so far. And how was he supposed to know this guy was a cop, right? Now we know that D.C. tax dollars are paying for public safety officers to dress like dogs and loiter on street corners. But let's save that for another article.
Jim Newell is terrified of McGruff and this fear manifests itself in articles for Wonkette and IvyGate.
