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Photo of McGruff on a street corner in D.C. last June by Andrew Wiseman
The Examiner's Scott McCabe provides the details in today's strangest crime story. D.C. police officer Tyrone Hardy was dressed up as the iconic McGruff the Crime Dog on Saturday afternoon, interacting with a group of children at the corner of 14th Street and Spring Road NW, when a Metrobus driver allegedly stopped his bus, got out of the vehicle, walked over to McGruff and punched the mascot in the face. No kidding.
McGruff staggered, children screamed and the crime dog’s attacker jumped back into the bus and drove off, police said. A call of an assault on a police officer went out over the police radio while passengers on the bus yelled at Brim.
The bus driver, 38-year-old Shawn Brim, later said that he was trying "to be funny." Funny or not, Brim has been charged with simple assault, and Metro, who has employed him since 2003, has placed him under administrative review.
Of note: McCabe also reports that Brim has a history of arrests, though no convictions, including one for prostitution in 2006, possession of PCP in 1994 and possession of a gun in 1990.
How much do you want to bet WMATA will decide to "take a bite out of crime" themselves and give Brim the boot?
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Ahh! PCP flashbacks! Stops the bus. Gets off the bus. Punches man in dog costume in the face. Children scream. He gets back on the bus. He takes off. A chase and he gets caught. Einstein, he aint. Chandra Levy and Pearson. Snow on the ground. Cheap baseball tickets. What a day. What a day! More....more I tells ya!
Prostitution, drugs, guns, and a comedy show all on one bus? We need a higher cover charge on that bus route!
i'll bet he doesn't get removed. probably not a provision of the union's contract...
Last year's WMATA union pay hike negotiations involved the union exchanging their dental plan for unlimited random-stop-and-junkpunches.
That, and the bitch set him up.
As they darn well should, he should not even have been hired with those types of arrests on his record, conviction or not! Give that weirdo the boot!
On the other hand, of all metrobus drivers, he's at least the most lively around I'm sure. Most of them don't even speak when you ask a question, all you get a is a mumble or grunt. All the good bus drivers are out in the burbs, never on DC routes.
Wow, just straight up not true. I see the same drivers most days on the buses I take and the large majority of them are cordial, hard-working and have to deal with shit most of us can't even imagine (like the poor woman driving the 42 a few months back who had to deal with two drunk guys SCREAMING racist threats at a female passenger). Please don't pull out the "burbs are so much safer/better/etc than DC" stereotype because one single driver acted like a crackhead idiot.
Agreed. I've only ever had one bad encounter with a driver and I take the bus EVERY DAMN DAY. Most of the time I can't believe the crap the drivers have to put up with. I feel safer walking the streets of Columbia Heights or Mt. Pleasant than I did walking the College Park campus at night. So stick it suburbs.
It should also be added that despite the officer wearing the padded outfit he "was left with a swollen right cheek but refused to be taken to the hospital by D.C. paramedics. Hardy called in sick Monday."
This wasn't a open handed slap, the driver straight up nailed the guy. It was a sucker punch too since the officer can't see too well in the costume and didn't see it coming.
Naturally, he was expecting the bus driver 15 minutes earlier.
HEYYYYOOOOOOOOO!
Yeah, he's lucky two drivers didn't clock him at once.
is it bad to laugh?
this is the most hysterical thing i've read all day today.
I laughed too, AND sent it to my friend...
They'll probably promote the bus driver and start paying him overtime.
as a former mcgruff (up to 2 months ago), i feel for ofc. hardy. that costume is big and cumbersome and you can't see a thing in it. what kind of chump throws a sucker punch at the crime dawg? he will not be treatly kindly in jail, thats for sure.
Sigmund Freud would have said: Sometimes a man in a dog costume is just a man in a dog costume.
....but dem PCP Vietnam flashbacks are a doozy. Yah buay!
nice photo.
too bad he's not McGruff the pull-up-yer-damn-pants dog.
You couldn't make this better if you made it up. What a great news day!
Bad Dog!
http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/images/2007/07/27/mcgruff_the_crime_dog_vick_song.png
l...m...a...o....
This is hilarious. This is some crap I'd pull on GTA or something. And this guy actually did it. For no reason. Sorry for the cop who got jacked, but still, hilarious to read from my cozy desk.
hookers, drugs, and punching mascots, no wonder the 14th street buses are always running late
Logan, the hookers are in your neighborhood, not up by Spring Road.
Nah, there's a brothel at Perry and 14th, a block south of this punching incident. I can't prove that, because I don't go in. But I'm pretty sure.
Did he finish his route. FREDTERP
Oh, lord, I hope that isn't one of my daily bus drivers...and did all the passengers stay on the bus? Believe me, if I had been on that bus you would have seen my smoke trail out the back door.
Next thing you'll be telling us is some idiot in Nebraska put a kitten in a bong!
Maybe he was just reenacting the final scene of Ace Ventura where he beats up the Eagles' mascot.
Everyone hates furries. Stop the fursecution!*
*Statement for comic effect only. I am not a furry. Nor do I play one on TV. Maybe.
Why, oh Lord above, is there no video for this?
Ask a member of the King's Dominion security team and they will confirm that for some reason people love to attack mascots.
A talking dog telling people to take a bite out of crime might send me into cartoon horrors too. Let alone all the Disney characters being accused of groping tourists and the drunken idiots punching the Hanna-Barbera mascots at
King Dominion. Mascots is people!
File this under "comedy equals tragedy plus distance".
Did the dog owe him money?
That bitch McGruff had it comin.' He's a snitch.