“I Killed Tony Danza”*: Super Safe Shooting Spree Edition
This week’s edition of the “I Killed Tony Danza” Inane (Near) Death of the Week comes to us from Shreveport, Louisiana, the jewel of Northwest Louisiana and home to Barksdale Air Force Base, several fine riverboat casinos on the scenic Red River and the American Rose Center—“North America's largest park dedicated to the rose…y’know, except for the Rose Bowl, I guess.”
Shreveport is also home to a series of free weekend concerts in the downtown area, The Super Safe Sunday shows, which are designed to “get youths off the streets and curb black on black violence in Shreveport.” Unfortunately, the Shreveport Times reports that the June 26th event erupted in gunfire, despite pleas for peace from local radio personality and event sponsor “Jabber Jaws” who, by all accounts, was not in fact an animated anthropomorphized drumming shark
Though the irony of bullets volleying in the wake of a concert to promote nonviolence and brotherhood would be enough to land this story a spot in the running for this week’s IKTD, what put it over the top is the not-so serruptitiously placement of one specific word in the article’s headline. That word: “Another”. Another ‘Super Safe Sunday’ ends in violence. Of course, it’s not until the end of the piece that we find out to what “another” refers: “On June 12, the first Super Safe Sunday of the summer,” we later learn, “a 14-year-old was intentionally hit by a car after the concert. Police recorded five arrests.” Intentionally hit by a car! Are you kidding me? And yet the city of Shreveport continued to co-sponsor the event that apparently brought up to 5000 knife-wielding, cross-firing hit-and-runners together in the city’s downtown.
For that kind of dedication to the youth of your city, City of Shreveport, you are the winner of this week’s “I Killed Tony Danza” Absurd (Near) Deaths of the Week! You may pick up your prize on the 3500 block of Hardy Street from a giant fish with the voice of Curly from the 3 Stooges.
*No washed up TV actors were harmed in the production of this column
Shreveport is also home to a series of free weekend concerts in the downtown area, The Super Safe Sunday shows, which are designed to “get youths off the streets and curb black on black violence in Shreveport.” Unfortunately, the Shreveport Times reports that the June 26th event erupted in gunfire, despite pleas for peace from local radio personality and event sponsor “Jabber Jaws” who, by all accounts, was not in fact an animated anthropomorphized drumming shark
Though the irony of bullets volleying in the wake of a concert to promote nonviolence and brotherhood would be enough to land this story a spot in the running for this week’s IKTD, what put it over the top is the not-so serruptitiously placement of one specific word in the article’s headline. That word: “Another”. Another ‘Super Safe Sunday’ ends in violence. Of course, it’s not until the end of the piece that we find out to what “another” refers: “On June 12, the first Super Safe Sunday of the summer,” we later learn, “a 14-year-old was intentionally hit by a car after the concert. Police recorded five arrests.” Intentionally hit by a car! Are you kidding me? And yet the city of Shreveport continued to co-sponsor the event that apparently brought up to 5000 knife-wielding, cross-firing hit-and-runners together in the city’s downtown.
For that kind of dedication to the youth of your city, City of Shreveport, you are the winner of this week’s “I Killed Tony Danza” Absurd (Near) Deaths of the Week! You may pick up your prize on the 3500 block of Hardy Street from a giant fish with the voice of Curly from the 3 Stooges.
*No washed up TV actors were harmed in the production of this column
posted by bd @ 6/28/2005 03:20:00 PM
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