Is there a "short bus" stop around here somewhere?

So last night, I'm out and about and I stop this pick-up truck full of good ole boys because I saw them coming out of a road construction zone. It turns out that they were stealing...wait for it...SANDBAGS.

That's right--they were picking up all of the sandbags used to hold temporary road signs in position. Of all the things in that work area to steal, these idiots were only taking the sandbags. That's like breaking into a bank just to steal the pens chained to the counter.

They're also all drunk, which might explain the desire to possess thirteen state-owned sandbags.

But sadly, dumb as these guys are, they're not the special ed class graduates that I'm writing about. No, the real idiots of this story are the couple dozen pedestrians who happen to walk up during my traffic stop.

You see, I'd stopped these jokers just past a mid-block cross-walk. My cruiser is actually partially IN the cross-walk, with it's lights flashing. There are also three other fully-marked cruisers on scene, and we've got the four drunken bumpkins our of their truck and seated on the curb between my cruiser and the truck...in the cross-walk, naturally.

So what do these pedestrians insist on doing, literally one right after another? That's right--trying to cross the street in this cross-walk by going between my cruiser and the stopped truck, and even trying to walk between the four guys seated on the curb and the uniformed officers who are watching them while we search the truck.

And then these pedestrians have the nerve to look surprised and offended when we tell them to stop and look at them as if they're retarded.

Now it's not as if there's so much traffic that they all *have* to cross here--traffic's light and there's not even a light here. But the bike path happens to cross here so suddenly every brain-dead zombie on the bike path has to show up and try to walk through the middle of our scene. One woman even asked our detainees to move aside for her, I swear. And when I asked her if she had any idea what was going on here, she looked totally baffled and said "no."

So do you make it a point to walk around fire trucks at building fires and ask firemen to stand aside for you too?"

"Well no," she replied, as if that would be silly.

She finally went around the scene, but her fellow window-lickers just kept showing up and trying to walk through the scene, even as the narcotics K-9 was being brought up to the truck. I finally had to post an officer on each side of the scene just to redirect people who you'd think would have had the common sense that God gave a goose--it was either that or just put everyone back in their vehicles and move the stop down the block away from these white painted lines on the pavement.

Oh, and if this wasn't stupid enough, we also had to deal with several drivers who pulled up adjacent to the stop, rolled their windows down, and proceeded to ask for directions, as if we were all just out there like some sort of information kiosk with our red and blue lights flashing.

"We're busy--keep moving," we'd say before they could even pose the question. But even that wasn't enough for one guy, who insisted that we tell him how to find a certain street first.

"You'd best find yourself a gas station that sells maps real quick," I tell him. "Now move!"

The pathetic art is that this city is ranked as one of the most well-educated cities in America. I just don't get it.

Oh, and the sandbag guys? The driver eventually got locked up for DWI and his truck was impounded, and we made the other guys put the sandbags back before letting them summon a cab and leave.