I have below a record of the Police Chief of Cincinnati’s speech to the city council given earlier this week where he explained the force’s recent work on lowering statistics for a series of major crimes.
Fellow Ohioans, I stand before you today the proud leader of the great city of Cincinnati’s law enforcement agency. I am delighted to say that through diligence and innovation, we have significantly reduced the number of murders in the city. In fact, I am proud to say that as of a month ago, there is no such thing as murder in Cincinnati. Quite literally. It no longer exists. We have removed its definition from the police records and from the dictionary in every city library. With scissors. The results have been astounding. Zero murders have been recorded. Where just two months ago the staggering levels and sickening rise in the number of murders committed in Cincinnati was the subject of national and international news, we now can proudly say that we have the lowest murder rates of any city, not just in the US, but anywhere in the world. We can all sleep safely in our beds knowing that whatever might happen to us in the night, it certainly won’t be murder. Not in our book. You are more likely to spot Bigfoot than a murderer in Cincinnati.
So when you see someone gunned down in the street, take solace in knowing that what you are witnessing is not murder. When the disgruntled former employee drives their truck into the serving area of KFC, this is not murder. When the jilted lover pushes their former beau under the express train to Arkansas, this is not murder. Murder does not exist in Cincinnati. It can’t. There is no such thing as murder. And isn’t that a great relief to us all!
Now whenever one of our law-abiding citizens phones 911, to declare the sudden removal of life from a fellow citizen, they will automatically be forwarded to a recording of Blackstreet and Dr Dre singing ‘No Diggity’, at the end of which they will be encouraged to donate to the Cincinnati Law Enforcement Agency’s lexicographers who have been putting in such sterling work with their scissors.
Now cynics may suggest that this is all just a matter of semantics. I couldn’t disagree more. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Cincinnati Law Enforcement Agency’s lexicographers and their scissors, there’s no such word as ‘semantics’ in Cincinnati dictionaries either.
Furthermore, I am proud to say that as a result of the unprecedented success in murder reduction, we plan to roll out this scheme to tackle the root cause of arson by removing the word ‘matches’ from all Cincinnati state owned dictionaries. And if this proves to be a success, by Christmas we should also have eradicated larceny and impersonating a member of the clergy with a view to defrauding an ombudsman.
But it’s not just scissors that these admirable patriots are adept at using. Thanks to white-out and a sharpie, we lead the state in cases of Man’s laughter. And what a joy it is to know that not only have we eliminated accidental deaths we’ve replaced it with the very epitome of merriment. The same strategy is being adapted to escorting a miner across a state border – our young folks are safe from predatory monsters thanks to our scheme for increasing the travelling experience of those who spend their lives in subterranean conditions excavating coal.
Well, despite all this, some dyed-in-the-wool pessimistic citizens are claiming that Cincinnati is still a perilous place to live, that it is more dangerous than ever. Well, they’re wrong, and we’ve got the statistics to prove it. And we’ve taken a great deal of time and effort to make those numbers look so special by dealing with the problem of the words.
We’ve also taken great strides forward with anti-social disturbances. Nothing is worse than the unpleasant screech of an alarm – the stringent repetitive cry that triggers every time a supposed criminal breaks into a building. We’ve taken steps to reduce Cincinnati’s noise pollution by eradicating these alarms. No-one wants their peaceful idyll disturbed by being made aware of a criminal activity. As such, all Cincinnati burglar alarms have now been wired up to state kindergartens where their electrical charges are being used to power over two dozen Tickle-Me Elmos.
And now a personal plea on behalf of my colleagues: please don’t approach officers in the street, it is not their job to attend to any supposed-crimes you may ‘witnessed’. Instead, citizens are instructed to phone Sandra. Sandra operates the phones at police headquarters, and is ready and willing to process the crime-related queries of Cincinnati’s 300,000 occupants, one at a time. Remember, if you can’t be bothered to wait for Sandra to answer, it can’t really have been an emergency. Please note too that due to obese pigeons roosting in the signal box, occasionally Sandra’s line can be down, but this generally only affects the time she is at her desk. And remember, if you’re not willing to wait the day or two for the line to be operational again, it can’t really have been an emergency. Thanks to this streamlined and efficient system, our response to reported crimes has gone up from 20% of calls received to 98.6% of the call we received. What inspirational progress!
So finally, rejoice in the fact that Cincinnati, thanks to our efforts, is now a utopian idyll, and that any crime you may witness is merely a figment of your imagination.
