Guess it wasn't her day to die

Due to my interest in the great Waco Biker Ambush & Coverup, I've become a regular reader of the Waco Trib website. While the coverup continues, at least for now, one of the lead characters in that scandal, Sergeant Patrick "Pinocchio" Swanton, makes regular appearances in the Trib in his capacity as spokesman for the Waco PD.

That's how I happened upon the story of Brittney Garrett, who was driving her Toyota Tundra while simultaneously texting on her phone, and whoopsie!...

 Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said officers were called about 11:55 p.m. Wednesday to a single-vehicle crash in the westbound lanes of State Highway 6 at the Twin Bridges, where they found a heavily damaged 2015 Toyota Tundra straddling the inside guardrail.

Officers could not find the driver or any other occupants and presumed the driver, later identified as Brittney Ann Garrett, may have fallen into the water.

“The report says that she was distracted by her cellphone, looked down at her cellphone and ran into the sidewall, on the driver’s side . . . hit the guardrail, rode up that guardrail and it apparently caused the driver’s side door to be torn off and cause a hole through the floorboard,” Swanton said. “She was ejected from the vehicle, through the hole created in the floorboard, and into the lake below.”

Officers began to call for a water rescue and helicopter assistance to light the lake before they found Garrett on the shore at Speegleville Park. She swam about 150 to 200 yards to reach land, Swanton said.

There are a few lessons to take away from Brittney's adventure. First off, don't text and drive.

Two, if you do text and drive, don't do it in a Toyota. A Ford, Dodge, or GMC pickup can mess with guardrails and survive. A Toyota gets ripped wide open and poops its passengers into the raging waters sixty feet below.

Finally, Brittney's fabulous adventure is proof yet again that if your number ain't up in this great lottery 'o life, not even the most brazen act of stupidity is gonna send you to a premature reward.

Congratulations Brittney!

Waco Police find 14,276 weapons stashed at crime scene

And why not?

CNN had the number at a thousand a little while ago. Seems the erstwhile Sgt. Swanton makes up a new number every time he sees a microphone.

So it could very well be 14,276 by tomorrow...

But it could be thirty-seven the day after. There's a refreshing randomness to Sgt. Swanton's estimates. They go up, they go down, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

On top of the whimsical randomness of Sgt. Swanton, it would also be good if the Waco Police Department ponied up some sort of working definition of exactly what constitutes a "weapon." Sgt. Swanton early on claimed that the bikers were doing battle with "chains."

Anybody who recalls a three hundred pound Satan's Choice biker twirling a ten foot length of manure-spreader chain in the parking lot of the Maryhill Hotel back in the day conjures up a very specific memory when they hear the Waco brawl involved chains. That was the equivalent of a A-10 Warthog raining death on the battlefield. But apparently the "chains" they were battling with in Waco are those six inch chrome-plated jobs that connect a wallet to your belt.

If that's a "weapon," one can only speculate as to what else Sgt. Swanton considers a weapon?

Any serious full-patch dude in a reputable outlaw club is gonna have a wad of hundreds in that wallet, each one of which could potentially inflict a serious paper-cut on an adversary. There was probably guys at that Twin Peaks who had dozens of those weapons in their wallets.

To say nothing of the credit cards. A credit card can indeed cause grievous injury if it falls into the wrong hands.

And what about one of those Swiss Army Knives with three dozen attachments? That's three dozen weapons right there in one compact package!