Friday, August 4, 2006

The Dancing Zombie Terrorists of Minneapolis

My old hometown police are a mixed bunch. They can be polite and helpful, or they can be raging lunatics like 1st Precinct Sergeant Ed Nelson, who recently gave standing orders to shoot on site any dancing zombies his officers might come across in the street.


The zombies in question are a gaggle of teenagers who dressed up like zombies and danced to the music that was coming out of their backpack stereo systems, which, it is very important to note, looked exactly like backpack stereo systems. Sounds harmless enough, especially considering the fact that they were dancing in the full light of day, which is not your typical zombie behavior.






Oh hey, what's this? Their zombie dancing was a form of protest against the wars? Call the bomb squad, stat! The kids were escorted into the 1st Precinct, tightly hand-tied, left to overheat in a locked squad van, thrown in jail, and placed on a Homeland Security list. And the sergeant who gave the standing orders to shoot these kids wasn't the only psycho.

It gets worse. (Story by Lydia Howell.)

Bonus Trivia: the story appears in an alma mater of mine, Pulse of the Twin Cities. I used to sell ads and write the occasional arts review for Pulse.