Police nEGGligence In Tea Party Bus Egging Case

It’s been about a week since eggs thrown by Harry Reid supporters exploded onto the windshield of the Tea Party Express bus as it rolled through his hometown of Searchlight, NV. The crime, reported to police just moments after it happened, was ignored by local authorities, who wouldn’t return phone calls and dodged responsibility with a line stolen from bad police movies, “Nothing we can do, that’s not our jurisdiction.”

With egg yolk dripping down his windshield and obscuring visibility, Tea Party Express bus driver Jerry Ragle pulled to the side of the road and told an officer what had happened, giving a brief description of the thrower. In the days following, Jerry has followed up with repeated calls to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, yet was unable to get any law enforcement to take interest in the attack. On the first call to LVMPD, he was told he’d have to call back later – the person that takes reports was at lunch. Evidently crime takes a regular lunch break in Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, which must be remarkably convenient. Jerry left a message, and waited all day for a return call that never came.

The next day and several thousand highway miles later, another call to the police was even more disappointing – our driver was told that yes, throwing eggs at a moving vehicle filled with people was indeed a crime, but it would not be investigated by their department. Since the crime took place on the road, we were told it was out of their jurisdiction and had to be handled by the NV Highway Patrol. You read that right – crimes that happen on the road are out of the jurisdiction of the local police department. Could this mean that we drivers are no longer subject to the obnoxious small-town speed traps that always pop up towards the end of the month? From what we were told, unless the Highway Patrol gets involved, the local cops have no jurisdiction!

A day later, while waiting to talk to the Highway Patrol, the LVMPD inexplicably called Jerry back, saying they had now determined that the road indeed WAS in their jurisdiction, and they’d be happy to take a police report! We have no idea what caused their total reversal in position, but perhaps it had something to do with intensifying media coverage of the event, which originated at the website Founding Bloggers, and quickly spread to Big Government, Fox News, and the Daily Caller before being talked about by Limbaugh, Hannity, and even Jon Stewart.

Whatever their motivation, the LVMPD finally decided after almost a week that they would at least take a police report from our driver regarding the attack.

What happens next, and whether any further action is taken remains to be seen.