Eight Feet Deep

Among the crim­i­nal of our species there are “bot­tom feed­ers” and then there is a whole class for below that division.

Right here in “River City” — to bor­row from “The Music Man” — oth­er­wise known as Beau­mont, Texas, police are seek­ing a cou­ple who fall some­where in that class below the lowest.

The sus­pects are the cou­ple in the pic­ture. They look like Joe Bob and Tanya Jean Blow what with Joe Bob in the orange shirt push­ing the baby while sweet lit­tle Tanya Jean in the black shirt pulls up her hair into a ponytail.

But police say the pair are actu­ally a cou­ple of thieves who use their baby as a distraction.

A Beau­mont police press release said the man — who has a mus­tache and goa­tee — allegedly snatches and grabs the mer­chan­dise while the woman serves as a look­out. Here the alleged sticky-fingered duo at 4:56 p.m. on Nov. 23 search for a real steal at Radio Shack in the Park­dale Mall. They are also sus­pected of thefts at the Sun­glasses Hut in the mall and at the H-E-B Plus on Dowlen Road.

Lowlife is a word that comes to mind when a cou­ple uses a baby to steal or com­mit other crimes. I once had neigh­bors who used their kids as a shield for sell­ing crack. The police would make a pass and Mrs. Not June Cleaver would grab up her older Roly Poly or the baby and rock-a-bye until the cops went bye-bye.

So-called adults putting truly inno­cent chil­dren — like a baby — into such a sit­u­a­tion is bad enough. But such is the nature of this couple’s alleged crime that the baby him­self or her­self is a cause of con­cern for the police. Beau­mont police told local media that they want to both col­lar the cou­ple and check on the wel­fare of the child.

If you see this cou­ple or know peo­ple like them, slap them silly call your local police or Crime Stop­pers. In my nekkid of the woods, to lighten this piece just a bit and give some­one a chance to say you mis­spelled “neck,” the phone num­ber is (409)833-TIPS.

Seri­ously, peo­ple who do stuff like use their kids to steal really ticks me off. Of course, lots of things tick me off. But I don’t have time to get into all that, so I will just say “au jus,” dear friends.