Our good citizen in the picture is Arin Laron Antwine, 21, of Beaumont, Texas, a.k.a. as “Our Town” and “River City” with a capital “C” that rhymes with “B” and that stands for “Bond Jumper.” Our so it would seem.

Wanted. And wanted some more. And wanted evern more. And wanted …

The Beaumont Police Department said Antwine has 12 warrants for his arrest totaling a whopping $810,250. That’s almost enough money to get Dog the Bounty Hunter away from his latest escapade and looking for this guy. Antwine has six warrants for possession of a controlled substance, car theft, three for failure to  identify, possession of marijuana, and criminal mischief.

All this leads me to ask: How’d he get six warrants for possession of a controlled substance (undercover sting?) and three for failure to identify? Did he fail three times during one questioning to give his correct name? Inquiring minds want to know. Not really. I’m just kind of curious but it’s not going to keep me up at night.

So troops, you know what to do. If you see Antwine, don’t try to apprehend him yourself, unless you are a big, long-haired, ex-con, bounty hunter, TV star. That’ll ’bout do it.

I’m talking about northern East Texas. First there was a rash of church fires. Then came a series of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails being found, many in mailboxes. Of the latter, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offered a $25,000 reward for “suspicious devices:”

“Numerous of these devices have been placed in blue United States Postal Service collection boxes. The suspicious items have been incendiary-style devices as well as devices that resemble pipe bombs. These incidents have occurred in the counties of Smith, Rusk, Gregg, Harrison, and Panola.”

They resembled pipe bombs? Oh well, it must be a government thing. In fact it was, allegedly.

Authorities say Larry Eugene North, 52, of Henderson, Texas, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday and arrested the same day without incident.

“North had previously been identified as a person of interest in connection with destructive devices which were being placed in postal collection boxes in East Texas,” said a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas. ” On the morning on Apr. 7, 2010, North was observed placing such a device in a Tyler collection box leading to his subsequent arrest in the 3400 block of Corporate Drive.  Following his arrest, a search of North’s vehicle revealed an additional destructive device.”

The suspect apparently ” … did not care for the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston said at a press conference in Tyler this morning. Maybe he was mad about the plan to close post offices on Saturday although somehow I think not.

As to my earlier question of what’s in the water in northern East Texas? It depends on where you go. There are some places up there — as opposed to Southeast Texas to which we refer as “down here” — where the water could be contaminated with chicken waste. Chicken growing is a big deal in that part of the country. Why you can’t go up there to down here without coming across a chicken grove. Or perhaps it is chicken patties. Chicken pastures? Hey, I used to raise chickens and shovel out their excrement, so my knowledge of chickens is not a total waste.

Seriously, all of this coming on the heels of the string of church fires in the same vicinity causes one to pause and ask: What gives? The brother of one of my sister-in-laws is the pastor of one of the churches torched and is a fine man. So, even though I don’t feel his “pain” all of this is to me is not so much an abstraction. It is gratifying to many, and to me as well, that two suspects were arrested. If there has been a motive learned in these arsons I have not heard it even though a motive sometimes seems irrelevant.

Let’s let the law take its course in both of these cases of serial idiocy. These cases that just all coincidentally, perhaps,  happened in roughly the same vicinity.

As a matter of fact, Juarez seemed to provide little to no fascination for Rene, who is Mexican-American and whose summers as a youth  included stays at his family’s ranch in the Chihuahuan interior. The pace of life in El Paso’s twin city seemed to have become too much for my laid-back old friend from our Navy days in Mississippi. Since I spent most of my life in East or Central Texas though, the bustling neighbor of El Paso to this day interests me.

Juarez, of course, has all the Mexican border town kitsch. I can once remember seeing a jackass, painted with black stripes like a zebra, with a cart it was pulling parked along a street. Trust me when I say, it wasn’t a zebroid. And donkeys have their own perverse connotation in Mexican border towns, but I won’t tread there. There were the cab drivers offering to take young males off to an adventure at a whore house or who knows where. There was all that is bad about border towns in Juarez that is bad and all that is bad about border towns that is good.

Also to be found in Juarez was the elegant, the storied and even the historical. Some spots were all three such as the Kentucky Club. A trip to Juarez wasn’t complete, at least in my eyes, without a stop for a margarita or two at the old bar with its high ceilings and carved wooden fixtures located on Avenida de Juarez. Anyone who was anyone in U.S. history during the last half of the 20th century had stopped by for a drink. Maybe they thought they needed one after seeing sights like jackasses painted as zebras!

In all during the visits I made there in the last 30 years, most while I was accompanied by a fluent Spanish speaker, I didn’t feel particularly threatened. Young, foolish and bullet-proof, a cousin of Rene’s and I once partied somewhere a good distance from the heart of the border area of Juarez. Exhausting most of our money we were forced to hoof it back to the border. We walked through some areas that, well, were probably dangerous then but we made it back safe to near the crossing where we each ate a burrito then had to borrow two cents from the lady at the taqueria to get through the turnstile to enter the U.S. side.

I even visited during my last trip to El Paso, which was on business, some six years ago when the city had begun to become more violent. Now, I am thinking of flying out to see Rene sometime this spring. I know he probably will not want to cross the border and with all the violence there – some 2,500 murders in Juarez last year and about 800 something already this year — neither will I.

The most recent episode of carnage to catch the Norteamericanos’ eyes, that is after the 15 teens were killed in January — are the killings of three people with connections to or who were employed by the U.S. Consulate in Juarez. Two children of one of the victims were also wounded in the attack.

It is a shame and unbelievable how out of control things have become in Juarez and in Mexico in general. What is at the root of it? Drugs? Well, the root of it like the so-called “root of all evil” is the love of money. Add in the lack of money, power, and if people are stupid enough to use in excess the drugs that they sell, a bundle of wired machismo and you got yourself one hell of a problem. That is exactly where the Mexicans find themselves now, to the point where walking for days with little food and water through the Chihuahuan Desert to illegally attempt a better life in el  Norte doesn’t sound all that bad does it?

Our perfectly coiffed Gov. Rick Perry wants the Pentagon to send Predator drones to patrol the border. Great. Maybe the unmanned planes will be armed and can cause a lot of things to go “boom” in the South. That is what probably a lot of the unthinking crowd feel would solve the problem.

But this is a problem that is beyond the grasp of our air-headed Texas governor. It is about, at the very least, a hemispheric economy and what kind of Mexico will be our future neighbors. Will they become a socialist state or one ruled by a dictator as in Mexico’s past? Will they become a failed state? Or will they maintain their course as one of the world’s emerging markets after getting past all the violence?

Whatever the answer, it sure seems the status quo isn’t working out.

Before I start, I have to first say that having a fascination for a subject doesn’t mean one has to condone that subject.

I speak of bank robbery. It’s an odd crime and I am fascinated by the subject. It is odd because the chances are so meager for someone to get away with holding up a bank. FBI statistics indicate that only murders are cleared by arrest more often than bank robbery. Almost 60 percent of bank robberies are cleared compared to about 62 percent of murders. Then, when you throw in the fact that only about 5 percent of bank robbers are female, you might see how someone who is interested in the crime of bank robbery from a sociological standpoint such as I, might be even more interested in that rare bird, the woman bank robber. True.

So when a young, relatively attractive female was arrested yesterday for the robbery of a small-town credit union in my area, I found myself asking why? If this person indeed robbed this financial institution was it because she likes drugs, as she admits on her My Space page and seems to be the motive given the judgment of the sheriff whose jail now holds the young woman? Was it because, as famed bank robber Willie Sutton was supposed to have said: “Because that’s where the money is?” Was it excitement, prodded by small-town boredom? Was she just nuts?

These are all questions we won’t know, probably, anytime soon. We don’t even know if she is the robber. However, she was fingered by a phone caller who saw a robber fitting her description on a video of the hold-up during a local TV news broadcast.

Aurielle Tineo, 26, of Hamshire, Texas, is suspected of robbing the Texas Coastal Commercial Federal Credit Union — someone needs to look into abbreviating that name — in nearby Winnie on Feb. 4. The linked video in the paragraph above shows a woman who held a pistol by the barrel while telling employees to stuff money in a bag. Some of the still pictures in the news video, by Beaumont TV station KFDM Channel 6, also capture a nice-looking young woman with some evident quirks judging by her driver license photo. She admits to that quirkiness on her My Space page.

“Auri the renegade angel,” as she calls herself on the popular social media page, claims to be “a witch” and notes that she likes “racehorses … guns, marijuana …” as well as making her son laugh and watching him sleep.  She said she likes “speed” but so much so she had to quit and no longer “f**ks with it.” As well she admits enjoying shocking people to see the look on their faces. She might just be shocking some folks right now.

Although Tineo rambles on her My Space page, she isn’t alone in that respect, it is evident from some of her statements that she is of average or perhaps even above average intelligence. She is in that age range — from 18 to 30 — that FBI statistics say most commit bank robberies. This is, even though, the average yield on a forced withdrawal by armed robbery at a financial institution is upon average less than $5,000.

Tineo was just arrested. She is presumed innocent like everyone else. Above all, I would point that out because police say someone else is likely involved in the crime and when two play and are caught things can become all skewed in the legal process.

But if Aurielle Tineo, self-proclaimed witch, is convicted then perhaps some understanding of her specific reasons for committing a crime with such little chance for success will come to light. Until then, we shall see how things play out in her case.

UPDATE: Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of the III Army Corps and Fort Hood, said at a short press conference that at least 12 people have been killed and 31 wounded in the shooting. Both those shot and the suspects are soldiers, Cone said.

As the hed said, media reports indicate perhaps nine people are dead and more than two dozen have been wounded in a shooting involving at least two suspects at Fort Hood, Texas. The massive military post lies about halfway between Waco and Austin, right smack dab in the heart of Texas.

So this means what to me? Well, Ft. Hood was part of my beat back in my days of employment as a newspaper reporter. I visited the post many, many times to cover not only military events but for events involving our most recent ex-president. I am watching CNN coverage. Once again, I think for all their shortfalls, CNN is still the best at breaking news.

I have little to add to the current news coverage except that I noticed during my time hanging around the Fort Hood area, an undercurrent or, vibe, if you will. One might say that’s to be expected since it is a Army base, the “free world’s largest,” as post officials liked to point out during my time covering the military.

But actually, I’ve been on other military posts including Army posts and didn’t get this same vibe.

Since the beginning of the so-called “War of Terror” there have been at Fort Hood as at other Army posts a number of suicides reported. Killeen, the city outside the post, seemed at the time I reported on the military at Fort Hood to have an extraordinary amount of violent crime. Even before the Afghan and Iraq wars there was the horror of the mass shooting at the Killeen Luby’s cafeteria in which 23 people were murdered after George Hennard drove his truck into the restaurant.

One suspect has reportedly been captured and another “cornered” in the Fort Hood incident. The big question is — since at least two people were involved — the motive. Are these guys just nuts or are they some  kind of jihadists? It will be interesting to learn more. My thoughts go out to those whose family members or friends were involved.

 Our  — as in Beaumont, Texas’ — bandit entered the Wells Fargo Bank at 595 IH-10 North on Tuesday morning and robbed the place while “displaying” a silver handgun, according to a Beaumont Police Department press release. Police like to use words like “display.” It’s like “Hey ya’ll, isn’t this the prettiest 9 mm pistol you’ve ever seen? Now how ’bout that cash?”

 Bank employees triggered the silent alarm and officers were told the suspect was last seen running on foot toward an apartment complex behind the bank. Police and a “K-9 Unit,” a.k.a. “a DOG and handler,” searched for the bandit to no avail.

He could be displaying his weapon in this photo.

 Police describe the suspect as a Hispanic male, 5 feet, 10 inches to 6 feet in height, 180 pounds, dark complexion, wearing dark sunglasses, a blue button shirt and having short black hair. I’m sure he wears those sunglasses and blue shirt everywhere – to bed, playing basketball, working on his car. Okay, I’m picking at the descriptions the police give out. I’ve written a hundred of these for news stories when I worked as a reporter, but they sound kind of funny out of context. This one is actually a better description than some I have seen on local TV reports, such as “a black male, between 5′ 11″ and 6 feet, 175–190 pounds.” Hmm. I bet there aren’t too many of those running around.

 Now I thought I had a suspect when I saw the shot below taken from a bank camera. Even though the police description lists him as Hispanic and dark-complected, he isn”t all that dark, at least in my opinion. Now, if you forget that the man is supposedly Hispanic and dark-complected, in this picture at least, doesn’t he bear a slight resistance to former Arkansas Governor and failed candidate for the Republican nomination Mike Huckabee? 

“I’d appreciate your vote — and your money.”

I mean, look at him. Maybe Huckabee  with a tan?

Perhaps a bit younger Mike Huckabee with a tan.

Oh well. That’s my contribution to the community today. That is partly why I try to write about things like this because I have a forum to do so and, who knows, maybe someone surfing blogs stumbles across this one and just might recognize the robber I now dub the “Senor Mike Huckabee-almost-look-a-like-bandit-if-Huckabee-was-Hispanic.” That person calls the police and clang, he’s behind bars. You know, someone might see this guy taking a nap out in his chaise lounge wearing his sunglasses, blue buttoned shirt and displaying his handgun.

A jury today here in Beaumont, of the Texas variety, sentenced suspended state trooper Jonathan Barnett to six months in jail and fined him $10,000 for running a family business that operates illegal gaming machines. Documents listed Barnett, 32, as president of a family-owned novelty machine company raided by authorities in 2007. The machines owned and leased by the company included so-called “eight-liners.” These are essentially slot machines which businesses award winning customers who play with cash.

Barnett, a trooper since 2001, testified that he began phasing out his oversight of the company to his mother after becoming a highway patrol officer. He also denied knowing the machines had been used for gambling. Jurors found Barnett guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity. Due to the gambling charges involved in the alleged activity, Barnett could have been sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison, according to local media reports.

So why am I flummoxed at this verdict, you might ask? He was found guilty. He was a state trooper he should have known better. Right and right. Thus is the reason for my bewildered state.

Was this man stupid, arrogant, greedy or all the above?

Local and state law enforcement, including Barnett’s soon to be former employer the Texas Department of Public Safety, continually make local headlines with bust of eight-liner arcades across the state. State laws in the mid-1990s provided the so-called “fuzzy animal” exception which allows a machine to pay out a non-cash prize for a play of $5 value or 10 times the cost of play, whichever is less.  Most cash prizes awarded illegally are done on the sly, which often necessitates undercover police operations to bust the eight-liner operators and owners.

In short, a Texan can’t walk down the street without being hit on the head by media reports of proud local law enforcers showing off the gambling machines they busted and money seized in the raids. Since I have seen cops of all stripe gambling illegally in all manners perhaps short of slot machines, and have even gambled with cops before, I don’t believe their fervor for busting eight-liners is rooted in religion or moral repugnance. Perhaps it has something to do with the money seized in the raids that go to the various police agencies. Could that be it? Surely not.

What irritates me the most about the Barnett case is the blemish he causes for the agency that employed him. In general terms, I have had more respect for the Texas Highway Patrol than any other law enforcement agency. Maybe he is just a bad apple or an ignoramus. He is not the only one I have seen in the DPS nor will he be the last. But the fact is eight-liner gambling is a very high-profile offense, though hardly the stuff of Baby Face Nelson, and this now convicted and sentenced former state trooper should have steered clear of his family ties to the “novelty” gaming business when he decided to don the gray suit and cowboy hat of the DPS.

I also feel that someday “real” slot machines will be tumbling their fruit in certain sectors of the Lone Star State. That is, if the money bagged folks who want gambling in Texas can outspend and outwit those who already operate casinos in neighboring states.  When that happens, and I believe it will, the eight-liners will be a relic of times past. Then, people like former trooper Barnett will be convicted felons despite the diminished nature of the crime.

Talk about your dumb crimes. This one rates way on up there.

 I don’t know whether these names come from the FBI agent who serves as media liaison in the larger division offices or whether the bureau has a computer that generates monikers in the way random generators do on some Web sites. Needless to say, some of these which I found today while looking through the FBI’s Houston Division press releases were amusing.

 The prize goes to the “Sweatin’ to the Oldies Bandit.”

 Actually, the alleged bank robber reminds me more of an overweight and unmasked Klaatu

“Klaatu barada nikto”

 from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” than some Richard Simmons devotee. Hi-ho Silver (above) robbed two Houston banks in late August within less than an hour’s time. No idle hands here.

 FBI agents are as well on the look for another busy bank robber, this one dubbed “The Grandma Bandit.” Now I would be willing to bet this “grandma” would have appreciated a more flattering nickname.

“You could use some castor oil and I could use all your money”

On Friday Granny allegedly robbed two banks — both Compass Banks — in a time span of about an hour. What’s with these fast robberies? I guess that like a rolling stone, these bandits don’t care to gather any moss, or coppers.

 Finally, I think the FBI were scraping the bottom of the barrel coming up with this name, The Déjà Vu Bandit.

 Weird.

It is a good time for sports talk. Football season is on the horizon and major league baseball is winding down with the playoffs in the not-too distant future. Besides, one has little to pick from when it comes to music on FM in the Beaumont-Houston area. And on AM, of course, it’s practically all right-wing radio unless you get in just the right geographical spot and can get the Cajun station out of South Louisiana.

A lot of the radio sports guys have recently spent a lot of air time on the fate of Michael Vick, the one-time Atlanta quarterback who was recently reinstated into the NFL after serving federal prison time for organizing dog fights.

As a story — be it sports or just news — Michael Vick’s is a compelling one given the standard for news stories these days. It is a story tinged with race as well as that of animal cruelty. If gay abortionists were somehow involved in the story you would touch just about every hot-button out there.

The sports talkers are, not to a man, mostly missing the boat when it comes to the fate of Michael Vick. Many of these talk show folks I have heard want Vick back on the field where he belongs (their sentiment). There also seems to be a good-sized element of the African-American community who feel Vick is being, pardon the pun, black-balled from playing football. After all, Vick was one of the top NFL quarterbacks before his trouble with the law began.

I can’t speak for the sports guys and certainly not for blacks. I do believe though that the former are swimming against the tide in a great cultural gulf. Some of the sports talkers can’t understand why, if the NFL commissioner has reinstated Vick, that he has not been automatically snapped up by the league’s teams. Some have even gone so far to say the team executives must be worried about PETA showing up on their 50-yard lines.

But my guess is that the concerns go way beyond PETA. Some of the same folks who abhor animal cruelty show up on Sunday’s in the seats and skyboxes of the NFL’s stadiums. Countless others are chomping down on hot wings and drinking Bud Light at home while the games televised into their living rooms feature young guys knocking the bejesus out of each other. Yet many of these same fans go ballistic when they see abandoned or abused puppies on the evening news.

During my career as a, full-time, journalist I covered double homicides, wrecks killing or maiming handfuls and other miscellaneous mayhem. But never, ever, did I get as many phone calls and e-mails than the next day after a story I did involving stray dogs and cats.

This guy had become a one-man animal rescue and he kept taking in dogs and cats until animals had occupied one house and mostly took over another. I was out at this guy’s house when sheriff’s deputies came to take the animals away because this otherwise Good Samaritan couldn’t properly feed or otherwise care for these strays. It was as sad as it was vile, if you can imagine nothing but dogs and cats everywhere and doing pretty much as they do when not housebroken.

I notice that the local television news reporters lately also jump on animal abuse stories like a duck on a June bug. These stories run at the top of the newscasts, ahead of fatal car wrecks, Saturday-night stabbings and armed robberies. That’s because they know such stories play on the basest of human emotions. That is, at least for those who have the compassion to understand what is taking place.

I won’t dwell on the racial aspect of it because that is something which I personally know little about. However, there is also the “gangsta” element in the dogfighting cult that ticks off people of more than one race. Some people just can’t abide by crack-smoking, drive-by shooting, thugs for some reason.

NFL owners know the tightrope they are walking. Should they give Michael Vick another chance? And then that one little nagging thing: What if he lost some of his umpph while he was in the joint?

I have thought that perhaps Vick deserves a chance at some point in time but only after he has shown sincere remorse for his actions. I thought perhaps his talk in Atlanta to some kids over the weekend might have been a start. Although, some folks see it more as self-serving.

In the end, neither the sports talk guys nor Jesse Jackson nor PETA nor I, will have the say as to whether Vick suits up again for the NFL. Whether that is the case, ultimately, is another story.

This morning I listened as a defendant appearing for sentencing before the local criminal court judge copped to stupidity as the reason the man committed the acts for which he pleaded guilty. Those charges were for evading arrest and impersonating a public servant.

I was in the criminal courtroom this morning for a freelance gig and while waiting through the docket call. I got to view the seemingly never-ending parade of idiocy that keeps our criminal justice system in business.

The facts in this particular defendant’s charges were not totally clear as he had already pleaded guilty and was only in court for punishment. But it appears that he ran from police on a motorcycle at speeds of what he said was near 100 mph. His charge of impersonating a police officer stemmed from his attempt to buy a range-finder for playing golf during which time he had asked for a police discount. Whether the two charges were related or if he flashed a phony badge eludes me.

I do know in a brief research of the defendant’s criminal records in three states that he had prior charges for reckless driving, speeding and criminal impersonation. It makes me wonder if he is a serial impersonator. He no doubt has a need for speed. He also claims to be a professional bike racer but given his history I am not sure I would take his word at face value.

The judge sentenced the man to probation and a fine on the two charges. Let’s just hope that the man doesn’t try to impersonate a probation officer.