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Lost gun now seen as reason to spend

Journalists are said to be cynical.

People responding to studies about those who gather and report the news find them to be cynical.

It just might be that the occurrences they encounter might induce some of that cynicism.

For example:

A firearm belonging to a sheriff disappears. (According to an investigation of his peers, their best guess is that he left it atop a car when he headed out on a emergency call.)

After a passerby finds the gun at an intersection and gives it to police, who return it to the sheriff office, the sheriff says he doesn't know to whom the gun belongs.

A day later, a deputy reports the gun is the sheriff's and that a criminal investigation has been started, because bad people may have swiped the sheriff's gun and put it on the street to embarrass him.

After the prosecutor announces intention to have state agents investigate in case there was criminal wrongdoing, the sheriff calls in investigators from the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association.

By Monday, these investigators found no evidence of criminal intent, called the results inconclusive, but found it likely that the gun had been left on the sheriff's car to when he responded to the report of a plane crash.

On the same day the report on the investigation was made, it was revealed the sheriff had asked the county commissioners for thousands of dollars worth of increased security measures at the sheriff's office, with the request linking at least some of the improvements directly to the gun incident.

It could have been handled quickly with: "It looks like I screwed up. I'll make sure it never happens again." Instead, after whatever expense the investigation cost in time, travel and other costs, the matter now has been turned into a bureaucratic leverage for more tax dollars.

Would that make anyone cynical? We would hope so.

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