Reflecting on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays one might conclude that it is an inquiry into human frailty. There are themes, but the overarching leitmotif is that of the decision making of humans. To give them the benefit of the doubt (coming from the world of criminal defence) one assumes that, to those individuals, their decisions probably seemed like good decisions to them at the time. At least for a moment before things went awry.
Humans are simply animals and laws govern us so we can live together. Generally, we all understand that there are laws. Animals don’t really have much more than the law of the jungle. When they run up against humans, they may be governed by laws they will never understand.
This week, in the all-bears edition of Weird and Wacky Wednesdays we will look at bears breaking the law. How can bears break the law? They can’t understand the law. Well, the same could be said for many humans.
Let’s now investigate the issue of bears unlawfully in cars.
Not So Fast But Just As Furious 8
On the weekend a bear in Colorado managed to open the doors of 8 vehicles in search of picnic baskets, I guess.
All of the cars were unlocked and apparently bears can learn how to open car doors. I suppose that’s just something we should all assume at this point.
There is no indication that the bear did any damage. It seems unlikely that the bear will be required to appear before a judge because who can really dispense justice to a bear?
The authorities here keep blaming the victims. “Lock your doors” they say. But what if your plan was to escape from any predatory bear by hiding in your car? And suddenly you can’t find your keys?
Can’t Touch This Bear
Moving on, even when caught by the police damaging a vehicle, bears get a free pass. Take this case where sheriffs simply let the bear free after it entered a car looking for food and apparently didn’t know how to get out.
In this case the bear had two cubs nearby which might have made the bear more aggressive and upped the risk factor for authorities. In any event, despite the damage to the vehicle, the bear was released, not cuffed or detained.
Lucky Ursidae.
Don’t get in a strangers car!
And you’re wondering why the all-bears edition of Weird and Wacky Wednesdays? We’ll get to that after this story of a bear that just wandered by a car, opened the door, checked it out and took off.
In this case there is no blaming the car owner for leaving their car unlocked because this took place in the parking lot of the Sierra Country Sherriff’s office, and it was a car belonging to an employee of that office. Check out the CCTV video. It’s frightening.
Still, it’s not as frightening as this now-viral TikTok video of a fellow trying to get a bear out of his car. I would think it would just be smarter to allow the bear to take the car.
Many people have been the victim of a vehicle break in, and many people have been arrested for the offence. One is forced to wonder, now that we have video of nearly everything, how many times the offence was committed by a bear? How many times have defence lawyers failed to consider the “bear defence?” How many innocent people have been convicted of breaking into cars when the culprit was a bear? And why did a bear steal my sunglasses?
I thank you for bearing with me as we explored this topic. As I conclude my remarks, I note there is one simple solution to this problem of bears breaking into cars:
