The Dumb-Assing Down Of Our Criminal Element

Thank heaven for the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Historically it has featured the baddest of America's bad-asses. Names like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd still echo through the hallowed halls of thuggery. You took your time studying the faces plastered on the post office wall because you knew those were the faces of men who were so bad, J. Edgar Hoover desired to personally crush out a cigar on the forehead of each and every one of them.

This makes the tale of Jesse Caron and the junior G-men at America's Most Wanted all the more laughable. That someone as low on the criminal totem pole as Caron was even featured on the show is sad; the way he was captured is simply pathetic. No betrayal by the Lady in Red at the Biograph Theater for him; instead we have a hands-on handicapped lady -- a lady who has him forever branded a weenie in prison exercise yards across the nation:

A man profiled on the TV program America's Most Wanted was arrested after he allegedly snatched a woman's purse and she chased him down, authorities said.

Redlands police on Monday arrested Jesse Anthony Caron, 28, of Lewiston, Maine, for investigation of theft and discovered he had warrants in several eastern states for burglary, assault, auto theft and weapons charges.

Carl Baker, a police spokesman in Redlands, about 95 kilometres east of Los Angeles, said Caron allegedly grabbed Katherine Bolter's purse outside an Office Depot store Monday morning.

Bolter, 51, said she kicked off her shoes and chased after him. Two carpenters working nearby joined the pursuit and helped surround him, she said.

One of the carpenters tackled him, and Bolter held on to his belt until police arrived, she said.

"The officers were telling me, 'You can let go of him, ma'am. You can let go of him now,' " Bolter said.

That a young, healthy, experienced criminal could not even successfully make it as a bottomfeeding caser of handicapped parking zones is pitiable. Shall we be forced to rely on the illegal immigration of gangs like Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 to maintain our stock of truly hardened criminals? That he was splashed across our TV screens as a menace tells me it's time to either put America's Most Wanted to bed, or to send Katherine Bolter on the trail of bigger game.