POLICE TAKE STEPS TO STOP QUIET TYPES BEFORE THEY KILL BETWEEN, Missouri. In this idyllic country town, the outside world intrudes upon a yearly round of births, deaths, calvings and goat-ropings only in the fall, when the Neosho County Fair marks the end of the harvest season and farm families from miles away bring their produce and livestock here to compete against each other. 
"I've got all my hay in the barn," says Joe Don Clavell, who owns 500 acres of irrigated land that borders the Osawatamie River, "so it's time for me to relax." What he found when he arrived here last weekend from Firman, Missouri, was a town shaken by violence across the country, from school shootings to kidnappings. The common thread that tied this summer's disparate incidents together is that all were perpetrated by someone described by others who knew him as "quiet" or a "good neighbor" who "kept to himself". 
So the Neosho County Sheriff's Department is experimenting with a first-in-the-nation strategy designed to avoid the occurrence of the sort of out-of-nowhere shootings that have sent a wave of fear across America. "We call it 'QUAPRU'," says Deputy Sheriff Leroy "Jugs" Walje, a word that he pronounces with some difficulty as "KWAP-ru". The acronym stands for "Quiet, Un-assuming Person Round-Up"—a preemptive strike to remove shy, retiring types from society before they go bad. 
Walje stops by the local Quik-Mart on State Road HH to get a Big Gulp cup of Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper before beginning his nightly rounds, then heads into town from the north. "This is a target-rich environment," he says in an echo of his hero, General Norman Scwarzkopf. "A lot of old people live over here, and it's real quiet." 
His first stop is 225 North Harrison, where he shines a light on a sagging porch and sees that Claude McElvey is home, watching "Wheel of Fortune" on television. "Let's roll," he says, and this reporter lifts his body, which resents being handled in the third person, out of the front seat. Walje approaches the front door warily, removes his gun from his holster and raises it, commando-style, even with his head. "You ready with your note pad there, Mr. Journalist?" 
"Ready," this reporter replies, and Walje kicks down the door and rushes into the front parlor, where Claude McElvey is slumped in his chair, sound asleep. "You have the right to remain silent!" Walje yells, waking the elderly man from his slumber. "Wha—what?" McElvey replies. "I said, you have the right to remain silent." "I was being silent." "No you weren't—we could hear you snoring out on the porch." Walje takes the remote from the old man's hand and turns the TV off.  "Guess I musta dozed off," he says as he rubs his eyes. "What do you want?" "We're going to have to take you in on suspicion." "Suspicion of what?" "Suspicion of conspiracy to do something completely out of character with they way you usually act." Walje begins rummaging through McElvey's things, hoping to find the clue that will unlock the dark secrets of the retiree's twisted mind. "Looks like you've been writing in this book," Walje says, as he examines a paperback he finds on a footstool. 
"It's a Find-a-Word. What's wrong with that?" the old man asks. "A book is your friend. You wouldn't write on a friend. Don't write on a book!" Walje snaps at him. "How about all these kids getting' tattoos these days?" the old man says. "Some of them are homemade—kids writin' on each other." "Isn't that disgusting," Walje agrees. 
"Not really—I've got a pair of snake-eyes on my biceps," McElvey says as he rolls up his sleeve. "Don't change the subject. Stand up and put your hands behind your back!" Walje barks as he senses he is losing control of the situation. "If you say so. What's for dinner tonight down at the jail?" "Biscuits and gravy," Walje says. 
"Sounds good to me," McElvey replies. The policeman leads the prisoner out to the squad car, where he pushes the old man's head down and guides it into the backseat. As we drive off an indistinct crackling sound is heard the car's police band radio. What was that?, a reporter asks. "That's Lemoyne down at the station. From the sound of it he's crumpling up an empty bag of chips and the butcher paper his wife wraps his sandwiches in," Walje replies. He slows down as he sees a shadowy figure on the sidewalk who progresses by fits and starts down the street. "Who's that?" Walje asks no one in particular. 
"That would be Ida Krueger," McElvey says. "She's walking her dog, Poodie."
| 
) to rate.
Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Email
