Holy Sh*t! “Jim” Really Did It This Time!

Whenever police find an abandoned vehicle, a set of standard questions come into play; who owns the vehicle, why was it left where it was left, how will the owner get the vehicle away from the area. Those questions become more, um, pointed, when a quarter of the vehicle is hanging precariously over a thinly frozen river and the rest has come to rest on wood-planked pedestrian walkway. Sometime during the night of Jan. 16 or in the predawn hours of Jan. 17, a Jeep Cherokee of indeterminate year was found with the rear left wheel hanging over the Fox River in Oshkosh, Wisconsin behind Becket’s restaurant.

The story, as reported by Jennifer K. Woldt for the Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper, says that a passerby alerted police to the nonstandard parking space a little before 9 a.m. on Jan. 17. Using the latest in crime scene investigation techniques, like running the vehicle’s information using the clearly visible license plate, Oshkosh police were able to track down the registered owner, a 23-year-old man from a Milwaukee suburb.

It would stand to reason that police would have a number of those previously-mentioned pointed questions for the young owner. We haven’t read the police report, but our sharp legal minds at CarDebater would surmise the questioning went something like this: “What the fuck were you doing?” and “In the name of all things holy, how the shit did you get out of that Jeep?” and probably ended with, “Who didn’t hug you enough as a child to make you think you can pull dumbass shit like this?”

The unidentified owner of the Jeep Grand Cherokee apparently had little to offer to the police’s well reasoned (we think) line of questioning except to say that he certainly wasn’t driving the Jeep. The man told police (who are not stupid or on their first day of work) that his friend “Jim” was the one driving the vehicle. Sounds good to us. Let’s just review the facts: 1. A vehicle parked on a pedestrian-only riverwalk. Check. 2. Said vehicle is now hanging ass-first over a river with nary enough ice to walk across. Check. 3. “Jim” was driving. Check and double check.

Either “Jim” is the luckiest prick on the planet or, more likely, because there were no witnesses to the shenanigans, police didn’t arrest the man and called a tow truck to get the Jeep back on the road.

We are betting “Jim” is getting a bill for that tow truck and a stern talking about driving safety from the unidentified Jeep owner.

*This story was originally reported in the Oshkosh Northwestern.