WESTWOOD — In the UCPD campus safety system, scooter-based offenses are considered especially heinous. The dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious misdemeanors are members of an elite team known as the Scooter Squad. These are their stories.
Detective Horace d’Oeuvres chewed on the end of an unlit cigar as he closely scrutinized an evidence board connecting a stock image of a Bird scooter to a sheet of construction paper with a question mark written on it. “The folks we’re after are the lowest of the low,” said d’Oeuvres, who had then fully digested the first half of his cigar. “I’m talking rolling stop signs, failure to indicate a turn, or even dangerously swerving out of a bike lane to avoid parked UCLA Facilities Management trucks.” When later contacted, d’Oeuvres was unable to comment as he was vomiting the last half of his cigar.
The rest of the squad are working long hours at the expense of their personal lives. “The wife is staying at her work friend Eric’s house until I leave the force,” said deputy Frank Castinello as he wiped his brow into a pool of carbon copy stop sign violation tickets. “But I can’t abandon my precinct until every last commuter is bankrupt.” Later that day, Castinello was seen looking for sleeping bags in the evidence lockup.
After finishing our inquiry with the Scooter Squad, the Enabler was put into contact with the leader of an insurgent faction of the Bruin Commuter Club that calls itself The Wheel. “We have captured detective Horace d’Oeuvres,” said Adnan Imus, who desperately asked that we not include his name. “We will hold him hostage until we receive a parking space to keep our scooters in.” At press time, the Enabler staff fears that this is just the beginning of a desperate struggle for power, prestige, and revenge.