At the end of this story about an increase of financial fraud in Hometown, AR, detective Steve Taylor tells the story of a man who was caught buying nearly $4,500 worth of stuffity stuff with stolen credit cards: “[The] thief stole wallets from men at a local gym,” Taylor said, and

within an hour there was $3,000 charged on one victim’s card and $1,500 on another. The thief charged a big screen television and a new set of tools, Taylor said, and was finally stopped when a store employee asked to see his identification. Having none, the man fled the store.

“I’ve got a beautiful video of him from Hastings,” Taylor said. “He’s not from around here so nobody knows him.”

One might think the story would end there, but one would be wrong! Of course the story can’t end there—no one has identified the thief’s race! For that, he turns to his partner in law, detective Steve Nassar. The merchandise, Nassar said,

“was probably traded for crack cocaine.”

After whch I’m sure he added, “Get it? Because more blacks use crack! If that weren’t true, the federal sentencing guidelines for the last decade wouldn’t have been 100 times harsher for crack than powder offenses. Anyway, if he had been white, I would have said meth. Just think of it as the opposite of profiling, which is why we can say it in public like this. It’s just like a brave new world!”