Friday, April 01, 2005
On this day:

Judge Roy Moore Arrested

Judge Roy Moore has been arrested by police in Enterprise, Alabama, following an apparent attempt to swap Enterprise's famed boll weevil monument with a replica of the Ten Commandments.

At 10 PM Wednesday evening, a call went out from police headquarters stating that the boll weevil monument "had disappeared." The town's six on-duty policemen, all of whom had been eating breakfast at a Waffle House nearby, were quick to arrive at the scene of the crime. However, when they arrived, the "boll weevil bandit" had already fled.

That's when Enterprise's new 24-hour security camera, known by locals as the "Weevil Cam," came into play. According to police chief Shelly P. Nutt (Enterprise's first female police chief since Reconstruction), local officials reviewed the tape from the "Weevil Cam" and were able to identify a suspicious vehicle that had circled the square several times prior to the theft.

Nutt said, "After reviewing tape from the Weevil Cam, we issued an all points bulletin to be on the lookout for a white Ford pickup truck with Alabama license plates 'GODSJDG.' The truck was carrying the boll weevil monument, of course, and another structure, approximately 5-foot in height, which we were unable to identify at the time due to the fact that it was covered with a sheet or shroud of some sort."

About 45 minutes after the APB was issued, Enterprise police spotted the vehicle on a roadside north of town. Judge Moore, who was seated in the cab of the truck when police arrived, was said to be very cooperative. Police removed the sheet from the "unidentified structure" in the truck's bed, uncovering a cardboard replica of Moore's Ten Commandments monument. Responding to the policemen's questioning looks, Moore said, "Surely, you didn't take it for granite."

Moore is currently in the Enterprise City Jail.