The Government Channels 3 Stooges

Feckless, hopeless, bureaucratic incompetence has been with us since George Washington went to the dentist and left the chair with choppers of oak and pine.

Normally stable, productive members of society suddenly fall prey to absurdities within the system, doing nothing to stem the flow of idiocy if it falls outside the well-defined boundaries of their job description, even when the result is laughable to anyone and everyone on the outside looking in.

Such lunacy exists in the story of Edward Hawkins, a convicted felon who disappeared in 2007 while on parole, which set in motion a series of nonsensical events that continues to this day.

Dawkins died of cancer a year later, after 340 attempts by parole officers to located him had failed. Dawkins' family has his death certificate, as well as the urn that contained his ashes. But that's not stopping the Washington, D.C. Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency from continuing to contact the family to ascertain Dawkins' whereabouts.

Local police also call and snoop around in attempts to locate Dawkins, as he is on supervised parole until 2016.

Finally, after a little publicity, it appears the CSOSA is wising up, asking if Dawkins' family can mail them a copy of the death certificate, because being a government agency, they apparently have no access to any sort of computer network that might link them to the official government documents.

Rest in peace, Edward Dawkins....wherever you are.

Agency is Still Seeking a Man Who's Still Dead , via The Washington Post