Wilmington, North Carolina, is not the locus of our best and brightest.  Don’t ask me how I know this, but I just do.  But that doesn’t mean that the local police don’t have the occasional brainstorm.  This one is a doozy.

Via Turley and J-dog comes this tale of excellent police work from the AP.

Gladwyn Taft Russ III was serving as a pallbearer at the Saturday service and was loading his father’s casket into a hearse when the undercover deputies approached him.

Relatives said two deputies dressed in coats and ties grabbed Russ and kneed him in his back before using a Taser on him. One deputy’s gun fell out of its holster.

“Everybody was so scared. We thought it was a drug deal gone bad,” said Ronnie Simmons, another pallbearer and Russ’ brother-in-law. “We almost dropped the casket.”

As suggested by brother-in-law Ronnie, this was not a family that was wholly unfamiliar with criminal conduct.  After all, most people wouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that this was a drug deal gone bad.  It tells you a little something about this crew.

But even with sketchy families, a funeral is a situation where one should exercise just a bit of discretion.  Nobody is very happy when protesters appear at funerals, whether they have a right to do so or not, so why should it be different when the funeral is disrupted by the cops?

But perhaps this was a fugitive who, through guile and evil genius, had managed to evade arrest after committing heinous wrongs?  Would it then be improper for police to take extreme measures to use their singular opportunity to capture this man?

Russ, 42, had failed to surrender after being charged with threatening his ex-wife, who lives in another state. After his father died on Nov. 11, Russ agreed to surrender to authorities after the funeral.

When deputies approached Russ, he “went wild” and spat on the officers, Chief Deputy Ed McMahon said.

Russ was charged with assault on a government official, resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and felony malicious conduct by a prisoner.

So he had, in advance of the funeral, agreed to surrender to authorities?  It would seem reasonable to assume that the authority with whom he spoke had found that acceptable, lest they would have used their vast persuasive powers to urge him to come in first and they would let him go to the funeral peaceably afterward (whether true or not).  And then, having acquiesced in the ritual burial of his father, they decided instead to storm the funeral?  And he “went wild?” 

Who would have thought?

According to Star News Online, police say that Russ had failed to keep an earlier promise to turn himself in, which was why they felt constrained to arrest him at the funeral.  Omitted from this point is that he was going to turn himself in after his father had surgery, but apparently his father’s death resulted in a change in plans.  Still, Russ called police to explain the circumstances and say he would turn himself in after the funeral.  But the cops didn’t trust him anymore and felt they needed to take matters into their own hands.

Hence, the plan to nab the fugitive from justice while carrying his father’s coffin was born.  Hah!  It’s not like he can run then!  We got him!

The officers who came up with this plan will be disciplined, according to the report.  No doubt they will be chastised with very firm, if small, words.

Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Ed McMahon chalked it up to bad timing.

McMahon agreed [that this should not have happened] and said he would address the situation in the sheriff’s office so “we don’t make that mistake again.”

Problem solved, by Wilmington standards at least.