WATCH: Thai Police Bust Crook Using Giant Lunar New Year Lion Costume
This sounds like it has some serious police procedural potential...
With all the true-crime TV shows, books, and podcasts floating around these days, it amazes me that law enforcement can have any tricks up its sleeve.
Luckily, some intrepid police officers of the law in Thailand — which it turns out does have laws; who knew?! — have shown us a new one.
That trick? The old "Undercover Lunar New Year Lion."
Classic. I think that was how they got Dillinger… oh no, wait, he just got pumped full of lead.
According to a viral video making the rounds, some cops in Thailand were running out of ideas for ways to apprehend a man who had robbed one of their fellow officers' homes.
Apparently, other attempts had ended with the man running away, so the cops decided to get the element of surprise on their side.
They wrangled up one of those big, fancy Lunar New Year lion costumes, puppets… things, and gave this sticky-fingered, cop-robbin' crook the surprise of his life.
Man, I love this so much.
It makes me want to write a police procedural called "Lunar New Year Lion Cop" (I am open to workshopping the title).
In the show, Kurt "Lion" Lyonowski is a hard-boiled cop who plays by his own rules. Every episode plays out just like every cop show you've ever seen, until the third act.
That's when Kurt "Lion" Lyonowski goes, "Hey, O'Malley (Oh, I forgot to tell you, Lion's partner is the bookish and fresh-out-of-the-academy Tim "Irish" O'Malley), I think it's time we give this guy our special treatment."
Then they take their lion costume out of the back of Lion's Crown Vic (he still uses one of those because he's stuck in his ways, remember?) and they use it to sneak up on the perp while he's at the bank, his kid's soccer game, or on the can.
Y'know, somewhere he wouldn't expect a Lunar New Year Lion.
Then at the end of the show, the Chief — who is only ever referred to as "Chief" — shows up and says, "Lion, I'm not a fan of your methods… but dammit, if they don't get results."
Then, Lion makes some quip relating to the take-down ("Hanging the TP underhand was only his second-biggest mistake today…") and the credits roll.
You may think it sounds nuts, but I promise you, a CBS executive is reading this and thinking how "Lunar New Year Lion Cop" could be a good mid-season replacement for "NCIS: Schenectady" or whatever.