Marshal Larry Hawkins of Little Rock has his own story about Jumpin’ Jack Flasher.
“I had a run-in with Jack myself once,” Hawkins told one of our America’s Dumbest Criminals writers. “One day I was patrolling the downtown area when this skinny little guy stops my car. It was Jumpin’ Jack. From the looks of him, he’d been worked over pretty good by somebody who wasn’t messin’ around. His left eye had a huge mouse under it, his lip was split open, and his face was all red, with a couple of knots on his head as well. He just looked like hell.”
“What happened to you?” Hawkins asked.
“I’ve been beat up,” Jack mumbled through clenched jaws.
“I’ll say you have. Who beat you up, Jack?”
“This woman down at the Laundromat,” he confessed in obvious pain and embarrassment.
“A woman? A woman did this to you?”
Hawkins thought maybe Jack had mixed it up with his girlfriend or something. So he put Jack in the back seat of the squad car and drove to the Laundromat. Through the storefront windows, the men could see several women inside cleaning clothes.
“Jack, which one was it that beat you up?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I didn’t see her face.”
“Wait a minute . . . let me get this straight. A woman in there beat you up, and you don’t know which one did it?”
“I told you, I didn’t see her face.”
“All right. You wait here while I go in and try to find out what happened.” So Hawkins walked into the place. One of the women addressed Hawkins, “Officer, we are so glad you’re here. A man came in here about ten minutes ago, pulled his shirt up over his head, and then dropped his pants.”
“He wasn’t wearing any underwear, either!” added another woman.
“So what happened then?” Hawkins asked, smiling.
One of the women continued: “Then the man said, ‘Hey girls, does this remind you of anything?’ And Connie said, ‘Yeah, it does—it looks like a penis, only smaller!’ Then she reached out and grabbed him by the hair under his tee shirt and commenced to knock the hell out of him.”
“Yeah,” the officer admitted. “That much is obvious.”
“His arms were up over his head in that shirt,” the informant went on, “and he couldn’t do nothin’. It was over in about thirty seconds.” Then she added with some satisfaction, “You don’t mess with Connie!”
She was right about that, too, Hawkins thought as he looked at a substantial woman in the corner nonchalantly folding some sheets. I certainly wouldn’t mess with Connie!
Hawkins got back in the squad car and told Jack he was under arrest for exposing his privates in public.
“Well, what about that woman in there? Aren’t you gonna do anything about her beatin’ me up like this?”
“I thought you told me that you didn’t see who did it,” the officer said. “But if you want to go back in there and see if you can figure out who it was, I’ll just wait here for you, Jack.”
“Uhhh . . . no . . . that’s okay. Let’s just get out of here,” Jack said. He kept staring through the window at Connie, who was still folding clothes.
“Fine with me, Jack,” Hawkins said. “Let’s go.”