Sheriff Justus

This is Sheriff Mearl J. Justus. Just soak that in for a minute.

OK, I'm serious, this is the St. Clair County Sheriff. Not only does this man look like his swagger alone would knock over chairs as he walks through a room, but he is in fact quite an innovative law man.

There's an article in stltoday.com today about his idea of hanging wanted posters over the urinals in the Sheriff's department. It's apparently been a pretty successful project.

In 1990, according to the article, he set up a fake shoe store and sent out letters to the last known addresses of people on his list of wanted, saying they won a free pair of shoes. He bagged 33 bad guys that day! Holy cow!

Wait a minute... criminals read their mail on a daily basis? I'm unlikely to read mine once a week. And they showed up on the right day? That's almost as amazing as the idea itself!

Other fun facts about Mearl is that his department's homepage is at http://thebadge.us. And he has a blog at http://www.mysheriff.us. This guy's awesome!