Imagine if a there was someone on the loose in Sioux Falls for nearly five months who had threatened a police officer in one of the city’s signature parks near one of it’s toniest neighborhoods!

And imagine if the police officer shot at the suspect because he felt his life was in danger?

You’d then imagine a huge dragnet to catch such a dangerous scofflaw would be all over the news, the video and audio of the attack would be released to help catch the assailant and a law enforcement joint task force would be set up to catch this person who is a danger to the police and public.

Or not.

Remember that incident the evening of January 1 this year where someone allegedly pulled a weapon on a Sioux Falls police officer in Tuthill Park and the officer fired shots at the chimera, er, would-be assailant?

All of what I said above happened – except that parts with the big dragnet and the release of details and the police working tirelessly to bring this threat to public safety to account for their lawlessness.

A keyword search of “tuthill” “shooting” “police” and “Sioux Falls” on ksoo.com finds only four stories, not 40, like you might think in an incident this scary and unusual. But with no state or city analog to the federal Freedom of Information Act and great legal discretion given to law enforcement as to when they will or won’t publicly release information, we have few tools to get to the bottom of one of the most bizarre police-related incidents in recent years.

Unless the SFPD public information officer Sam Clemens says - or more precisely, his bosses say he can say it - at a daily news briefing with the local media, don’t expect any further details. That is, unless the chimera, er, assailant, decides to turn themselves into the media before heading to the police station to surrender.

Meanwhile, a $3,000 reward awaits a good citizen or chimera to come forward.

Until such a fairytale ending, one of the top crimes in Sioux Falls in 2015 remains, like its suspect, a chimera, somewhere in the wind.

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