Cost of giving a gun and a badge to a Carona crony…$10 million!

Cost of giving a gun and a badge to a Carona crony…$10 million!

You just cannot make up a story like this one. We have known for some time now that Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona tried to defend the citizens of Orange County by arming his personal martial arts instructor, Raymond Yi, with a gun and making him a reserve deputy. Boy, that makes a lot of sense. But this story only gets better.

Yi decided to take his gun onto the golf course. I guess he was looking for the killer of O.J. Simpson’s wife, who is of course known to be a golfer. (Hasn’t O.J. himself been looking for him at every golf course he comes across?). Unfortunately, it turns out that Yi’s fun permit had expired seven months before he went to the golf course, on the ill-fated day in question. And Carona’s people failed to take back Yi’s service pistol. Oops.

Well, Yi got mad because the foursome ahead of him was going too slow and even hit his ball back to him. So of course he whipped out his gun and badge and allegedly told the golfers that he “could have 500 deputies flood the golf course to beat them.” Now that would be quite a sight indeed.

Yi’s actions are now bearing a financial repercussion. Two of the golfers he threatened are asking Orange County for $10 million. Their charge is that Yi used his department-issued gun to intimidate them.

My favorite part of the story, as reported in the O.C. Register, is that Jon “Flash” Fleischman, the official Carona spokesperson, claims that he doesn’t know what kind of gun Yi was issued, and he hasn’t seen the claims filed by the abused golfers. Sure, I believe that.

I’m guessing this story won’t be reported on the “Flash Report,” or “OC Blog” for that matter. But it sure would be a good basis for “Caddyshack 3.” You can read the O.C. Register article at http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_971286.php.