Well, well. The wheels are really coming off the wagon over there, aren't they? First, last week, while driving along Sunset Boulevard, I encountered the six-way intersection with Benedict Canyon and Rodeo in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel completely
devoid of functioning traffic lights. In lieu of traffic cops directing traffic at this already complex and ridiculous circus attraction of an intersection, you, in your infinite wisdom, had merely placed individual stop signs at the end of each road, including the four-laned Sunset where people are often traveling close to 50 MPH. Interacting with a long line of motorists, all on the honor system, at a six-way intersection large enough to drop a house in the center was a decidedly frustrating experience. Perhaps having even one white-gloved policeman directing traffic - mimicking exactly the action of the out-of-conmission stoplights - would've not only been more efficient but actually easier than rigging up six stop signs in cinder blocks and dropping them in the middle of the road.
Perhaps, though, Beverly Hills, your officers were busy getting some rest for the challenge that would be presented to them in the upcoming week! The grizzly, mysterious annihilation of venerated publicist Ronni Chasen is no doubt stymieing your city's finest, despite their well-restedness. Why was this hard-working, established and by all accounts universally revered woman targeted? The latest police reports speculate that she was shot from another car through her passenger window as she sat in the left-turn lane of Sunset at Whittier Drive late this past Monday night, on her way home from the Burlesque premiere. After being shot 
in the chest no less than FIVE times, she still managed to floor the gas of her new Mercedes E-350 coupe, make the left-turn onto Whittier and proceed 100 yards or so down the street before running up onto the curb and crashing into a street light. She then lived almost another hour before passing away at Cedars-Sinai. What a tough broad, tenacious to the end. Theories abound, Beverly Hills: Perhaps it was a road rage-related killing! Although on a largely empty road in the middle of a Monday night, it's unlikely a 64-year old woman with a handicapped decal hanging from her rearview mirror was drag-racing, flipping anyone off, or otherwise engaging in vehicular hijinks. Perhaps she was targeted! Perhaps some producer for whom she ran a failed Oscar campaign in the late 1980s never quite got over his anger. However, this is a woman so revered for the quality of her work in Hollywood over the past thirty years that all five major studios are splitting the cost of her memorial service; this kind of unity is unprecedented in Hollywood on a single other issue. Or perhaps it was gang-related! Except, in Beverly Hills, rather than South Central, it would be a gang of elderly Jews or Persian women in velour track suits and tacky sunglasses... not generally terribly murderous demographics. All of these scenarious play out to be equally unlikely.
Authorities are apparently scanning the security camera footage from closed-circuit TV systems of the many homes along Sunset looking for a clue, but up until now have been fairly tight-lipped on their discoveries; mostly because, it seems, they don't actually know anything! It wasn't even clear until three days after the murder itself where poor Ms. Chasen was actually shot. But the case, universally appraised as a real "Hollywood who-dunnit" becomes increasingly Hollywood by the minute; one of the homes turning over its security camera footage belongs to the widow of the late Buddy Hackett, an actor predominantly known for his vaguely racist (if hilarious) portrayal of a frustrated Chinese waiter in the 1950s and his role in the Herbie the Love Bug movies. Dominick Dunne would've had a field day with this story.
Where are your red light cameras when we really need them, Beverly Hills? If only poor Ronni had been shot only a scant quarter of a mile south, perhaps the same camera that recently captured me driving through a red light would've captured footage of her killer! The leads are few, but I know that you're working round the clock to deliver the doer of this high-profile deed to the best of your ability.
So let's get to work, Beverly Hills, so we can solve this horrific crime, bring the killer to justice, and, frankly, get back to doing what you do best, let's be honest:
Best Regards,
Dear Crabby
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