The red and blue flashing lights reflect off the tan walls of the normally nondescript gas station.
The wail of sirens, silenced now, still echoes in the clerk’s ears as he anxiously explains the situation to the officers.
He didn’t mean to call the police; he just thought the store could use a little refreshing.
The true culprit was the stench, or perhaps his nose, which caught it.
A panic button is an emergency device designed to alert security personnel or emergency services in situations of danger. One can be found in nearly every public-facing workplace.
Contrary to the clerk’s previous belief, a panic button brings the police, not the scent of summer roses and lemon.
A few days later, the paper gets hold of this juicy story.
“Police were dispatched to a hold-up alarm at Johnny Joe’s on Hwy 377. When officers arrived, they questioned a newly hired clerk who said that he thought the alarm button was a “fragrance button” to make it smell better.”
Max Miller, the publisher of The Cross Timbers Gazette and the blotter’s creator, purchased the newspaper in 2006. Shortly after, he noticed that the police blotter was a bit lackluster, “basically like an Excel spreadsheet,” he says.
The old blotter featured monthly statistics and was generally not very interesting to the general public. There was no story to the reports, a problem to which Miller quickly found a solution.
He contacted the Argyle Police Department and requested access to the call logs so they could provide more information to the public. He found an abundance of interesting calls ranging from property crimes to downright silly calls.
“We are contacted every month by The Cross Timbers Gazette for our ‘noteworthy calls,’” says Lourdes Diaz, Administrative Coordinator for the Argyle Police Department.
Most of the time, Miller’s staff reporter compiles the information and sends it to Miller so he can come up with the puns; other times, he gets the reports himself and adds his flair.
“People would stop me and ask ‘Is this real?’ and I would say ‘Yes, it is real, because truth is stranger than fiction.’” says Miller.
Once they go through the reports, Miller comes up with the jokes. Drawing on his experience as a long-time dad and his former work as a radio DJ and traffic reporter, his “corny” sense of humor comes through naturally. His references, for the most part, stem from pop culture and references to the 80s.
In the soft light of their home office, Miller and his wife brainstorm ideas.
Her face is lit up by the soft blue glow of her computer screen, and she chuckles at her husband’s antics. The soft crinkle of her eyes deepens as she rolls them at his quips.
Their laughter, punctuated by the tapping of her fingers across the keyboard, fills the space with a familiar warmth.
Some jokes make the cut, while others fall flat, with Mrs. Miller as the final arbiter between each joke and the world.
Miller’s rebrand of the paper’s police blotter started in 2008 and quickly gained popularity. Over the years, other police departments in the paper’s circulation area have begun sending their call logs to The Cross Timbers Gazette. Usually, the smaller the town, the more entertaining the stories are.
“On Feb. 15 at 9:21 p.m., an officer checked on a possible suspicious vehicle sitting outside a business on Old Town Boulevard. It turned out to be a father and daughter playing Pokémon Go. The daughter ‘was finding a lot at this spot.’ No word if she spotted Detective Pikachu.”
“I think it shows that the police department is not just chasing criminals all day,” says Miller. “They’re helping people in many different ways, responding to all kinds of requests, and they always have a good sense of humor about them.”
A website named AreaVibes compiled data from Argyle crime statistics, broadly stating that Argyle is 65% safer than other North Texas cities. Argyle’s population is primarily made up of upper middle-class, college-educated families. It is a relatively small suburb with a low incidence of crime throughout the years.
Additionally, AreaVibes has conducted polls asking residents if they feel safe living in Argyle. Based on the survey results (7 responses), 71% of people reported feeling that there was very little crime in Argyle and that they felt safe walking alone at night.
Argyle resident Carol Sherman had a story of her own to share: “I called the cops once because I thought someone was trying to break into my home, but it was just an Amazon delivery driver.”
In the early evening, Carol was waiting for her husband to come home from the gym when she heard a loud noise coming from the side of the house. She was afraid a tree had fallen into the roof, so she went to investigate.
She then heard another loud boom from another side of the house. This time, the noise sounded like it was coming from inside. She panicked and called her husband, who called the cops and rushed home.
An unmarked white van was idling right outside their house.
When her husband arrived, a man was walking away from their front door. It was odd for a burglar to walk calmly from a house they had just tried to rob.
The man with the van stopped by three other houses on the street under John and Carol’s watchful, albeit confused, eyes.
Then Carol’s phone lit up with a notification.
Her Amazon package was just dropped off. The message included a picture taken by the man with the unmarked white van.
“Thankfully, we live in an area that typically doesn’t have a lot of serious crime, so we get to enjoy the human element,” said Miller. “Sometimes people will call the police for things that maybe they shouldn’t call the police for, but the police department always professionally handles everything.”
“On Feb. 2 at 2:18 a.m., a Windsor Drive resident called in a suspicious doorbell ring and noticed their camera had been mysteriously blocked. Upon further investigation, it was determined a prankster up to no gouda had flung cheese into the yard and placed a slice over the doorbell camera. No charges were filed, but the case will go down as grate-ly unusual.”
What allows Miller to have this creative freedom is the fact that he owns and operates the paper independently outside of any major media conglomerate. The staff consists of Miller, his wife, a staff reporter, and many local contributors.
“It’s a true community newspaper, something you hardly see anywhere anymore,” says Miller.
Miller was transferred to the DFW area in 2002 to take a management position role at Metro Networks, which provided traffic reports to radio and television. At that time, he started a website called LantanaLinks, where he posted community news.
After he began receiving The Cross Timbers Gazette in his mailbox, he contacted the owner in 2004 with a proposition to partner with them in order to promote his website and the owner agreed.
In 2006, the owner of The Cross Timbers Gazette called Miller with another proposition.
She wanted him to buy the paper.
Miller had never owned a business before. He hadn’t even owned a dog, let alone a local newspaper.
He took the plunge, figuring what’s the worst that could happen. Then, the financial crisis of 2008 shook the foundation of every business.
Although his corporate job was lost to the economic devastation, the Gazette held its own and even grew. It became his full-time job and has flourished ever since.
The Cross Timbers Gazette still publishes the blotter with clever quips by Miller each month. Check them out at this link.
-Written by Jadyn Turner
