Where Have You Gone, Dick Clark?

The Daily News‘ Kitty Caparella has an nice piece today about the conflicting reports on the death of Bryan Jones, the man who was shot and killed by police just after midnight on Jan. 1.

The story’s definitely interesting all around, but what I found most interesting (and depressing) was this little part here:

The armed celebrants had been inside the party house drinking when they heard the sounds of gunshots outside. They thought it was midnight. So the gun-toting revelers headed to the driveway and spent all their ammo firing in the air, a second reveler said.

When they realized it wasn’t midnight yet, he added, they went back inside to reload their weapons.

Clearly, Dick Clark’s health problems and the subsequent loss of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve — at least the real one, hosted by Dick — has forced our city’s residents to rely on gunfire to know what time the new year is, instead of the usual trusted method of, y’know, a countdown.

Then again, why someone needs to fire his gun into the air to celebrate a pointless milestone is beyond me. Oh, wait; people are stupid. That was easy.

Cops: Danger, controversy [Daily News]