Mugged Hamburger

Mugged Hamburger Full of Baloney 

Great line, not mine. It's the headline that ran on the third page of the NY Daily News when you could buy a block of homes in Queens for what one costs today - attached.  
It ran a week after this headline appeared in the same paper: German Cop Mugged in Queens.

The burger wasn’t a ¼ pounder from McDonald's but a 210 lb. police officer from Hamburg, Germany who thought he'd visit N.Y. because he was a fan of Baretta and Kojak with Telly Savalas. Two police shows on the telly and set in the city.

A few weeks before, along with his underwear - maybe in his underwear - Chris Mann packed his Beretta. No relation to the aforementioned Baretta. Beretta with an 'e' is what Agent 007 shot Russian spies cold dead with during the cold war.

Now, Mann was at the 112 precinct in Queens saying he was mugged in Central Park. Robbed of all his money and gun. 

First responders, even then, New York’s Finest passed the hat for their broke, homeless and a long way from home, fellow officer. The story under the first headline went on to say Chris was moved to tears.

The Steuben Day parade was that weekend and Officer Chris Mann was made Honorary Grand Marshal. He marched along 86^th Street – an area that used to be called German town. Walking along side the Mayor. They both smiled, waved and went for a couple of beers afterwards at The Hiedelberg. Soon, everything would turn into something more like the Hindenburg.

If the first headline caught my eye, the second headline caught both eyes. I know this guy. And I know he's never been outside the 718 area code (Queens & Brooklyn) except for a few times he went into the 212 (Manhattan). 

Background check:

Didn’t the Chris Mann I knew love James Bond movies?

Didn't his family move here from Germany when he was two? That's awfully young to be a policeman. Maybe there's no age requirement for cops over in Germany?

I knew the mugged Hamburger Full of Baloney when he was just a slice of baloney.

And I knew that growing up, Chris had an active imagination - to  say the least.  
If you asked him what he had for lunch, he's say peanut butter and jelly, even if it was ham and Swiss. If he said ham and Swiss, you knew it was baloney. To paraphrase something I once read, every word he said was a lie, including "and" and "the".

Now, Chris had told a whopper about being a hamburger. Using a German accent. No lie.
You can't make this stuff up. 
And I won't make up some story about his subsequent arrest and deportation. I don't know how things ended up for Chris. Which reminds me, I've changed Chris' last name - he may have kids by now. 
Or, he may just be telling people he has kids.