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Buffs catch the action Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Sisters Bonnie Pratt and Shirley Miraldi, both of Phoenix, have a need to track down sirens and flashing lights. They�ll make a U-turn to follow a fire truck, or tail a police car back to the police department to see if the guy in the back seat gets out wearing handcuffs. Keeping watch on the cops By Mark Freeman When a man barricaded himself inside a Medford home Nov. 13 and the police and media settled into a 13-hour standoff, Bonnie Pratt and Shirley Miraldi were the only people who really wanted to be there. Parked in their mini-van at the base of a police blockade, these two nosy-rosies logged the comings and goings of officers, eavesdropped on reporters� interviews and gleaned what information they could from passersby. They remained on the scene, unworried that their infatuation with the stand-off could cause the bagged groceries in their car to spoil. Finally, after six hours, it was nature�s call that peeled the pair of Medford sisters away. "We could have lasted longer," Miraldi says, "if there had been some Porta-potties." Miraldi and Pratt are two of the naturally curious kind who have taken a common interest in police-watching and transformed it into a decades-long hobby that make the duo perhaps Medford�s most dedicated resident rubber-neckers. Most people who see speeding police cars or hear the blasts of a fire truck are momentarily intrigued, then go about their business. But Pratt, 61, and Miraldi, 65, take their interest one step further by acting upon it. They�ll make a U-turn to follow a fire truck, or tail a police car back to the police department to see if the odd-looking guy in the back seat gets out with or without handcuffs on. And Nov. 13, that curiosity put them smack dab among the cops and media during the armed stand-off near Peach Street in southwest Medford. "We�ve always had a fascination with crime," Pratt says. They acknowledge that going on these little "projects," as Pratt calls them, is odd. "I don�t know what this latent interest is, other than we�re very interested in life, in people and what�s going on," Miraldi says. "Maybe we�re sick," she adds. The sisters know that rubber-necking has a certain negative connotation to it, and they are careful that their fascinations don�t interrupt the machinations going on around them as a fire, an arrest or, in the Nov. 13 case, a stand-off with an armed man. They act more like flies on the wall instead of in the ointment, always staying within earshot but out of gunshot range. But they do manage a bit of snooping as they go. Pratt, a retired bank employee, is the one who wanders up to cops or reporters at crime scenes and asks them for details. Two months ago, for example, when the pair spied an Oregon State Police officer take a fish from a man at the docks in Brookings, it was Pratt who yelled across the boat basin to get the scoop on the sport-fisherman who got caught accidentally, but illegally, keeping a coho salmon. I even found out the fine �$350," Pratt says. Miraldi, a former animal-shelter worker, is the pen. She takes reams of notes of their escapades, then transfers them to yearly calendars that she has kept the past 40 years. "She�s kind of mouthy and I hold back a bit," Miraldi says. "But she calls me the wordy one. "Their one-two punch dates back to the 1960s in Southern California, when they joined a neighbor, who was a police officer, in his squad car one night. A drunken driver struck the car and drove away, and the sisters joined in a short chase through the streets of Sierra Madre. "Boy, I told Shirley," Pratt says, "ain�t this exciting? "Their excitement has never waned, much to the chagrin of family members who have grown to accept finding Pratt and Miraldi dragging themselves home six hours late from a trip the grocery store, heading for the bathroom with copious notes of their adventure in hand. "My husband calls us nosy," Pratt says. "But I prefer curious." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.