Notorious Crime Boss Bear Hank the Tank Has Finally Been Captured by the Authorities, Along With 3 Cubs

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As much as America loves a good hero, I think it's safe to say we love an anti-hero even more. It's part of our mythos as culture. You can love Superman, for all his sunny, noble, optimistic altruism. But most of us can relate to a broken, vengeful, nocturnal vigilante like Batman more. 

It's who we are as a people. At least it's who we've become over our country's two and a half centuries of existence. Whereas maybe the early heroes were guys like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, at some point Americans started admiring incorrigible rules-breaking, and often violent badasses like Jesse James, Bonny & Clyde, Al Capone, and John Dillinger. That became true of our fictional heroes as well. The Corleones. The Outlaw Josey Wales. The Bandit. Goodfellas. People living that romantic ideal of abiding by their own moral code, flouting convention, and above all, not bowing down to The Man. 

But you can also argue we've begun to lose that. Our culture has become one of bland conformity, where everyone is emotionally delicate and endlessly judgmental. To the point even comedians have to fight to keep from being shouted down by the professionally hypersenstive more than 50 years after Lenny Bruce was being thrown in jail for telling jokes. 

So it's been truly satisfying to see America finally get a new anti-hero we can all get behind. A true rebel. A loner. Someone who lays down the law and then breaks it.  Who isn't afraid of you or me, or willing to be controlled in any way by the constraints of polite society. I'm talking of course about Hank the Tank:

That was early last year. And Hank the Tank has been on the lam ever since. Continuing the crime spree. Evading capture. Frustrating authorities. And living the bear life all we more timid creatures can only dream about. That is, until now:

Source - California wildlife officials have captured a massive black bear dubbed “Hank the Tank,” after a string of home invasions over the past year. 

Wildlife biologists for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) captured the large female black bear and three cubs early Friday. 

The department said the bear is responsible for nearly two dozen DNA-confirmed home break-ins and extensive property damage in the South Lake Tahoe area between February 2022 and May 2023.  …

The bear is being transferred to the Wild Animal Sanctuary near Springfield, Colorado. 

The cubs will potentially be relocated to Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue, a CDFW-permitted wildlife rehabilitation facility in the hopes they can discontinue their negative behavior learned while accompanying their mother on home invasions, CDFW said.

First of all, I apologize for comparing Hank to Jesse James, when I should've said Ma Barker. Or Mama Fratelli:

She's not just a strong, independent Girl Boss, she's started her own crime family. In the most literal sense. 

Second, good luck, California Department of Fish and Wildlife. If you bureaucrats think you can build a prison that can hold The Tank, you've got another thing coming. She isn't some teenager fishing without a license or some hunter caught poaching tropy bucks outside of deer season. She is Hank the fecking Tank. She's broken into expensive homes with more security than any clink you can throw her into. You might as well keep the US Marshals on speed dial because they'll be needing to do a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse once she inevitably busts out. 

And as for her cubs? Pfft. Have fun with your little sociological experiment, but your animal "experts" don't stand a chance. You can domesticate Hank the Tank's offspring like they're some stray cat who wandered into your yard. They were raised by the best. A Capo de Regime who has taught them how to plan and pull off a heist, how to avoid getting caught, and most of all, how to settle all the family business. These bears have tasted the good life. And they're not about to go out into the woods foraging for nuts and berries like a bunch of average nobodies. Like schnooks. In a few weeks, the Hank the Tank Family will be back on the street trail, and be running the whole South Lake Tahoe rackets yet again.