Bruce Charles Rhodes's Traffic-Court Follies: Kicks a Cop in the Nuts, Tells Judge He's Joining Al Qaeda

Bruce Rhodes: Al Qaeda might have something to say about that hair.

​There's no two ways about it: going to traffic court always sucks, and that's even if you walk away with a dismissal. When you lose your case, it's even worse, and it's the mother of all bummers if the violation you were charged with was kinda BS to begin with.

That was just what happened to Bruce Charles Rhodes Wednesday in Dickinson Municipal Court. The 29-year-old Alvin man was convicted of cutting through a convenience store parking lot to bypass a busy intersection and fined $105 and court costs by Judge Richard Cope.

We could forgive Rhodes a little anger there, maybe some eye-rolling, a heavy sigh, some cussing under his breath. That, however, is not the way Rhodes rolls.

Dickinson police Captain Jay Jaekel told the Galveston County Daily News that Rhodes "started talking and telling the judge this was a joke, he didn't have any money, and he wouldn't shut up."

Cope responded the way every judge would: He threatened to cite Rhodes with contempt. But the broke Alvinite with the lopsided beehive was just getting started.

"Basically he told the judge 'F-U,' he was unemployed and was going to leave the country and join al Qaeda," Jaekel told the Daily News.

(Fear not, Gulf Coasters: The FBI cleared Rhodes of any actual Al Qaeda involvement. So far.)

Cope piled an extra $95 onto Osama Bin-Rhodes's original fine, whereupon the would-be terrorist cackled. By then, Dickinson cops had moved in. As he attempted to make his getaway from the court's foyer, Rhodes allegedly kicked one of the cops in the nuts, whereupon he was subdued and taken to jail, newly charged with felony assault on a public servant.

Jaekel said Rhodes had to be restrained for his own safety in the jail, but that apparently didn't stop him from threatening serious bodily harm on a female jailer. Bingo, felony number two: terroristic threat against a public servant.

Which has nothing to do with threatening to become a terrorist, by the way.