Driving while intoxicated, Florida's Frank Martello ran into another vehicle near a junction. Both vehicles stopped. Rather than give the other driver his insurance details, the 68-year-old Martello crossed the other lanes of traffic solely to throw a beer bottle at him. Having done so, Martello started walking back to his car. He didn't notice an oncoming vehicle and was killed on impact.
Also in Florida, Jessica Conti was unhappy that there was cheese on the garlic-knot pastries she'd ordered at a pizzeria. The 25-year-old Conti demanded her money back, then became angry about the manner in which the clerk had set that money on the counter. According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, soon three men joined her in the restaurant, and all four headed into the kitchen and began throwing food. Before they left, a television screen was damaged by a container of grated cheese. Witnesses recognised all four miscreants. Conti; Vincent Conti, 25; Shawn Cody, 32; and Hareem Jones, 26, were arrested at a nearby home.
In another story from Florida, Carlos Adonis Ramos-Erazo was pulled over for speeding. He refused to get out of his car and explained that he was in a hurry because he had to use the toilet. He then drove off, striking the deputy's arm with his vehicle. The police officer pursued him to his home and, when Ramos-Erazo tried to run inside, used a Taser on him. On the way to jail, Ramos-Erazo made his urgent deposit of urine and faeces in the back of the patrol car.
Someone reported that a man was smoking methamphetamine at the counter of an Athens, Georgia, Waffle House restaurant. The police dispatcher described the man to responding officers: a white male who was about 30 years old and sported red hair and a clown suit. The clown, later identified as 25-year-old Jacob Worthington, was found in the toilets and relieved of his knife, LSD, rolling papers, jar of mushrooms, jar of marijuana, white powder, and digital scale. Worthington, a former member of the US Army's 310th Psychological Operations Company, faces various drugs charges.
Ionel Popa visited Romania's Vaslui county hospital for purposes of reattachment of his testicles. The 40-year-old man from Dragomirești told medics that his common-law wife had taken a kitchen knife to his crotch because he had forgotten the date - 8 March, International Women's Day. The mayor of Dragomirești, Aurel Turcu, explained to Est News that she'd apparently become 'angry with him that he didn't bring flowers and then cut him with a knife to the genitals'. She disputes this, explaining that Popa had come home drunk and been avoiding household chores. A criminal complaint of domestic violence has been filed.
Our next item is about a hold-up at the Sole Survivor Leather shop, in Maplewood, New York. There, Missouri's Amanuel Perkins, 18, demanded money from the shop-owner, who discerned that the multi-coloured pistol pointed at him was a water gun. The owner pushed the water pistol away and told Perkins to leave. Perkins was still there when the police arrived, and he told officers that what they considered to be first-degree attempted robbery was just a St Patrick's Day joke. He was arrested nonetheless.
There are limits to what a person is allowed to buy with food-stamp debit cards. Nicholas Jackson found this out when trying to make a purchase from a Florida car dealer. The next night, someone stole the $60,000 BMW X-6 that Jackson, 36, had tried to buy with food stamps. Also missing were the keys to 60 other vehicles. According to the Martin County Sheriff's Office, Jackson was found and arrested with the car after it ran out of petrol - he didn't have money to fill the tank. He has been charged with grand theft auto.
After finishing his meal at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant, 46-year-old Hiroshi Motohashi started showing his small snake to other customers. Some were unhappy about this, and the management asked him to leave. He did but then returned a few minutes later and dropped a 4.5-metre-long python on the floor. Animal control officers and firefighters removed the snake, which had become trapped near a cash register, and Motohashi has been arrested.
Someone in Dodge Center, Minnesota, stole a cement truck and began driving it around town. That someone was an 11-year-old boy, who led the police on an hour-long chase at speeds of up to 115 km/h. When a spike strip popped one of the cement truck's tyres, the young joy-rider continued on the rim, doing damage to gardens and roads until before officers finally forced the truck to a halt. When he tried to flee on foot, the boy was apprehended and taken to the Juvenile Detention Center in Rochester.
The Salem, Massachusetts, police received a report that a sedan had mounted the kerb and hit a sign near a row of pubs and restaurants. Surveillance camera footage shows the two men in the car - Erik Leibowitz, 43, and Juan Rodriguez, 46 - then switching seats. After this, the sedan struck a parked car, was pulled over by the police, and finally reversed into the police car. When the dust had settled after the third collision, both men were arrested. Police Lieutenant Scott Englehardt later said: 'It was the first time in my 31 years that I've seen two people get arrested for drunk driving in the same car.'
According to the Korea Herald, a woman threw the equivalent of about
18,000 euros onto the ground in Seoul Square on Monday, and
no-one picked up any of the money. Numerous witnesses took photos of
the strewn banknotes, however. Passers-by were probably aware that
taking unattended money can be considered theft, but the police report
that the 56-year-old woman had surrendered her right to the cash.
At a nearby police box, she explained that, convinced that her son and
ex-husband were after her money, she'd decided to give it away under
the watchful eye of a private security guard she'd hired.
The police collected the money, and the woman may well try again.
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© 2016 Anna Shefl