According to Pennsylvania's York Dispatch, 22-year-old Larry Sanderson II was leaving the York Rescue Mission building when a man accosted him and ordered him to empty his pockets. Sanderson replied 'You don't even have a gun' so the man showed him the handle of a revolver tucked into his waistband. Sanderson promptly handed over his wallet, mobile phone, mp3 player, cigarettes, and lighter. The robber asked him 'Is that all you have?' and Sanderson explained that he lives at the homeless shelter. The robber replied 'I can respect that' and returned the items, then walked away, police said.
A 32-year-old McDonald's franchise manager in Brazil recently told a court in Porto Alegre that the use of surprise quality-test visits by 'mystery clients' had pressured him to sample the food each day. He argued that this, coupled with the free lunches given to employees, led him to gain 30 kilos in the 12 years he'd worked at McDonald's. The court, presided over by Judge João Ghisleni Filho, awarded him $17,500.
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, detective Donald Gmitter said that a 21-year-old man rang the emergency services to complain that the marijuana he had recently purchased was 'nasty' when smoked. Gmitter said that the substance turned out not to be marijuana. The man might be charged with possessing a counterfeit controlled substance.
According to the AFP, a 25-year-old man from Queensland,
Australia, got into an argument with a 21-year-old friend and then
decided to let him tattoo his back. During the procedure, another man
reported that the yin-and-yang symbol with dragons was looking 'really
good'. When it was finished, the tattooee was told to wait until the
skin had recovered before showing the ink job to anyone, but he went
straight home and showed it to the person he lived with. According to
Detective Constable Paul Malcolm, she said: 'I don't think it's the
tattoo you were looking for' - he had been given a 40-centimetre penis
and a misspelt comment about his sexuality.
The tattoo-provider faces charges of assault and possibly of
breaching public safety, since he was not a professional tattoo artist.
In other tattoo-related news, Florida's 19-year-old Joseph Williams liked to steal iPhones from AT&T stores by detaching the cables that tied the units to the display. Perhaps this was not the subtlest of approaches, given that he had tattooed the words 'I'm Me' on his face and his physiognomy also bore a money bag and teardrop. Several witnesses' descriptions and camera footage helped to link him to several iPhone thefts.
Police near Canada's London, Ontario, received a complaint about a distracted motorist - that is, the car had its interior light on and 'the driver was reading a book'. According to Constable Aaron McPhail, the car was found roughly following the centre line of Canada's busiest highway and the driver could be seen looking down. The 24-year-old man is being charged with careless driving.
Also in Canada, the manager of a block of flats in Victoria rang the
police to report a tenant 'going crazy' and banging on the walls.
Officers arriving on the scene found that two brothers, aged 17 and 22,
had argued about food: the younger man had cooked supper, and
his elder brother had grabbed the larger steak. The teenager had
responded to the perceived injustice by smashing things - including a
computer monitor and drywall - with an ice-hockey stick and retreating
into the bathroom with a toaster.
The younger man was evaluated at a hospital and then returned home,
where he promised to 'go straight to bed', according to the police.
No charges are expected.
In other rental accommodation, Mitchell Marsicano, 55, gave his dog
Snowball to tenants in the upstairs flat in the building he owned in
Long Island, but he then wanted to see the animal later. The tenants
contacted the police after walking in on Marsicano apparently sexually
abusing the 10-kilo dog in their flat.
Snowball has been taken to an animal shelter, and Marsicano has been
charged with sexual misconduct, attempted sexual misconduct, and
burglary. He faces up to 16 years in prison.
According to the Daily Telegraph, a plane crash that killed 20 people
on board a small aeroplane in the Democratic Republic of Congo was
caused by a crocodile being smuggled by a passenger. The lone
survivor of the crash told officials that the animal had escaped from a
sports bag as the plane began its descent to Bandundu. As it crawled
down the aisle, '[t]he terrified air hostess hurried towards the
cockpit, followed by the passengers,' according to a report. As a
result, the craft was thrown off balance and crashed into a vacant
house 100 metres from the flight's destination.
The crocodile survived this but was later killed by rescuers sifting
through the wreckage.
A four-year-old boy in Kitsap County, Washington, placed a shell in
a shotgun that was on a bed in his parents' bedroom and, firing
without lifting the weapon, pulled the trigger. The bullet
hit his mother, who was on the telephone at the time, and sent her to
hospital. The Seattle Times reports that police say the father is
'kicking himself from here to next week' for giving the boy the live
shell in response to his curiosity about firearms and how they work,
and he said that he didn't realise that the boy still had the shell.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Scott Wilson said that no arrests are
expected although negligence cannot be ruled out.
The same newspaper reports on Faribah Maradiaga, who didn't like a video that she was required to watch as part of a group anger management class. When another woman told her to 'give it a chance', Maradiaga responded with a heated reply and eventually with a knife. She stabbed the other woman several times in the arm and shoulder. Maradiaga, who is charged with second-degree assault, reportedly told the police that 'the other woman started it'.
In another story from Washington, a fire engine belonging to the Spokane Fire Department rolled into a home under its own power during an aid call. Parked about 100 metres from the home, the vehicle built up speed and crashed into the home, knocking down porch supports and putting a hole in a wall. Investigators are still trying to determine the mechanism by which the fire truck travelled down the street, mounted a kerb, and entered the home.
James Capell's trial for domestic violence and felonious assault ended early. The jury, in Cincinnati, heard that an anonymous 911 call had been made to report the relevant beating. At this point, juror Majah Johnson-Riddle shouted out that it was she who had placed the call, after she'd awakened to see a female neighbour being attacked. The judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors plan to call Johnson-Riddle as a witness in the new trial.
John Myers, on holiday in Wisconsin, had his bag stolen while posing with his family for a self-timer tourist photo in front of the state's capitol building. When he noticed that the bag was gone, Myers checked his camera and saw that the background of the photo showed a man picking up the bag. The police recognised the man in the image as Glenn Lambright and tracked him down. He was handed a $500 fine and five days in jail.
In Ohio, 24-year-old January Newport was arrested and jailed for stealing a computer from a Walmart store. The next day, nurses were preparing this heavily pregnant inmate for a Caesarean section when they found some unexpected guests: 15 anxiety pills hidden in her vagina. Newport has pleaded guilty to both theft and the illegal conveyance of drugs of abuse.
Sarah Glidden is a 15-year-old high-school student who was involved in a collision. At a cross-country track meet, she was about 100 metres from the end of a race when a deer entered her path at high speed on its way out of nearby woods. She was turned around by the impact but suffered only a bruised leg.
Police in Berkeley, California, have arrested a 29-year-old man who, they say, disguised himself as a towel-clad dark-sunglasses-wearing woman in order to enter a university locker room, where he then took photographs of more authentic women. The man, Gregorio Hernandez, got away with this the first time, but he returned a couple of days later, this time calling further attention to himself by wearing an obvious wig. He was arrested after he left the locker room.
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© 2010 Anna Shefl