Nevada's Justin Lew Harris summoned his mother to be a witness for his
wedding. When she showed up at the church, she began objecting
loudly to the ceremony. Therefore, the 35-year-old man carried her
out of the church and back to her car. The younger Harris faces
charges of disorderly conduct, possibly battery, and coercion, and
Justice Tom Perkins has asked him to show respect for family
members.
His mother got her wish, as the wedding ended up being called off
anyway, because there were no witnesses.
Benjamin Arthur Jones and brother Alexander William Jones took 15.5
tonnes of scrap metal for recycling in exchange for a little over
$5,000. When the employee at the recycling company asked about the
material, he explained that he had received permission to use a
blowtorch to carve up a bridge in western Pennsylvania for scrap.
He showed the worker digital photos of the bridge in question, and the
worker rang the police.
The brothers face charges of felonious criminal mischief, theft,
receiving stolen property, and conspiracy.
Two women in a Walmart store in Maryland got into an argument, punctuating their disagreement by throwing bleach and another chemical at each other. According to fire officials, these antics resulted in 19 people needing hospital care. The store was evacuated for two hours for a hazardous materials clean-up, and one of the women was arrested.
In court, Dr Joseph Bilotta said: 'In my wildest dreams, I did not expect that at all.' He was referring to delivering Micheatria Donelson's premature baby separately from its head. Lawyers for Donelson contend that Bilotta was negligent in failing to remove the string used to keep her uterus closed before delivery. When Bilotta pulled on the baby, working to free its head, the string cut through the baby's neck.
A man from the Detroit region told the clerk at a petrol station that, although he had been drinking, he'd wanted to do his shopping there so 'I got a designated driver'. Someone rang the police when he got back into his work van with his nine-year-old daughter in the driver's seat. Shortly before 3am, an officer stopped the pair. The incident report stated that the surprised girl's reaction to being pulled over was 'What did you stop me for? I was driving good.' She explained that her father had been drinking whiskey all night and that she had driven for him before.
Lanarkshire's Richard and Kirsty Finlayson have gained rather more
publicity than they might have desired, for acting on their desires
last year. Kirsty, then 17, was homeless and had apparently met
with older brother Richard to borrow money. While waiting for his
train, she suggested going outside Motherwell train station to smoke.
As soon as they entered the lift, he suggested sex, which commenced
within seconds. A worker, seeing the surveillance camera video,
raised the alarm, but the pair were not apprehended until after they'd
returned to the lift for a repeat performance.
Each blames the other: Kirsty says she was drunk, and Richard said
he just 'went along with it'. Both have been convicted of incest and
are on probation. Kirsty must also receive counselling related to
mental health, substance abuse, and employment issues.
In North Carolina, 35-year-old Amy Leigh Brown sent a text message by mistake to police officer P.V. Alkire. He agreed to meet her at a truck stop for a hand-over of the prescription pills she wanted to sell. When he confronted her, she denied sending the text messages and then hit 'delete' several times on her mobile phone. However, Alkire rang the number from which the messages had been sent and Brown's telephone rang. Equally unsurprising is that drugs too were found on her person.
In a similar vein, 61-year-old Judy Weible accidentally rang the mobile phone of a Street Crimes Task Force detective in Hinds County, Mississippi, to arrange a drug deal. The detective thought it was a joke; however, Weible persisted, sending several text messages in hopes of being taken seriously. Officers obliged, and a rendezvous and arrest were arranged.
A self-proclaimed psychic apparently couldn't see the future of an
idea she'd come up with for making some money on the side. California's
Jackeline Lopez proclaimed a 12-year-old friend of her daughter to be
cursed. She told the girl that the curse could be lifted in a ritual
using bracelets, watches, etc.
The girl brought some of her parents' jewellery to Lopez's garage
so that, in a ritual, she could place it in a 'little black cauldron
and mix that with beads and paper and do a form of chant', according
to Robbie Royster, of the Palmdale Sheriff's Department. At the end
of the ceremony, Lopez said that the girl apparently hadn't brought
enough.
Over the course of a month and several rituals, the girl gave about
$10,000 of her parents' jewellery to Lopez, who has now been arrested.
Don't leave photos on your phone that document your crimes. That is a lesson that may have been learnt by a 28-year-old Swiss motorist who was being questioned in connection with another case when officers came across photos of the speedometer of his car. The man had recorded himself travelling at 320 km/h, about three times the speed limit. In addition to the phone's timestamp on the photos, officers were able to pin down the offence thanks to photos showing the road in question.
After someone broke into his home for the second time, making off with $300 and various items, a man in Anoka County, Minnesota, made sure he had a surveillance camera ready. The third break-in revealed the miscreant to be neighbour Amanda Rose Owens, who had entered via a dog door. The 18-year-old Owens admitted that she was stealing items to fence in order to feed her habit: an addiction to porn. This particular break-in was to finance a purchase of 20-30 pornographic DVDs.
A man in a Spider-man mask demanded money from clerks at a corner shop in North Carolina. His sword did not deter the cashier from poking him in the belly with a broom. At the end of the ensuing struggle, Spider-man had no mask and no superpowers. He had also lost part of his ponytail. Spider-man's alter-ego Dale Foughty, 56, was found in a nearby home and arrested.
A werewolf chased a man through the campus of Arkansas's Hendrix
college. Perhaps not, but that's what James Anderson, Jr, reports. He
claimed that after a 'strange red light' in the local Walmart caused
smoke to pour from his body and forced him to 'tell the truth and be
full of energy', he ran out and was confronted by a 'large beast',
which told him to 'get rid of the odor'. Anderson said that, because
he wasn't sure what the werewolf meant, he took off running, with the
creature in pursuit. Campus public safety officers saw Anderson
running at full speed so rang the police.
Anderson worked out that the werewolf may have been talking about
body odour, so he kicked in the door of an apartment building, where he
stripped naked, entered one of the flats, and threw his clothes into a
dryer with those of the resident, pouring a couple litres of bleach in with
them. He put on another set of clothes, then tried to scare off the
werewolf by setting the bleached items on fire. It didn't work, so
Anderson jumped from a balcony.
The police caught up with him at this point and calmed him down by
explaining that the handcuffs were made of silver and therefore
would protect him from the werewolf. Anderson was arrested on charges
of residential burglary, first-degree criminal mischief, and 'drunk
insane'.
A gap opened while actors were walking between two high platforms on a
film set in Toronto. The scene was grim, with emergency medical
services commander David Ralph saying: 'I could see the look on the
first paramedic, saying "Oh my God".' Although 12 actors, covered in
blood and gore, needed hospital attention, appearances were deceiving:
they were in make-up as zombies, for the latest in the Resident
Evil zombie movie franchise. Seven of the injured undead were back at work
a few hours later.
Police Sergeant Andrew Gibson said it 'did kind of catch us
off-guard when we walked in'.
A Georgia woman's handbag and mobile phone were stolen from her unlocked car. A short time later, one of her friends contacted her to ask about the 'strange man's picture' on her Facebook 'wall'. She recognised the image as that of a gold-toothed man she had seen near her car before the theft. Speaking for the Henry County police, Major Jason Bolton said: 'What we believe occurred is that this person [...] was attempting to place a photo of himself on his Facebook page, but the phone was set up to upload to hers.'
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© 2011 Anna Shefl