Jason Cantrell's actions in a New Orleans court upset his wife, who is running for a City Council position: The 43-year-old Cantrell, assistant city attorney, bent over too far. This caused a marijuana cigarette to tumble from his pocket and onto the floor, in front of police officers. Cantrell has been suspended without pay while an investigation is conducted into the presence of the joint.
When a rental tenant arrived to clean Andrea Villareal's condominium
property after moving out, she noticed that even the bathroom sink and
the safe laid into the floor had been removed. Villareal joined her
in looking around after summoning the police. It was not long before the
two women spotted a familiar refrigerator, sink, and microwave oven at
a neighbouring property. The residents initially told Villareal that they
didn't know how her things got there, but they later said they had been
'trying to help her' by taking care of the items after two men
claiming to be movers broke into Villareal's condo.
Villareal agreed not to press charges in exchange for the neighbours
putting her things back where they found them and paying for the damage.
In American Samoa, corrections officers Fiti Aina and Rocky Tua
entered the spotlight in the wake of an inmate's escape. In the
investigation, beer apparently purchased at a local shop was found in
the escaped inmate's cell. One inmate then told investigators of being
allowed to buy beer for another inmate while picking up snacks for
Tua. A man serving 40 months for assaulting someone with a machete
was another who went on a similar beer and food run.
The two officers are charged with aiding the escape of a prisoner,
permitting escape, and acceding to corruption as public servants.
A man in Tuolumne County, California, was tired of his neighbours
playing loud gospel music for up to to 12 hours straight, so he
decided to get 'just a little pay-back' before moving away. He
placed his large-screen television set on his porch and cranked up the
volume on some porn films.
After a few days, the neighbours decided to get their own pay-back
by sending a recording of the porn-playing to the Twaine Harte police.
No charges have been filed against either party for transmission of
indecent material.
An intoxicated Canadian man fell asleep while smoking near his
trailer-park home in Kamloops, British Columbia. He woke up when
his clothes caught on fire. Shortly thereafter, RCMP sergeant Grant Learned says,
witnesses called in a report of a brush fire and a man fleeing the
scene by bicycle. Officers heading to the fire soon heard another
call: a man with serious burns had been hit by a train nearby.
The 51-year-old man may be in trouble at least for stealing the
bicycle and for an earlier assault on a local bus driver.
Another approach to alcohol-induced actions was taken by Britain's Steve
Perkins, a senior broker with PVM Oil Futures. A Financial Services Authority
investigation reveals that he woke up one morning in 2009 to an
administrative clerk at the company asking him why he'd bought seven
million barrels of crude oil overnight - between 1:22 and 3:41am, he
had gradually purchased 69% of the global oil futures market, for about
350 million euros. He had no recollection of doing so but admitted
that he has a drinking problem and sometimes suffers blackouts.
PVM's losses ran into the millions, while Perkins was fined about
80,000 EUR and had his trading licence revoked for five years. The
FSA noted that Perkins 'poses an extreme risk to the market when
drunk'.
A contractor cleaning up the foreclosed home of former mortuary-owner
Scherrie McLin recently found 56 boxes of cremated people in a closet.
At least some of the remains, dating back as far as 1982, had been
withheld from people who hadn't paid their funeral bills. In one
case, the revelation settled a long-standing family argument about who
had a particular relative's remains.
It appears that the remains had been moved into the home after McLin
lost her licence for holding a body to ransom.
Meanwhile, undertaker Grahame Lawler has pleaded guilty before
Cambridge Magistrates' Court for stealing from the recently departed.
He had arrived to remove a dead 78-year-old woman from her house and
promptly convinced the police officer there to take some papers to his
colleague outside the room. Alone with the body, Lawler swiped the
deceased's purse, which contained 200 pounds in notes and some
credit cards. When the police officer noticed that the small bag had
gone missing, there weren't many suspects. Lawler was found at the
mortuary, and the purse was found up his sleeve.
Facing jail time, the 37-year-old Lawler explained the theft as a
'way out' from the 'very vile, nasty and horrible things' he'd seen at
work.
He Zhihua didn't want to relocate to make room for a bypass in Lianhua
City, in China's Hunan province, so he lay down in front of a
steamroller in the presence of vice-mayor Ling Yun. Witnesses state
that Ling replied: 'If this expressway is to be finished, a few people need
to die. Killing you will yield monetary compensation.' Then the
steamroller flattened He. The next day, amid clashes between
construction contractors and residents, several hundred public security
officers arrived to collect He's corpse, confiscate villagers' camera
phones, and put down the unrest. The dead man's daughter, 13-year-old
He An, threw herself into the river but was rescued.
Changsha Municipal Government now explains that He's death was an
'unpredictable accident', adding that the family have been offered
some compensation anyway.
In New Zealand, the head of Auckland's district health board, Alisa Claire, is managing an investigation into a possible breach of privacy. It had been leaked to the media that a man showed up at the Auckland City Hospital for x-rays and a scan related to a foreign item in his rectum. Hospital sources told reporters that the eel was successfully removed.
Aberdeen's William Middleton, 53, didn't have his privacy protected
when something ended up where it shouldn't. He explains that he
accidentally dropped his hat into a city-centre litter bin. When
trying to retrieve it, he got his head stuck in the bin, where it
remained for 20 minutes as onlookers looked on.
One woman said: 'I [...] saw his walking stick on the ground and his
bum sticking out and said "that's Willie".' She and her friends
couldn't pull him out, so the job fell to professionals with cutting
equipment.
Dusseldorf shopkeeper Mehdi Eghbali told police that a pair of masked and armed robbers tried unsuccessfully to open a till at his burger bar. As an alarm sounded, they grabbed what they could and left. The haul was as follows, according to Eghbali: 'There was 20 cents in the [charity] piggy bank, and the [two] chocolate bars cost 1.20 euros each.'
Reuters reports that 18-year-old Gaby Scanlon was rushed to a
Lancaster hospital when she began complaining of gastric pains and
breathlessness during a night out with friends. Doctors removed her
stomach, which had become perforated. She had been served a cocktail
made with liquid nitrogen.
According to police, the bar responsible for the concoction has
now stopped serving all liquid-nitrogen drinks.
A UPI report states that farting led to tragedy in Warrensville Heights, Ohio. Witnesses reportedly told the police that Shaakira Dorsey teased another 16-year-old girl about flatulence. The two girls' ensuing fight culminated in Dorsey's death; her step-father intervened too late to save her. The surviving girl has been charged with murder.
Katie Hopkins was eating at Kentucky's Red Flower Chinese Restaurant
when she saw two members of staff wheel a rubbish bin through the eating
area and into the kitchen. She recalls: 'Hanging out of the garbage
can - they were trying to be real quick with it so that nobody could
see it - [...] was like a tail, and a foot and leg.' A trail of
blood was left behind. Hopkins rang the health department, whereupon
inspector Paul Lawson found a roadkill deer in the kitchen. While the
restaurant-owner said that the deer was for only his family, Lawson
indicated concern that the staff 'didn't know they weren't allowed to'
prepare the deer at the restaurant.
The Red Flower will be allowed to reopen, without facing a fine, if
it passes a follow-up health inspection.
Carme Cristina Lima was running for the city council of Itacoatiara, in Amazonas, Brazil, and wanted some additional votes. Police became suspicious when seeing a crowd gather around her car on the morning of election day. Officers searched the car, which allegedly contained hundreds of election leaflets telling people how to vote for Lima - with a packet of cocaine attached to each. The 32-year-old woman has been arrested for electoral corruption and drug dealing.
A 32-year-old unemployed man was stopped at Turin's Caselle airport
for getting an unauthorised ride, in the cockpit of a Lufthansa
aeroplane. When confronted, he led police to a garage containing
piles of pressed white shirts with epaulets, black trousers, and
jackets akin to those worn by pilots.
Turin police spokesman Filippo Vanni said: 'He's so good that with
his fake uniform, fake degrees, and fake badge, he tricked a lot of
people into believing he really was a pilot, and also some crew members
bought it.'
Flying as the third pilot, the man never touched the controls.
According to Vanni, he simply 'tried to create a new life for himself,
where he could [...] access a whole new social setting'. He may be
charged with security offences and 'usurping a title'.
A man rang the Orem, Utah, police to report that he had just received a call from his home phone on his mobile. He hoped officers would catch the intruder, who hadn't engaged in taunts or threats, merely making banging and scratching noises on the line. Officers found nothing amiss at the man's home. The case was later solved when the man told officers that his dog must have hit the re-dial button in the course of burying the cordless-telephone receiver in the back garden.
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© 2012 Anna Shefl