Curses, Foiled Again
Andrew James Joffe, 24, called 911 to report that he was lost and being chased by wild hogs in Pasco County, Fla. Deputies who responded located Joffe and then discovered he had an open warrant for driving with a suspended license. While his backpack was being inventoried for safekeeping at the jail, a deputy found a GPS whose “home address” wasn’t Joffe’s. Joffe admitted taking it and other items from a car. “We have had people with warrants call us to turn themselves in before,” Sheriff Grady Judd said, “but it’s unusual for someone with an active warrant, who just burglarized a car, to get lost and call us for help.” (Sarasota’s WWSB-TV)
Drinking-Class Hero
Damon Tobias Exum, 37, hit a police cruiser in Dunwoody, Ga., but kept on driving. The officer gave chase, Sgt. Fidel Espinoza reported, and pulled Exum over. When the officer asked for his license, Exum handed him a beer. DUI was just one of eight misdemeanor charges. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Drinking-Class Zero
Following a night of drinking, Wendy Simpson, 25, walked to a McDonald’s restaurant in West Yorkshire, England, where she was told that the counter was closed and only the drive-through was open but that she couldn’t be served unless she was in a vehicle. She walked home, got her car and drove back to the fast-food outlet. On her way, police observed her driving erratically, ordered her to stop and arrested her after breath tests revealed that she was three times over the legal limit. After admitting that returning for her car was a “foolish decision,” Simpson was banned from driving for 24 months. (Britain’s Daily Mail)
First-Amendment Follies
Seham Jaber told police that a masked man wearing gloves forced his way into her apartment in Albuquerque, N.M., and began punching her in the face while shouting anti-Muslim insults. He then ransacked the home, and when he found the family’s citizenship papers, tore them up in front of her. “The irony is the individual thought the family was Muslim,” Officer Simon Drobik said, “and they’re actually refugees from Iraq who are Catholic” and fled that country because terrorists there attacked them for their religion. (Albuquerque’s KRQE-TV)
Second-Amendment Follies
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Siegried Betterly, 40, shot herself in the leg during a marksmanship competition in Volusia County, Fla. Sheriff’s official Gary Davidson said the 9 mm handgun fired when Betterly was holstering it and accidentally touched the trigger. (Orlando’s WESH-TV)
Waste More, Tax More
The federal government spent more than $3 million to buy eight patrol boats for the Afghan police that were never delivered, according to the U.S Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, because U.S. and NATO forces decided they didn’t need them. Four years later, the boats, which cost taxpayers $325,000 more each than similar boats sold in the United States, remain in storage at a Virginia naval base. (The Washington Post)
Poop Scoop
Police arrested a Seattle woman who tossed cat feces, frozen chicken parts and a green liquid she identified as “a natural drink” from her fifth-floor apartment at participants and spectators for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The “hail of garbage” hit at least two people, said investigators, who reported that the unidentified woman told them “she had worked a long shift and was angry that the runners had woken her from her slumber.” (Seattle Police Department)
Success Breeds Failure
City buses in Saint John, New Brunswick, stopped offering free wireless Internet service to riders after it became so popular that the cost tripled. “There started to be a pattern of abuse develop, especially in the last six to eight months, where we had a lot of people streaming and downloading very extensive files, and the usage got very high,” Frank McCarey, general manager of the Saint John Transit Commission, said, explaining that Wi-Fi costs jumped from $1,000 to $3,000 a month. “You like to offer things, just as long as they’re not too expensive.” (CBC News)
News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to Roland Sweet in care of the Syracuse New Times.
