Articles Posted in Best Of

The dumb part? Getting so drunk that he passed out. The lucky part? That he passed out on train tracks. Yes, that is the “lucky” part because this youngster crashed in between the tracks. So when the train ran over him, per The Des Moines Register:

Two railroad engineers for Iowa Interstate Railroad said they saw 17-year-old Christian Latshaw on the railroad tracks as they were moving east and crossing a Des Moines River bridge to East First Street south of Court Avenue about 10:45 p.m., according to a Des Moines police report.

When the engineers, David Good Jr. and John Knutson, realized a person was in front of the train, they applied the emergency brake, but the engine and first car still went over the top of Latshaw before the train stopped.

Latshaw told officers he had been drinking at the 80/35 Music Festival, about a mile away, then blacked out and woke up on the tracks.

Officers said Latshaw had bloodshot, watery eyes and smelled of alcohol. He was taken to Mercy Medical Center for treatment of two lacerations on the back of his head and a bruise on his right thigh.

The charges?

Latshaw was arrested and received a delayed referral to juvenile court on trespassing and public intoxication charges, according to the police report.

Like most cities, Portland has some weird laws still on the books. As reported in the
The Oregonian:

… Then there are the head-scratchers. Publicly scraping clean the skeleton of one’s beloved in a cemetery is a criminal act. Chain letters are strictly prohibited. In city parks, it’s illegal to climb a tree, sit on a vase or lie upon a picnic table. Sailors fleeing a burning ship may, but are not required to, sound a horn or whistle in blasts of four to six seconds, no more or less. Teens might be breaking the law if they cruise down certain busy streets more than twice in a night.

You can read more (a fair amount) here.

Except for Rich Sanchez (see video above), nobody wants to get tased. But how far would you go to avoid it? Hopefully there is not another soul out there who would go to this length. As reported by The Macomb Daily:

A judge in Mount Clemens has sentenced a father to a year in jail and parenting classes after he used his 2-year-old daughter as a shield during a confrontation with a Taser-wielding police officer.

27-year-old Joseph Cox of Belleville … pleaded no contest to misdemeanor child abuse and guilty to home invasion and obstructing an officer.

He was accused in March of breaking into his ex-wife’s Warren home. The child was held in front of a Taser pointed at Cox by an officer. The officer didn’t fire.

Clearly, Mr. Cox is no Rick Sanchez.

—————————————————————————————————————————-
Here’s a tasering you probably remember …

When you gotta go, you gotta go, right? No. No. No. No. No. Especially “no” if your “target” is … the police station! What, you don’t believe The Juice? Do you believe The Detroit Free Press?

… in Royal Oak … at 4:39 p.m. Monday — in broad daylight on a weekday afternoon — [a man] was seen by several witnesses urinating on the side of the Royal Oak police station, according to Lt. Gordon Young. It gets better.

“After urinating, the suspect entered the station in an attempt to file a police report on an undisclosed matter,” Young said today.

But witnesses had quickly informed the police at the front desk, Deputy City Attorney Mark Liss said. The man was issued a citation, and likely will serve no jail time but pay a fine and court costs of $250; the maximum would have been $500 and up to 90 days in jail for public urination, Liss said today.

Wow. Click here for the source.

If you need a reminder of just how different cultures (and their customs and laws) can be, this ought to do it. As reported by The Times of India:

The incident took place in the tribal dominated Masinda village in Debagarh’s Barkote police station area. It houses more than 40 tribal families. Surrounded by thick forests, the village is cut off from main land because of poor communication. The victim, identified as Mani Hanaga (50) became the lone bread earner of the family after her husband Sibio Hanaga became invalid last year.

“She had sown paddy seeds in her filed last month. But in tribal community, sowing seeds is considered a sin for women. It is against their custom. So they warned her and imposed a fine on her as they felt her act could displease the village deity. They asked her to pay Rs.10,000 along with a goat and 10 chickens to appease the village deity,” a social activist from Barkote Surendra Guru said on Thursday.

A deity who is appeased by cash?

Guru, who visited the village after the incident, informed that the village body outcast her whole family after she refused to obey their direction. “When women take part in farming everywhere, why should I be stopped from sowing the seeds?”, she asked.

Meanwhile, the district collector has taken the matter seriously. He has asked officials to look into the matter and submit a report for further action. “The incident has come to my notice and I have asked the local BDO to prepare a report on the issue. I will take action once I receive the report,” Deogarh collector B B Jena said on Thursday.

You go Mr. Jena. Here’s the source.

The Juice is a believer in some old-fashioned notions, like men holding the elevator door open for women. Too bad a fellow in Boston, Mohammed Warsame, is not like-minded. Here’s why, as reported by The Boston Herald:

A Roxbury man was slopped with a plate of pasta, punched, kicked, spit on and beaten with handbags by two women who told investigators they needed to “teach him a lesson” for not holding an elevator door for them, police said.

Holy crap!

When Boston police arrived at 1050 Tremont St. late Saturday night to break up the lift tiff, they said they found noodles dripping off the back of Mohammed Warsame.

Kenyana McQuay, 27, and Waltia Funches, 28, told officers Warsame “was rude to them” because he didn’t hold the elevator door open as they walked into the building, and so “they had to use their fists, their bags and their feet to teach him a lesson.”

Warsame said he threw water bottles at the two women to try and fend them off.

Certainly etiquette sticklers like these ladies would treat the police with respect, right? Wrong.

Police, who described McQuay and Funches as “extremely agitated,” “uncooperative” and “verbally abusive toward officers,” summonsed both women to Roxbury District Court on assault and battery charges.

Here’s the source.

So says Green Tree [Pennsylvania] Council President Mark Sampogna. As reported in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Green Tree officials said they will not pursue any disciplinary action against police Chief Andrew Lisiecki for his conduct while on prostitution detail last month.

In the letter to Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper and the Allegheny County Chiefs of Police Association, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said the Pennsylvania court determined that it is not necessarily inappropriate for police officers to take off their clothes during such investigations.

Media reports and a criminal complaint revealed that the chief allegedly took off his clothes during an undercover investigation during a sting operation on Sept. 9 at the Radisson Green Tree.

Oh the humanity! The poor man had to get naked in bed with a woman! We already know who to blame for this.

“The fact is that the prostitutes are extremely aware of the laws and know precisely how to avoid arrest” [said Mr. Sampogna].

“What is required for an arrest and conviction is an overt act that unfortunately may require the officer to disrobe. As distasteful as this may seem, the judicial system has created these levels of proof,” he said.

What’s distasteful is the imposition of one’s morals on others. (Yes, of course it should be regulated, for everyone’s protection.) But hey, it’s the law. So violate it at your peril. The more relevant law though? The law of supply and demand. Here’s the source.

Everyone – okay almost everyone – knows that Chinese food comes in those little cardboard containers with the little wire handle. So what was Mr. Edward Ridley of Cordele, Georgia thinking when he tried to smuggle some pot to an inmate in Chinese food in a styrofoam container? Needless to say, the guards were suspicious. As reported by the Dothan Eagle (Alabama):

Court records show deputies arrested Edward Ridley, 41, of Cordele, Ga., and charged him Saturday with felony promoting prison contraband. Records show Ridley apparently entered the Pike County Jail with a styrofoam container with Chinese food inside, including rice and shrimp, for inmate Vincent Thomas. A jailer at the facility used a fork to search the food and found a bag of marijuana.

Things went south from there.

If convicted of the class C felony charge, promoting prison contraband, Ridley faces one to 10 years in prison. He was being held in the Pike County Jail on a $7,500 bond.

Doh!