Articles Posted in Odd Cases

Hey, I’ll bet if clown intruders infiltrated your house, you’d try to blast them with your shotgun too. Shot-up stuff can be fixed or replaced. But if the clowns get you, it’s curtains. As reported by the Hudson Star-Observer, a Roberts,Wisconsin man was not about to take any chances …

St. Croix County Sheriff Dennis Hillstead said the man was apparently suffering from some kind of hallucination when the incident took place at 3:56 a.m. Friday (July 9) at the home of the man’s parents where he resided.

“Deputies got a report that a number of rounds had been fired within the home,” Hillstead said. “More shots were fired when the deputies arrived and he apparently fired a shot at his parents as they fled in a vehicle.” The shots hit the windshield.

The man came out of the house carrying a shotgun, with a bag of shells over his shoulder and yelling at persons unknown, the sheriff said. The man was taken in to custody without incident and has been placed in emergency detention.

The man told investigators that he felt a number of men dressed in clown suits were attempting to invade the house, Hillstead said. The home was severely damaged during the shoot-up.

You’re never going to get rich robbing convenience stores, especially this way. In hindsight, it’s funny. In all other sights, it’s just dumb. Risking getting killed for what’s in a 7-Eleven till? Here’s the skinny, from the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The 20-something suspect entered the 7-Eleven on Gateway Drive near Home Avenue in the San Diego community of Webster about 4:30 p.m., pointed a gun at the woman staffing the cash register and demanded money, police said. But the clerk indicated to the suspect that she could not understand his demand and refused to hand over any money, according to police.

The would-be robber exited the building and drove away in a late-model green Ford sedan. A detailed description was not available.

When is a $15,000 cockatoo not worth $15,000 (12,000 euros)? When it doesn’t fly right, of course. And how would a judge make that call? By watching it fly, naturally. Per The Scotsman:

A cockatoo has been made to fly in front of an Austrian judge to try to identify whether it is lopsided in flight and, therefore, not worth the €12,000 (£9,943) its owner paid for it.

The Danish owner is claiming that the bird cannot fly properly because of chronic gout and is demanding his money back from the Austrian seller through the courts.

The owner told the court: “When the cockatoo flies around all crooked, it’s worthless.”

The cockatoo took its test flight in a hall in front of the judge and a vet.

Exciting stuff no? So does the bird fly right? Not so fast…

A report on the bird’s health is expected to be produced in three to four months.

Damn you slow wheels of justice!

Lots of people have a cup of coffee before work. Some weed before work? Not so many. Among those that do so indulge, at least on the day in question, is Mr. Brock Hopkins. Based on the title of the post, you can probably see where this is going. Dude gets high. Dude gets mauled by bear. Dude’s employer blames the weed (and also says Dude was a “volunteer” not an employee.)(And yes, dude, The Juice did recently see “The Big Liebowski”). On that last bit, said Mr. Kilpatrick, the owner of Great Bear Adventures [or misadventures] Park, per the AP,

Kilpatrick and the co-defendant in the case, the Uninsured Employers’ Fund, contended that Hopkins should not be eligible for workers’ compensation for those injuries because he was a volunteer acting outside of his duties and was not a paid employee.

Kilpatrick acknowledged giving money to Hopkins but it was given randomly and “out of my heart,” the owner told the court.

Interesting. So what did Judge James Jeremiah Shea of the Montana Workers’ Compensation Court have to say about that?

Shea ruled that Hopkins was a regularly paid employee and Kilpatrick’s claims were not credible.

“There is a term of art used to describe the regular exchange of money for favors — it is called ’employment,'” the judge wrote.

Snap! What about the weed?

Hopkins acknowledged smoking marijuana before arriving at work that day, the judge said. Hopkins worked on the park’s gate for about two hours, then prepared food for the bears.

Uh-oh.

After he stepped inside the bears’ pen with a bucket of food, one of the grizzly bears attacked him. Hopkins fled, managing to escape by crawling under an electrified fence. He suffered severe injuries to his leg and had to be hospitalized, according to the court.

The weed! The weed! What about the weed?

“I cannot conclude based on the evidence before me that the major contributing cause of the grizzly bear attack was anything other than the grizzly,” the judge wrote. “It is not as if this attack occurred when Hopkins inexplicably wandered into the grizzly pen while searching for the nearest White Castle. Hopkins was attacked while performing a job Kilpatrick had paid him to do — feeding grizzly bears.”

Bam! Eligible for workers’ compensation. Next case!

How could a 55-year-old man get arrested for playing on a trampoline? Here’s how, as reported by stv.tv.

As [his neighbor] looked out of her window, she saw James Burden stark naked with a cigarette in one hand and his genitals in the other. Falkirk Sheriff Court heard the gobsmacked victim told police that 55-year-old Burden was “as bold as brass …and purposeful”.

“gobsmacked” … nice

Mike McMahon, prosecuting, said that the woman, who lives in a block of four flats in Falkirk’s Westquarter, had got up to go to her bathroom as 5.14am on March 25 this year.

As she passed her kitchen window, she saw Burden – her upstairs neighbour – in the back garden. She then saw Burden approach the back door of the block of flats.

The woman rushed into her living room and called police. Mr McMahon said: “He told police he had gone out to the trampoline and had masturbated himself there.”

Zoinks! If you’re wondering “why?” …

… Burden told officers: “Just for the thrill of it.” He added: “I did not intend anyone to see me.”

Burden, of Yew Terrace, Westquarter, pled guilty to publicly exposing his person in a shameless and indecent manner, and approaching his neighbour’s house and placing the occupant in a state of fear and alarm.

The time?

Sheriff Craig Caldwell deferred sentence until next month for reports.

There’s probably not a lot of precedent for this particular crime.

So this young lady (19 years old) in Georgia was busted for passing a stopped school bus. She claims she didn’t see it because her view was blocked by 2 trucks. The judge didn’t buy it, and, per the Atlanta Journal Constitution, sentenced her to …

..write 2,500 times, “I will not dishonor myself by passing a school bus.”

Nancy Nguyen was ordered to write that sentence and pay a $350 fine, perform community service and take a defensive driving course for passing a stopped school bus in Forest Park in March.

So what’s the problem? She won’t write the sentence.

Nguyen refused to write the sentences because, she said, she didn’t intentionally pass the stopped bus; two tractor-trailer trucks blocked her view, she said. She said she would go to jail rather than write the sentences because she did not feel she had dishonored herself.

“I’m not going to demean myself and be demeaned by other people,” Nguyen told WSB-TV last week.

The Juice is without sufficient information to comment on the merits of her decision. This much is clear, though – she’s got guts.

(Prepare to hit “pause” if you want to read these.)

Times are tough. Some folks can’t even pay their electric bill. Reuters reports the case of man who went about getting his juice in an unusual and very dangerous way.

The 36-year old man from Sibbesse in Lower Saxony concocted the plan to steal electricity after the power company cut him off for failure to pay his bills, police said.

How did he steal the juice?

The man attached a cable to the meat hook and tossed it onto an overhead power line. He then drew power from the transmission line to his home, located about 150 meters away.

Yikes.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 34-year-career,” said Friedrich-Wilhelm Lach, chief executive of regional utility Ueberlandwerke Leinetal GmbH, told Reuters. “It’s incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid.”

Yes sir. These streakers were in for a real surprise when they ran into a police officer while streaking through a neighborhood in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And they got what was coming to them, which was … nothing! As it should have been with this truly victimless crime. Per The Union Leader:

In a scene reminiscent of Will Ferrell’s run through the neighborhood au naturel in the movie “Old School,” a Greenland police officer working a construction detail on Bartlett Street early Monday morning got a surprise when a naked woman ran by him.

Portsmouth police responded around 3:30 a.m., and found a man also out and about without any clothes on. The pair said they were playing strip poker with friends and, as part of losing, had to run around the block in the buff.

When police brought the two back to retrieve their clothes, they found two other people in various stages of undress. The streakers got off with a warning.

Sanity! Here’s the source.

Lots of folks take their gaming seriously. But this? From the Colorado Springs Police Blotter:

May 6, 2010, Time: 5:04:00 PM, Title: Assault

Officers were dispatched to Astrozon and Powers for a disturbance with a bat and a gun. When Officer Paladino arrived on scene the suspect, James Williams, ran at his cruiser and jumped on the hood.

Hello Officer!

When [Williams] jumped off he was tased by Officer Paladino.

Hello Mr. Williams.

The investigation showed Williams had gone after several people in the mobile home park with a bat, bit his mother on the ankle, intentionally rammed several cars, hit a pedestrian and a tree. He was followed from the scene by victims and confronted at Astrozon and Powers. Williams got out of his car and using a BB gun broke out the rear window of a vehicle.

Dude was busy. What about the Wii?

The disturbance started over a Wii game.

Doh!