WEIRDNUZ.512 (News of the Weird, November 28, 1997) by Chuck Shepherd
(With copius amounts of editorial comment that nobody reads.)
LEAD STORIES
* London's Daily Telegraph reported in October that a Catholic Church-supported teaching program for schools in Ireland and Northern Ireland has suggested eliminating references to "daddy" and "mummy" in lesson plans, for fear of confusing or offending kids ages 4 and 5 who are not raised in traditional homes. Suggested alternatives include "the people who look after you."
As in the pimp and the pusher?
* In September, inmate Michael F. Schmitz, 45, serving two years in the Kentucky State Reformatory for drunken driving, filed a $1.9 million lawsuit against the Lexington (Ky.) Police Department complaining that officers were too nice when they arrested him in 1996. According to the lawsuit, when police found a loaded assault rifle in his car and could not figure out how to dismantle it, they uncuffed the obviously inebriated Schmitz and had him take it apart. Schmitz said he "could have shot most everyone standing around watching this escapade" and thus contends that the police endangered the public.
If he want's them tried for stupidity, they'll be in line behind him.
* At a September meeting of Christian Coalition leaders in Atlanta, founder Pat Robertson said the religious group should raise its political intensity by looking to the notorious machine politics of Chicago and New York's Tammany Hall as models and that it would be God who would personally select the Republican best suited to advance the Coalition's agenda in the next Presidential campaign. Robertson had begun his remarks by noting that he assumed he was talking only "in the family" and that if any members of the press were present, would you please shoot yourself?" (The speech was recorded without his permission and leaked to the press.)
GOP: Thanks, but no thanks.
COMPELLING EXPLANATIONS
* Shawn S. Warren, charged with arson in June in Anderson, Ind., denied he actually started a fire in a garage. Instead, according to the town's chief fire investigator, Warren said, "I probably thought about that fire, and it just happened." Said the investigator, "[Warren] did tell me sometimes he thinks about things and they happen."
Been watching too much X-Files.
* Former law student Scott Fruehan, 35, suffered another setback in August as a federal judge in Pittsburgh, Pa., declined to reinstate his lawsuit against Duquesne University. Fruehan had claimed that the only reason he flunked out was that the school had failed to accommodate his disability, which is that if he sits for a long time, his arms and fingers get numb.
Not to mention they probably stink from being sat on so long.
* In July, the California Supreme Court suspended prominent criminal-defense lawyer LeRue Grim, 69, for 2-1/2 years for lying to investigators. Grim admitted visiting an imprisoned-client's wife's trailer home to help prepare for one of the husband's trials and staying overnight rather than driving back to San Francisco. However, he denied having had sex with her, explaining that the wife had climbed into bed with him but that the sex they had was "without [my] consent."
He should have just taken a solicitation rap for "services rendered in lieu of fee".
* Catholic priest Donald Kocher , 61, testifying at a deposition in August in a Chicago-area lawsuit against him and his diocese for sexual abuse of parishioners, admitted that he had had sex with as many as a dozen women over a 20-year period. However, he added, "I've always seen [the affairs] as morally wrong, and I've always tried to bring them to a conclusion as quickly as I could."
Isn't that something like "I'll just put it in a little"?
* Ricky Wassenaar, 34, was convicted of assault and robbery in Tucson, Ariz., in July, after being apprehended in a car after a chase, holding stolen money plus guns, a ski mask, and a bullet-proof vest. Wassenaar, acting as his own attorney, presented the defense that a man named Jim had slipped a date-rape pill into his drink at a bar, dressed him in the vest, and placed him in the car. As for the chase and attempted ramming of an officer on a motorcycle, Wassenaar said he was just trying to get out of the officers' way so they could chase whomever they were after.
Is he bucking for time off his sentence for originality?
* In September in New York City, federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan disregarded sentencing guidelines and sent Orthodox Jew Solomon Sprei to prison for only 18 months for insurance fraud (versus three to four years, as prescribed). Kaplan cited Sprei's three marriageable-age daughters, who by law of his Bobov Hasidim must rely on their father to find husbands for them. Kaplan declared that the happiness of at least two of them would be crucially delayed if Sprei were imprisoned for the recommended time.
He could have looked around while he was in the pokey. Plenty of eligible bachelors there.
POLICE BLOTTER
* Weird Weapons: Frozen chicken legs (woman pelted her boyfriend for carousing, Broward County, Fla., September); moving train (robber rubbed victim's head into it to convince him to give up the money, Orlando, Fla., October); red peppers (Ebensburg, Pa., cook laced the luncheon special of a police officer who had given her one too many parking tickets, July); dildo (one female Pittsburgh student hit another, knocking her unconscious, May).
Rubbed victim's head into a moving train? Talk about rope burn.....
* Incompetent Cops: Loren Qualls's 1994 firing from the Akron, Ohio, police force was upheld by a state appeals court in June. Qualls's main problem was having answered police calls on three occasions in which he had forgotten to bring his weapon. And Reiko, a Great Falls, Mont., police German shepherd, was dismissed from the force in July after the second straight incident in which he responded in a standoff by biting a police officer and not the suspect.
Perhaps German Shepherd fights the hand that beats him?
* Lancaster (Va.) High School marching band director Robert T. Spiers was detained and handcuffed at a parade in Warsaw, Va., in October after he twice ignored Sheriff Gene Sydnor's demand that he speed up his marchers. Sydnor said he was concerned that the gap in front of the Lancaster band was growing so large that people might think the parade was over. Spiers was released about 15 minutes later, and the Lancaster band eventually won first prize.
They were late to the awards ceremony, so the trophy went to the second place band.
* Police Brutality: Newport, Ky., detective Michael Scott was suspended in September for passing gas in the face of a DUI suspect. And Buffalo, N.Y., county jail officer John Walsh was convicted by a federal jury in September of violating the civil rights of inmate Norvin Fowlks in 1991 and 1992. Fowlks accused the 395-pound Walsh of, on separate occasions, holding Fowlks's penis on the floor and on a crossbar of his cell and both times stomping on it with his boot.
Thank you, I'll take methane, Sir!
* According to psychologists at Portsmouth University in England, the two-tone sirens and flashing blue lights of British police cars seriously impair the judgment of officers by the time they arrive at a crime scene. Dr. Aldert Vrij, who led a recent study, told the Daily Telegraph in October that officers subsequently tended to underestimate the danger they face and tended to become sluggish and reluctant to fire their weapons.
Come on. It's just repressed feelings towards daddy and mummy. Oops, I mean the people who look after them.
* In July, Max, a 400-pound western lowland gorilla housed in the Johannesburg (South Africa) Zoo, captured a fleeing burglary suspect, Isaac Mofokeng, 29, who unwisely tried a short-cut through the ape compound. In the process, Mofokeng fired two gunshots, hitting Max in the jaw and shoulder, but he mended quickly. Among Max's subsequent awards: honorary constable of the local police precinct, Newsmaker of the Year by the Johannesburg Press Club, and spokesbeast for Lemombo-brand bananas (fee: a one-year supply).
Spokesbeast? Hey, where is Jeffy, anyway?
Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate. |
