WEIRDNUZ.509 (News of the Weird, November 7, 1997) by Chuck Shepherd
(Editorial comment added, like it or not. <g>)
LEAD STORIES
* In September in Columbus, Ohio, Peter "Commander Pedro" Langan was convicted of federal assault and gun charges for a 1996 shootout with police. Langan also has been convicted of two bank robberies and faces trial in four others as leader of a neo-Nazi, white-supremacist gang that used the robberies to fund its activities. At his September trial, to show Langan's kinder, gentler side, his lawyer brought in a man and a woman to describe their romances with him. Both witnesses were pre-operation transsexuals; around the time of the robberies, Langan was dating both while dressing exclusively as a woman. The lovers were known as Langan's "business partners" because neo-Nazis are not known to be fond of such sexual lifestyles.
With friends like that....
* During the summer, recent philosophy PhD graduate Stephen Hare hung out a shingle to practice his trade in Ottawa. Hare charges clients around $50 [Cdn] an hour to help them work through personal and professional problems, largely ignoring the psychotherapy wisdom of Freud and Jung in favor of the rigorous thought of Aristotle and Socrates. Said Hare, "I just help people distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning."
What? A PhD practicing practical? He'll give 'em all a bad name!
* Wired magazine reported in its October issue that Jason Gorski, 39, periodically stages concerts in San Francisco-area parks with surplus, diesel-powered Coast Guard foghorns that yield a "stomach-clenching" 140 decibels of sound, thus enraging the neighbors. Because of the overpowering noise, Gorski is forced to wear head-to-toe, sound-insulating protective clothing. Local police have been dismayed to learn that Gorski does not need a permit for his concerts because technically, he plays "acoustic."
NOT MY FAULT
* Wendell Williamson filed a lawsuit in June in Hillsborough, N.C., against his former psychiatrist, Dr. Myron Liptzin, blaming him for the 1995 shooting rampage in Chapel Hill, N.C., in which Williamson killed two people and for which he is now housed in a state mental hospital. Williamson claims he was impelled to the rampage because Liptzin had just retired, leaving Williamson without counseling.
* Joe Murphy of Janesville, Wis., complained to reporters in August that he had just gambled away his lump-sum $40,000 Social Security disability grant and that it was the government's fault. Murphy is reported to have a mild mental impairment but fought authorities, and won, to have his grant paid directly to him instead of to a third-party advisor (which is typical in cases like his). Murphy's old position, quoted to a reporter: "I said, 'Just gimme the money, gimme the money, gimme the money.'" Murphy's current position: "If you're mentally or physically disabled, the government needs to protect [you]. What they did was give me loaded gun and say, 'Shoot yourself.'"
Too bad he missed.
* In Philadelphia in September, a federal judge sentenced John G. Bennett, Jr., 60, to 12 years in prison for a fraudulent charitable fundraising pyramid scheme, eight years less than the minimum he should have gotten under sentencing guidelines. The judge was persuaded that Bennett committed fraud only because of a delusional disorder characterized by "unchecked religious fervor," that he believed that any conduct was justified as long as it served God through philanthropy.
A religion motivated pyramid scheme. What a novel idea. I wonder what the church thinks of that.
* Garrett Maass, 34, who failed his bar exam in 1994 (63.868 points, versus 65.000 for passing), sued the Oregon State Bar in federal court in Portland in September, claiming that he would have passed except for the incessant sound of a jackhammer doing repair work outside the test site. Maass, unfortunately, also took the exam in 1997 without a jackhammer and also failed, but he said he still would have passed in 1994.
* According to a Boston police detective, testifying at the April murder trial of Anthony P. Clemente, Clemente refused to accept blame for the murders of four principals of a rival mob and instead accused the police: "You [the police] should have stopped [the feud] a long time ago. You guys got snitches. You should know what's going on. The [police] department's partly responsible."
Maybe they ought to add a charge of felony stupidity.
INEXPLICABLE
* According to police in Portland, Ore., in July, Duane J. Babcock, 33, hailed a taxi to a Bank of America branch, which he robbed. The driver, oblivious of the robbery, also drove Babcock away afterward. The driver was questioned by the FBI after witnesses identified the taxi, but he could give no other information on Babcock. That evening, Babcock again needed a taxi and for some reason telephoned the same company. The same driver showed up. After taking Babcock to his destination, he called the FBI, which soon arrived to question Babcock, who was still carrying his holdup note in his pocket.
The cab driver would have kept his silence, but was miffed from getting stiffed for a tip on the bank heist run.
* The San Jose Mercury News reported in April that Eric Abrams, former star placekicker for the Stanford football team, had just been hired to work with the San Jose State University baseball team as a public relations assistant. Abrams pleaded guilty in 1996 to making harassing phone calls, which the prosecutor said were in connection with Abrams's scheme to obtain nude photographs of high school athletes by telling them he was doing a physique study for college sports recruitment.
* In a domestic spat in Dallas, Tex., in August, the wife of Abel Alaniz pulled a .380 semiautomatic and fired at her husband, but nothing happened except a click. According to police, Alaniz then took the gun from his wife, released the safety, and handed it back to her, admonishing, "If you're gonna shoot me, you got to do it right." Her next shot missed him, but the second one hit him in the back, sending him to the hospital.
While he in the hospital, maybe he'll have a safety placed on his mouth.
* Adam Ismail, Mustafa Khalil, and Abdullah al-Umari filed a lawsuit in July in their native Yemen against NASA, claiming that the Pathfinder Mars probe is trespassing on the planet they "inherited from our ancestors 3,000 years ago."
So, like, why don't you just go throw 'em off your land, Jerks?
* The New York Times reported in May on the dispute between Bob Manning, now 60, and the New York State Workers' Compensation Board over payment for Manning's paralysis, which occurred when he fell head first off a utility pole in 1962. Manning has required 24-hour medical care for 35 years but has yet to receive his almost $2 million in awards from the employer's insurance company because of disagreement over whether Manning's wife, who is a registered nurse, can be paid for caring for him. Utilities Mutual Insurance Company says it has no obligation to pay until all its appeals are settled.
UPDATE
* Gary Arthur Medrow, then 47, made News of the Weird in 1991 when he was arrested in Milwaukee for impersonating a police officer over the telephone as he carried out his locally well-known obsession of calling up a female and convincing her to physically pick up another female in the room and carry her around. By 1991, he had been arrested more than 30 times over the previous 23 years. In October 1997 he was charged with 24 more counts in Milwaukee County. A typical ruse, said police, was to tell a woman that she had been spotted at an accident scene heroically carrying a victim to safety, and when the woman denies that she is the heroic woman, Medrow talks her into role-playing the accident scene.
NO LONGER WEIRD
* Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (21) Intense prosecutors and judges who believe overdue-library-book scofflaws deserve jail time, or at least a criminal record, such as the 90 days of supervised probation a 43-year-old, Providence, R.I., woman received in August for keeping four children's books more than a year. And (22) DUI tickets dispensed to inebriated people tooling down public roadways on a bicycle, or a horse, or in the case of Roy Embry, 34, in Morgantown, Ky., in May, a riding lawn mower.
Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate. |
