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by Chuck Sheperd
LEAD STORIES
Police in North Platte, Neb., have been looking for a man who has appeared several times in public since early July wearing baby clothes and have taken to naming him (after his most prominent article of clothing) "The Big Bonnet." He was last spotted on Oct. 29, bending over a bench paddling himself.
Stephanie England complained to school authorities in Joplin, Mo., in October after her son Preston's fifth-grade teacher brought in a plastic bag of cat feces and taped it to Preston's desk for an hour as an object lesson. The punishment went too far, England said, even though she acknowledged that Preston has a problem, at home and at school, in overusing the phrase "Suck a turd." Said England, "We've gotten on to him about it."
Questionable Judgments
In June, a Utah judicial commission reprimanded Judge Dee Alldredge for improperly sentencing stalker Michael Penrose in 1997 to take his victim Anita Ferroni out to dinner to supposedly end the hostilities between them. And in July, a Massachusetts appeals court reversed Judge Robert Howarth's 1996 10-day contempt sentence against a woman who had merely made an obscene gesture to her abusive ex-boyfriend in court; Howarth is the judge who in 1994 ordered another violent boyfriend to take martial-arts training on the belief that, rather than make him more violent, it would give him self-discipline.
David Oraha was convicted of perjury in Toronto in September. He had gotten in trouble in 1998, minutes after being acquitted of assault by a judge. As the courtroom was clearing, Oraha had wandered up to a police officer and asked, "So that's it? It's over? I was acquitted, like O.J.?" After the officer nodded, Oraha said, "Well, off the record, it was me. (The people I beat up) had it coming." The officer then turned Oraha in.
In September, authorities in Athens, Tenn., called in state officials to investigate a claim of impropriety against local jailers. Inmate Tracy Spurling, 38, complaining that his foot hurt, was discovered by X-ray to have a 6-inch-long flashlight in his rectum that the inmate insisted must have been planted there by deputies since he had no recollection of it. After an investigation, state officials cleared the jailers, and Spurling admitted he owned a flashlight just like the one found.
In August, Detroit police chief Benny Napoleon acknowledged that the department has sold about 6,000 used guns in recent years to dealers, who put them back on the street, even though the city has filed a $400 million lawsuit accusing gun manufacturers of making it easy for buyers to skirt the city's anti-gun law. Many other police forces also sell their used guns, and CBS News reported in August that the Irving, Texas, police department once sold used grenade launchers to a dealer for $3,500 each.
Leading Economic Indicators
Electrical contractor Akira Hareruya, 36, whose company went bankrupt, has been working the streets of Tokyo this year trying to earn back the money by inviting passersby to put on boxing gloves and take swings at him for about $9 a minute. He promises not to hit back, but only to try to evade the punches, and suggests that his customers relieve their stresses verbally as they swing. He told the Los Angeles Times that he averages about $200 a night.
Least Competent People
Terrance G. Stafford, 49, was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm at a gun show in St. Paul, Minn., in August. He said he wanted to test a .22-caliber automatic but feared damaging the gun if he attempted to "dry fire" it without a round in the chamber, so he loaded it and fired at the floor of the RiverCentre. Bullet fragments hit four people, one of whom required hospitalization.
In July, during lifeguard tryouts in Huntington Beach, Calif., only 20 of the 129 applicants were deemed even minimally qualified, and six of the other 109 had to be rescued themselves, during the half-mile swim. And in June, the Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial, citing state medical board records, reported that the family of the late Ms. Marvelous Cann has alleged that surgeon Michael Joseph Rook frequently operated while alcohol-impaired and in fact mistook Ms. Cann's heart for a lung while performing gallbladder surgery in 1998.
In September, two Sheboygan, Wis., teenagers told police they were curious to see what it was like to get shot and that that's why they had been hospitalized with leg wounds. According to Sheriff's Capt. David Adams, a 34-year-old relative had obliged them and done the shooting, and was arrested.
Women in Blue
In August, Mexico City's police chief replaced his 900-man traffic enforcement squad with women, hoping that their nature would make them less likely than the men to demand bribes from violators. And in August, an all-female police station opened in Mashhad, Iran, with the women nonetheless uniformed in traditional black robes (chadors). And Mobile, Ala., police officer Lark Huber was fired in August because she insisted on wearing a skirt instead of the police uniform, which according to her religious teaching is a man's clothing. And in August, police officials in Bangkok prohibited female officers from wearing miniskirts and heavy makeup, causing some to resign because they feared diminished marriage prospects.
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: (37) People who just can't seem to pick up the phone to make burial arrangements for recently expired loved ones, such the 73-year-old woman in Tucson, Ariz., whose husband died in 1995 but whose body was still in his bed in September 1999, or the 50-year-old man in Elizabeth, Ind., whose mother died in 1994, but her body was still in a chair in October 1999. And (38) schools' "zero tolerance" policies for "weapons" such as fingernail clippers, which resulted in a 45-day suspension for a 7-year-old boy in Cahokia, Ill., in September.
Recent Workplace Tragedies
Two chicken-processing plant workers suffocated when they accidentally fell into a 9-foot-deep pit of chicken parts (Robards, Ky., July). A two-story brick house being moved to make way for an expressway fell off a trailer and crushed a worker to death (Clairton, Pa., September). An 18-year-old worker was crushed to death in a dough-mixing machine at a bakery (Oakville, Ontario, July). And a 16-year-old worker was crushed to death in another bakery's dough-making machine (Toronto, September).
Also, in the Last Month...
The Vatican ordered nuns to abandon plans to operate a supervised heroin "shooting gallery" in a Sydney, Australia, slum. United Arab Emirates warned that those who dump hazardous materials and other pollution will be subject to the death penalty. Russia said it would sell its fleet of 10 trained kamikaze dolphins that can set off mines on their backs to blow up enemy ships. After a staff rebellion, courthouse officials canceled a "customer appreciation" party (with coffee and doughnuts) for those whom they serve, including criminals (Ottawa, Ontario). Britain's House of Lords court ruled that the government did not have to sound-insulate public housing, despite complaints that residents hear all their neighbors' sex and bathroom noises.
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