Prison Is Safer
Three men visiting Philadelphia in Decemberwere charged with a robbery spree that allegedly spanned several stores.Perhaps luckily for them, they were quickly arrested. The police report notedthat one of the victims (who had a gun waved in her face) was Terri Staino, 38,the owner of John Anthony Hair Styling for Men. Staino is the wife of AnthonyStainoreputed to be the No. 2 man in the South Philadelphia mob, according tothe Philadelphia Daily News.
The Continuing Crisis
Beloved Banker: (1) In December, JPMorganChase abruptly ended a program that had allowed military personnel to deferpayments on Chase-owned student loans while on active duty. (2) Three weekslater, NBC News reported that Chase's mortgage division had long been ignoringa federal military protection law by charging 4,000 active-duty personnelhigher mortgage-interest rates than permitted (and improperly foreclosing on 14of them). (3) That same week, Chase was found to be advertising (through anagent) a foreclosed-on house in Rexburg, Idaho, without adequate notice that itwas infested with "thousands" of garter snakes. (This month, Chasereinstated the student-loan deferments and apologized for ignoring the federallaw.)
Least Competent Criminals
- Failed to Think It Through: (1) In November, Kyle Eckman, 22, wascharged with theft in Lancaster, Pa., after he was stopped leaving a Kohl'sdepartment store, mostly still in his own clothes but also wearing the pair ofElle high-heel shoes he was allegedly trying to shoplift. (2) Jimmy Honeycuttwas arrested in Pawtucket, R.I., in October and charged with five recentrobberies of liquor stores. Among the items reportedly found on Honeycutt was atelephone-directory listing of liquor stores, with the ones recently robbedmarked off.
- Recurring Themes: (1) At a traffic stop, yet again a passenger climbedinto the driver's seat as the officer approached, trying to save adrug-impaired driver from a citation. But, yet again, it turned out that thepassenger was just as drug-impaired as the driver, and both were cited(Gastonia, N.C., December). (2) Once again a woman tried to conceal drugs bystuffing them down her pants, and once again, when police found them, the womanimmediately denied that the pills were hers (Manatee, Fla., December).
Bright Ideas
- Edward Hall III, 24, a Columbia University researcher, was arrested inJanuary for trespassing at JFK Airport in New York after he reportedlydisobeyed United Airlines personnel and tried an alternative method to board aplane. Allegedly, he told ticket agents he badly needed to be on the flight toSan Francisco even though he had forgotten to bring a photo ID. Frustrated thatagents wouldn't let him board, Hall reportedly stepped behind the counter andcrawled onto the luggage conveyor, where his next stop, minutes later, was thetarmac where bags were being loadedand where he was arrested.
- In January, a health-class instructor for a suburban Chicago highschool caught the ire of the Illinois Family Institute religious organizationover her technique for teaching students the names of female reproductiveparts. To some of the kids, teacher Jacqulyn Levin's "game" wasnothing more than a mnemonic to help students memorize the anatomy, but atleast one student complained about the fact that Levin's play on words could bechanted, could be set to the tune of the "Hokey Pokey" and wasreferred to by several students as "the vagina dance." Said acomplaining parent, "It is disrespectful to women and removes modestyabout the reproductive parts."
Undignified Deaths
In January, a 21-year-old man was stabbed todeath and three others were wounded at a party in Bristol, Conn., apparentlybecause they had been making derisive comments about another man's flatulence.The allegedly gaseous Marc Higgins, 21, was charged with the crimes.
© 2011 Chuck Shepherd
