Albert Bailey, 27, and a 16-year-old buddywere charged in the robbery of a People's United Bank in Fairfield, Conn.,in March, after they made it much too easy for police by calling the bankbeforehand and demanding that money be set aside for them to pick up at acertain time. Police were waiting in the parking lot.
Inexplicable
- Megan Barnes, 37, was arrested in March after being spotted drivingerratically in Cudjoe Key, Fla.,near Key West.After several implausible explanations, Barnes admitted that she had a razorand was giving herself a "bikini shave" as she drove. Several trafficcharges were filed against her.
- Baltimore County (Md.) Judge Darrell Russell Jr., presiding over aMarch domestic violence case in which a woman had changed her mind abouttestifying against her boyfriend, performed the couple's marriage ceremony inhis chambers after temporarily halting the boyfriend's trial. Earlier, JudgeRussell had informed the woman that she could not refuse to testify based on"marital privilege" because she and the boyfriend were not married.Consequently, as the trial started, she asked the judge to marry them. Afterthe ceremony, she was then granted the "marital privilege," and thejudge dismissed the charge for lack of evidence. (Russell has now beenreassigned to less important cases.)
- Justin Massler, 27, charged with criminal stalking of 28-year-oldbusinesswoman/heiress Ivanka Trump, was released on bail in New York City in April. He explained to a New York Daily News reporter that he intended toalter his approach. Instead of imposing himself on Trump, he said he would"become like a big-time millionaire, real estate mogul, so that she's theone who contacts me."
Fuzzy Thinking
- Carly Houston, 29, was arrested in Naperville, Ill.,in March after a rowdy dispute with a taxi driver. When she was given hercustomary "one phone call" to ask a friend to post bond for her, shechose instead to call 911 and report that she was "trapped inside [a]detention facility" (thus causing police to add "a false 911report" to the charges).
- Schools' "zero tolerance" policies prohibiting guns orweapons on campus not only apply (as they have recently) to drawings of gunsand to a 2-inch-long toy in the shape of a gun, but, at a school in Ionia,Mich., to making the familiar, thumb-up hand representation of a gun, for whichMason Jammer, 6, was suspended in March.
Can't Possibly Be True
Michelle Taylor, 34, was sentenced in Elko, Nev.,in April to life in prison for the crime of forcing a 13-year-old boy to touchher breasts. The sentence was mandatory under a Nevada state law, but, noted her lawyer,"She is getting a greater penalty…than if she killed (the boy)." (Shewill be eligible for parole after 10 years.)
Latest Protests
- In April, outdoing the recent partisan spats in the U.S. Congress,several dozen members of the Ukrainian parliament squared off over a bill thatwould extend the lease on a Russian naval base in the Ukraine.Eventually the skirmish involved headlocks, punches, a smoke bomb, glue in thevoting machines and cartons of eggs tossed at the speaker's podium. RussianPresident Dmitry Medvedev called it the chamber's "traditionalelegance."
- Sweden'sMetro newspaper reported in Marchthat a 21-year-old inmate at Kirseberg prison in Malmö faces discipline forcontinuing his protests against jail conditions by passing gas directly atguards.
Recurring Themes
Federal agents in April uncovered an elaboratebestiality ring (allegedly involving horses, dogs and mice) in Washington state.Facility operator Douglas Spink is suspected of using the site to makepornographic videos, and a visitor from England was arrested as a suspectedpaying customer. This farm is near Bellingham, Wash., and the operation is completely separate from the2005 raid on a similar facility near Enumclaw, Wash. (about 110 miles away), inwhich one man died of a perforated colon following penetrative sex by a horse.The state had no specific anti-bestiality law in 2005, but one was enactedafter the Enumclaw episode.
© 2010 Chuck Shepherd
