Small Town Misfit

Erie County, PA
Two people in gorilla suits were walking around an Amherst subdivision “smacking passing motorists and yelling obscenities.” They were located while sitting by the side of the road and advised to put the suits away.

Found in the Bee News

Cincinnati, OH
A 19-year-old Green Township mother is being held this morning at the Hamilton County jail after Cincinnati police charged her with taking her newborn baby along while she broke into a candy store.

Christine Ruther and three others are accused of breaking into Minges Candy Store, 132 W. Court St., downtown, shortly before 1 a.m. and swiping about $400 in candy, police said.

The group was arrested a few blocks away at Fourth and Race streets when police caught up with them by following the trail of candy and candy wrappers.

Arrested with Ruther was her seven-week-old daughter.

Ruther was charged with child endangering and breaking and entering, court records show. She arrived at the jail about 5 a.m. and will go before a judge Friday morning, jail officials said.

An 18-year-old woman and two men, 18 and 22, also were charged with breaking and entering, police said.

Found in the Cincinnati Enquirer

Thanks Luann!

Jefferson, GA
A Gillsville man caught with a handgun at the Jackson County Courthouse tried to talk his way out of trouble, explaining he is a member of the “Freedom World” and doesn’t have to follow laws that would stop people from carrying a handgun into a courthouse.

He was charged him with carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering after he brought the handgun in a briefcase to the courthouse.

He told authorities he was at the courthouse to see a judge about probation, but authorities couldn’t find any proof that he was on probation.

Deputies also impounded his pickup truck, which did not have a government-issued license plate but a tag purportedly explaining why he is exempt from state law. It displays his name in bold red letters, as well as an address and telephone number in smaller type, and cites specific state laws as proof of his rights to travel and to private property.

Found in the Athens Banner-Herald

Atlanta, GA
A man walked into a bank on Piedmont Road and asked about the vault measurements, the bank’s vice president said. She said the man presented an ID that read Fulton County Tax Assessors — and he asked to measure the inside of the bank’s vault with a wheel measure. She didn’t let him near the vault and called security. The man walked outside and apparently started taking measurements of the rear of the building, she said. The man left, and she called police. When an officer arrived, they called the man. He said he was back in his Buckhead office, and he didn’t work for Fulton County but for a technology company. He would not provide a supervisor’s name or a contact number, but said he would return to the bank the next morning. The officer told the bank VP to call police if the guy showed up.

Found in Creative Loafing

Rio Grande, NM
4:29 p.m. — A caller on Shadowood Lane said a woman who served a restraining order against him and his son just called his work to see if he was mad about the restraining order. He wanted to file a report for violation of a restraining order. Española police referred the case to State Police, because the incident took place in Pojoaque.

Found in the Rio Grande Sun

Chattanooga, TN
A woman said a man she knows only as “Chuck” stole $21 from her bra, then slugged her in the face and kicked her in the head.

June Willoughby said she had been driving a prostitute named “Brandy” around to customers. Ms. Willoughby said she is a former prostitute who now gets a cut of the money by driving them.

Ms. willoughby said her boyfriend’s van broke down, and afterwards Ann Russell let her lie down on her couch on Seventh Avenue.

She said Chuck had helped with the van and he demanded money, but she told him she did not have any. She said he proceeded to reach inside her shirt, taking $20 from one cup and $1 from the other.

She said he hit her in the face several times, then kicked her.

He kept the $20, but threw the $1 down.

She was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Ms. Willoughby said Chuck left in an older-model green SUV.

Found in the Chattanoogan

Adair, OK
A beer keg became an unguided missile. “It might have killed those guys if they hadn’t gone back inside,” Adair Police Chief Albert McKee said.

McKee said a couple of residents had a fire in their back yard They also had an old beer keg. “The intention was to put the keg on the fire and watch the beer spew out,” McKee said. “There’s supposed to be a pop-off valve but they evidently decided it wasn’t going to blow. Well, they went inside about three minutes too early.”

McKee said the explosion, which residents reported from all over the county, cut a 4-inch tree limb off “like it wasn’t there,” and broke out windows in at least three houses.

“There were pieces of those fire bricks (from the patio fire pit) as far as a block and a half away,” McKee said.

McKee speculated the damage was “very minor for what could have happened.” No one was hurt.

Firefighter Trent Peper said all Adair’s firefighters responded to the call. “The cavalry came running,” Peper said. “It was sure interesting, I’ll
say that.”

Found in the CNHI News Service.

Thanks John!

Lodi, CA
A jazz musician was injured Friday after jumping from a burning motor home driven by a one-time roller skating stripper from Lodi.

Found in a great story in the Lodi News

Anderson, SC
David Allen Rodgers, 42, was arrested Dec. 3 for driving while intoxicated — at the wheel of a float during the annual Christmas parade in Anderson, S.C. According to witnesses, Rodgers sped down Main Street in the Steppin’ Out Dance Studio float with 19 people aboard, ran a red light and led police on a three-mile chase.

Police said that when Rodgers finally stopped, they found an open container of alcohol in his truck. “I made a very bad judgment on my part,” Rodgers said at a court hearing.

Found in the Canton Rep

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Nelsonville, OH
An early morning joy ride on a train engine — with the whistle blowing, ended back in juvenile detention for two boys who walked away from an unlocked detention home, authorities said.

The boys managed to start up the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway locomotive early Tuesday morning after breaking through a side door into the building that houses the engine, said Sgt. Edward Kurtz of Nelsonville police. No cars were attached to the engine that usually hauls tourists.

The tracks go by the windows of the city police station, and Hocking College police also noticed the engine rolling down the tracks.

“That’s very unusual. The train runs only on weekends,” Kurtz said.

He said the boys rode about 12 miles to Logan, blowing the train whistle and waking residents, stopping by a grocery store off U.S. 23, where Athens County sheriff’s deputies took them into custody.

Matthew Burks, 16, of Proctorville, and Zachary Walden, 13, of Portsmouth, are charged with juvenile counts of burglary, theft and escape, police said.

Burks, who had some knowledge of trains, was driving the engine, Kurtz said.

“He got it started and away they went,” he said.

The boys had walked away late Monday from Hocking Valley Community Residential Center in Nelsonville, where youths stay on the honor system instead of going to a state detention center after juvenile felony convictions, said Valerie Roth, assistant director.

Nelsonville is about 60 miles southeast of Columbus.

Found in the Akron Beacon Journal

Columbia, SC
A 55-year-old man, dressed as Santa Claus and driving a motorcycle with a sidecar, kidnapped an 8-year-old girl on Dec. 17 near Interstate 20 on Bush River Road. The girl, along with her parents and two sisters, was stopped for gas at a convenience store when she met the man dressed as Santa and was seduced into taking a ride on his motorcycle, along with a stuffed Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The girl’s father chased after the man in his car, going more than 80 mph, until he got his daughter back safe and sound. Santa was later arrested at a bar on Bush River Road. The reason for the kidnapping is unknown.

Found in the Free Times

Tequesta, FL
A resident of the 200 block of West Moccasin Trail called for help at 10:37 a.m. She said a boy had been in a neighborhood tree for four days and she wasn’t sure whether he ever comes down. An officer discovered that it was just part of a tree that grew into a shape resembling a sitting boy.

Found in the Palm Beach Post