Curses, Foiled Again

Less than two hours after three men robbed a woman in Columbus, Ohio, the victim notified police that one of them showed up at her home and asked her for a date. “We are not exactly sure what he was thinking at the time,” police Sgt. Shaun Laird told WBNS-TV after Stephfon Bennett, 20, was arrested. “She recognized him right away when he returned and was able to have her cousin call 911.”

Billy J. Robinson, 20, was trying to steal a car in broad daylight in East Peoria, Ill., when the owner interrupted him and ordered him to follow her to the police station. “Believe it or not,” Police Chief Ed Papis told the Peoria Journal-Star, “he started to follow her but had a change of heart.” The car’s owner called police, who broadcast a detailed description, which mentioned a large, abnormal growth hanging from the suspect’s left ear lobe. Not long after, Robinson walked into the police station saying he needed money for a bus ticket out of town. The dispatcher recognized him by the walnut-sized mass on his ear. Officers who searched the two bags Robinson was carrying found sweaty clothes matching the robber’s, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to break into and hot-wire a car, with the boldly written recommendation, “Try this at night.”

Case Closed

After former Kansas radio executive Paul W. Lyle admitted in a Girard court to embezzling $88,000 to support an addiction to scratch-off lottery tickets, he learned he had won a lottery prize worth $96,000.

Mixed Messages

At least 22 states that ban texting while driving offer some type of service that allows motorists to send and receive information about traffic jams, road conditions or emergencies via Twitter. “If you’re sitting there and trying to update the world on the congestion you’re in, you could be part of a collision,” said Fairley Mahlum of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

FWIW

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation, a 30-year-old tourism lobbying coalition, changed its name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin after officials realized its initials—WTF—formed a crude acronym popular in text messages. The group made the switch after web sites and blogs poked fun at it. “We didn’t want it to detract from our mission,” TFW official Julia Hertel told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Second-Amendment Follies

Police in Miamisburg, Ohio, locked down an elementary school after a report of a shooting in the vicinity, even though students were off that day. Neighbors initially said someone was running around the area firing a gun, but police determined that a man who lives nearby accidentally shot himself in the hand while cleaning his gun.

Four days after Ralph Needs, 80, was pistol-whipped during a home invasion in Groveport, Ohio, he was learning to fire a gun to defend himself when he was shot in the hand as one of his sons was loading the 9 mm pistol.

Timothy Allen Davis, 22, told sheriff’s investigators in Lee County, Fla., that he was digging through a drawer looking for a shirt, but when he pulled it out, his .380 semi-automatic handgun flipped in the air, landed and discharged a round. The Fort Myers News-Press reported the bullet hit Davis in the rear end.

When Guns Are Outlawed

Police in Broken Arrow, Okla., charged Decai Liu, 52, with beating his roommate on the head with a harmonica. The roommate explained he was in the bathroom getting ready for work when Liu burst in and started beating him with the musical instrument. “I don’t know what his problem was,” the roommate said.

Crackdowns of the Week

As part of their campaign against Western cultural influences, Iran’s morality police warned storeowners not to use scantily clad or curvaceous female mannequins in their windows. According to the state-owned newspaper IRNA, the police also banned men from selling women’s underwear and shopkeepers from showing models wearing neckties or bow ties.

A gay bar in Elk Grove Village, Ill., began requiring cross-dressing patrons to show a valid government-issued photo ID that matches their “gender presentation.” Peter Landorf, manager of Hunter’s Nightclub, told The Chicago Tribune the policy is aimed at preventing prostitution “that could cost me my license.” Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said the rule could be discriminatory if it applies only to cross-dressers.

Uniform Disaster

Women draftees in Sweden complained that the brassieres issued by the military are unacceptable because they keep catching on fire. And because the garments aren’t flame resistant, once lit, they can melt onto conscripts’ skin. “Our opinion is that the Swedish Armed Forces should have ordered good, flame-proof underwear,” Paulina Rehbinder of the Swedish Conscription Council said. The Goteborgs-Posten newspaper reported the women also complained that the standard-issue sports bras’ fasteners have a tendency to come undone during vigorous exercise, forcing them to remove all their gear to refasten the brassieres. 

Slightest Provocation

A Washington, D.C., jury needed less than 10 minutes to convict Lankward Harrington, 25, of shooting a landscaper who was using a lawn trimmer and got some grass on Harrington’s clothes and hair. Harrington stopped, reached into his backpack for a .357 magnum and shot Jose Villatoro four times in the face and body before walking away. “I made sure he saw me and looked me in the eye,” Harrington testified. “I take pride in my appearance. I did not appreciate that.”

“He did nothing to you, did he?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Snyder asked.

“He got grass on me,” Harrington said. “That was something.”

Race to the Finish

Jerry Johncock, 81, was at mile 21 of a marathon race through Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., when he stopped at an aid station and said he badly needed to urinate but couldn’t force anything out. He explained a catheter would fix the problem, but the aid station didn’t have one. According to The Pioneer Press, a spectator who overheard the conversation said he had a spare catheter in his car. Johncock was able to insert it himself and finish the race, 1:23:05 off the record pace he set last year but still good enough to win his age group. “What a relief that was,” he said. “I must have had a pint of urine inside me.” 

Torture Rock

The government used rock music to torment terror suspects and coerce confessions at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to recently declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archives, a research division of George Washington University. Among the artists whose music was played at ear-splitting levels to “create futility” with uncooperative detainees are AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Neil Diamond, Tupac Shakur, Limp Bizkit, Christine Aguilera, the Bee Gees, Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine. Also included was Barney the Dinosaur’s theme song. The Washington Times reported that some of the musicians are banding together with the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo to protest the use of their songs to torture detainees, expressing outrage that the music was used without their knowledge.

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.