News & Blues 5/19

After receiving a report of a City Transfer truck broken down
outside Renton, Wash., state police arrived to find a 19-year-old
Tacoma man claiming the truck had run out of gas. At the same time, a
City Transfer worker reported spotting the stalled vehicle, saying it
had been stolen from the City Transfer yard in Sumner. Shortly after
police arrived, a City Transfer worker who witnessed the theft arrived
and identified the 19-year-old as the thief. After the suspect’s
arrest, Trooper Dan McDonald said the truck hadn’t run out of gas; the
suspect had filled it with unleaded gas instead of diesel fuel.
(Associated Press)

Police caught a 26-year-old man suspected of stealing a bottle of
Schnapps and some cough drops from a grocery store in Riverton, Wyo.,
after he hid in a nearby building, which happened to be the police
station. A dispatcher spied the suspect on the station’s surveillance
camera and alerted officers. (KTAK-FM News)

Slightest Provocation

Police in Kingsport, Tenn., arrested John C. Shepardson, 46, for
brandishing a shotgun and threatening Michael C. Pickel, 39, for making
noise outside a neighboring apartment while stomping snow from his
feet. (Kingsport Times-News)

Authorities in Greenfield, Calif., accused Emma Jaime of fatally
stabbing her husband of six months in the heart after the two argued
about tacos. (KSBW-TV News)

A 31-year-old man told police in St. Cloud, Minn., that another man
stabbed him several times in the stomach after the two walked toward
each other on a sidewalk and each refused to make way for the other. (St. Cloud Times)

According to authorities in Edinburg, Texas, Zachariah Hooper, 20,
grabbed a gun and fatally shot his 23-year-old brother, Jeremiah, after
the two argued over who would use the restroom first. (KRGV-TV News)

Ironies Illustrated

After paying $90 million for its headquarters building in
Washington, D.C., the Mortgage Bankers Association sold the 3-year-old,
10-story building for $41 million. The industry lobbying group moved
into the building in 2008, just before its membership fell from 3,000
to 2,500, and was unable to find tenants for the 168,000-square-foot
structure when the leasing market slowed. (The Washington Post)

Michigan’s Saugatuck Township asked voters to approve a new tax to
fight lawsuits seeking lower taxes. Township Board Trustee Jim Hanson
explained that lawsuits by developers and people trying to get property
taxes reduced are draining the township’s budget. (The Grand Rapids Press)

Anger management counselor Jose L. Avila, 57, was charged with
pulling a gun on two men who he believed were blocking his car on a
street in Annandale, Va. The two men were federal marshals. According
to the court affidavit, Deputy Marshals Floriano Whitwell and Matthew
M. Dumas parked in Avila’s assigned parking space while conducting a
fugitive investigation. Even though Dumas was wearing his “badge
clearly visible hanging from his neck,” he “noticed that Avila was
aiming a gun at him.” Avila drove off, but the marshals pursued him and
pulled him over. Whitwell said they found a 9mm Astra A-90 pistol
loaded with 14 hollow-point bullets on Avila’s seat, but he insisted he
had pointed a cell phone at the marshals, not a gun. (The Washington Post)

Homeland Insecurity

Some South Carolina lawmakers urged repeal of a state law requiring
any group that plans to overthrow any government—federal, state or
local—to pay a $5 fee to register with the state or face up to 10 years
in prison and a $25,000 fine. Until February, when Sen. Larry Martin
said the 1951 statute is one more thing making South Carolina look bad,
no one had registered in all the Subversive Activities Registration
Act’s 59 years. Secretary of State Mark Hammond said that since
February, there have been at least 10 filings. Two actually paid the
fee. (Associated Press)

When Guns Are Outlawed

Police charged a 38-year-old man with using a Worcestershire sauce
bottle to beat a 43-year-old man returning to his motel room in
Florence, Ala. When the bottle wasn’t getting the job done, the
attacker switched to a fire extinguisher. (Florence Times)

Police in Allentown, Pa., said Aaron Ingram, 68, tried to rob his
51-year-old roommate by pretending a beer bottle was a gun. Assistant
Chief Joe Hanna said that when the ruse didn’t work, Ingram hit the
roommate with the bottle and made off with the victim’s wallet, money
and other personal items. (The Morning Call)

Way to Go

Three weeks after her 100th birthday, retired schoolteacher Harriet
Richardson Ames realized her lifelong dream when she was awarded a
bachelor’s degree in education at her bedside in Concord, N.H. The next
day, she died. “She had what I call a ‘bucket list,’” her daughter,
Marjorie Carpenter, said, “and that was the last thing on it.”
(Associated Press)

The day that Deborah McDonald, 47, received a check from the Ohio
Lottery for $5,520, she was celebrating with her husband, Robert, and
friends at a bar in Margaretta Township, when she argued with Robert
and left on foot. A few hundred feet from the front door, a car struck
and killed her. (Sandusky Register)

Get ’Em While They Last

The Hump, a Japanese restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif., known for
its exotic sushi, admitted serving whale meat after federal prosecutors
filed a criminal complaint against the restaurant and its chef,
Kiyoshiro Yamamoto. The action followed an investigation by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game and the
federal Customs and Border Protection agency, prompted by the team
behind the Academy Award-winning documentary about dolphin hunting, The Cove.
“Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate
of an endangered species,” U.S. attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said. (The New York Times)

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.