news & blues

Curses, Foiled Again

Shortly after receiving a call about a robbery, Ottawa police said they got a second call reporting a stabbing. Responding officers found a man in his 20s outside a store that they suspect he robbed before tripping on his way out and stabbing himself with the knife used in the robbery. (CBC News) A man who tried to hold up a doughnut shop with a knife stabbed himself while committing the crime, according to Vancouver police. Constable Jana McGuinness said the 22-year-old suspect man was so drunk that he fell down, landing on the butcher knife he was wielding and stabbing himself in the abdomen. Officers found the suspect slumped on the floor, took him to the hospital to treat his wound and then arrested him. (CBC News) Darrell Fudge, 54, relied on his global positioning system to get him from British Columbia to his home in Newfoundland, but the GPS’ shortest route led through northern Maine. When he arrived at a remote U.S. border crossing, agents searched his car and found a half-kilogram of marijuana in a cooler. (Lewiston, Maine’s The Sun Journal)

Another Nail in the Post Office’s Coffin

As more Netflix customers switch from mail-order DVDs to Internet downloads, its streaming movie service is hogging North America’s bandwidth, threatening the Internet’s capacity to handle other uses, according to the network management company Sandvine. Its annual report on broadband usage said that just under 2 percent of Netflix subscribers account for 20 percent of all Internet traffic during peak home Internet usage hours in the United States and Canada. Sandvine forecasts Netflix will strain broadband capacity as more and more customers abandon the mail. (Slate)

No-Rest Room

Jacqueline Cutright, 70, told police she was in the bathroom of her Akron, Ohio, home around 2 a.m. when a man wearing a clown mask threw open the bathroom door and threatened her with a knife. “I was on the commode,” she said, “so it was kind of a surprise.” The intruder demanded money, took some cash and costume jewelry, then fled in Cutright’s 1991 Ford Escort. He made it to the end of the street before rolling the car twice, according to police responding to Cutright’s 911 call. Officers detained Cory Buckey, 22, who confessed after a knife fell from his pants pocket. (Akron’s WJW-TV)

A woman at a rural home in Winona County, Minn., said Nicholas Patrick Hodge, 31, stormed into the home around 2:40 a.m. and demanded property he insisted someone inside owed him. He sat on a toilet in the kitchen and refused to move, according to sheriff’s Investigator Kraig Glover, who said Hodge eventually did leave. Glover added, “I’m not sure why they had a toilet in the kitchen.” (Winona Daily News)

Dupe of the Week

Joseph Jones, 73, told sheriff’s investigators he was awakened by a phone call to his motel room in Spartanburg, S.C., from someone claiming to be the manager. The caller explained that a prior guest had left behind some “highly sophisticated cameras” that were hidden and needed to be gotten rid of. Following the caller’s instructions, Jones smashed the television with the ceramic toilet tank cover, then threw the set outside and shattered all the mirrors in the room. Next, the caller said that a midget was trapped in an adjoining room, and Jones “needed to help police get to him.” Jones dutifully broke through the wallboard. By then, the real motel manager had received noise complaints from nearby guests and called the authorities, who concluded that Jones was the victim of an elaborate prank, which had targeted guests at other motels. No charges were filed, but the manager asked Jones to leave. (Spartanburg’s WXII-TV)

Un-American Activity

Reporting on Iowa’s Treasure Hunt program to return unclaimed cash, stocks and property to residents, State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald said the person who stands to gain the most, an 85-year-old man in Storm Lake, refuses to file the necessary paperwork to claim what’s owed him: $1,632,427 in cash and stocks valued at $446,874. “We have made overtures to him,” Fitzgerald said. “He knows the money is there. It appears to be a situation of him not wanting to be bothered.” (The Des Moines Register)

How Government Works

Following the deluge of leaked documents by WikiLeaks, senior officials at various U.S. government agencies received a classified memo outlining the government’s strategy to prevent further leaks. The 11-page document was promptly leaked to MSNBC. (TechSpot. com)

Explosive Sex

Authorities in Waseca, Minn., charged Terry Allen Lester, 37, with making an explosive device and hiding it in a sex toy. Lester left the sex toy at an apartment where he’d been staying with two women, who became suspicious after he left and called police.

According to the criminal complaint, Lester put gunpowder, BB shot and buckshot from shotgun shells inside the sex toy with black and red wires that connected to a trigger from a cordless drill. The complaint went on to say that Lester planned to give the modified sex toy to a woman who had ended her relationship with him. (Waseca County News)

Litigation Nation

A federal appeals court ruled that Lee Paige, an undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, can proceed with his lawsuit against the U.S. government for releasing a video of him shooting himself in the foot with a Glock during a presentation about drug education at a Florida community center. The video turned up on YouTube and several television news shows. Paige insists that since the DEA had the only footage of the incident, someone with the department who had “animosity for Paige” must have posted it online or released it to the media. (Mediaite) Alex Good, 15, sued a golf course in Hillsboro, Ore., for $3 million after his own golf ball hit him in the eye. Good and his teammates on the Liberty High School golf team were using the practice range at Pumpkin Range Golf Club. Because it was raining, the staff set up an awning to cover the golfers teeing off. Good’s ball hit a metal post supporting the awning, ricocheted and hit him in the left eye. Even though the pole was just inches from Good’s driving mat and an obvious and observable danger, Good’s suit claims negligence. (Portland’s KATU-TV)

Salesmanship 101

Rusty Lynn Patterson, 28, showed up at neighbor Johnathen Vann’s home in Oliver Springs, Tenn., and asked if Vann wanted to buy the rifle he was carrying. Anderson County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark C. Hobbs reported that when Vann declined, Patterson hit him in the forehead with the rifle’s stock butt, demanded money and took a wallet from Vann’s pants pocket. He threatened to kill the victim if he reported the incident, then grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey and left. Vann waited until the next day to call authorities. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

Human Yule Log

Jason Leblanc, 44, a veteran firefighter in Apopka, Fla., resigned after being charged with setting fellow firefighter Jack Shumate, 25, on fire at a Christmas party. Police Officer Steve Popp said Leblanc allegedly poured lighter fluid on the victim’s legs and ignited it, causing second-degree burns. (Orlando Sentinel)

Hard Times

Executions in the United States declined 12 percent in 2010, in part because of “the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual report. Texas led the nation, carrying out 17 of the 46 U.S. executions. (Reuters)

Second-Amendment Follies

Michael Eck, 50, was loading a cannon outside Trafalgar, Ind., when it accidentally went off and fired a 2-inch cannon ball through his right hand. Police said Eck and two other men had fired the cannon at least three times already before the accidental shooting. (Franklin’s Daily Journal) When Johnathan W. Hartman, 27, got into an argument with a woman while sitting in a car in a parking lot in Billings, Mont., police said he pulled out a gun, threatened to kill the woman and then fired two shots, one of which went through the car’s roof. A delayed third shot fired when Hartman tried to tuck the gun into his waistband but accidentally wounded himself in the buttocks. (Billings Gazette)

Transparent Scheme

Mary Evano pleaded guilty in a Massachusetts court to 23 counts of filing false insurance claims after she and her husband intentionally ate glass particles. The couple collected more than $200,000 for claims filed against restaurants, hotels and grocery stores from 1997 to 2005. The couple owes more than $100,000 in medical bills. (Associated Press)

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.