![](http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/file-172-.jpg")
Curses, Foiled Again
When police pulled over Walter Upshaw, 32, for failing to come to a complete stop before entering a roadway in Orlando, Fla., Upshaw apologized to Officer Shawn Overfield and explained, “My gun is digging in my hip.” Overfield found the loaded .380-caliber pistol, which Upshaw, as a convicted felon on probation, is prohibited from carrying. (Orlando Sentinel)
A gunman, identified as Mostafa Kamel Hendi, 25, demanded cash at the We Buy Gold store in Hendersonville, N.C., but when he stepped behind the counter to get the money, clerk Derek Mothershead knocked him unconscious with a left hook and grabbed the weapon, which turned out to be a pellet gun. Mothershead called the police and, when Hendi came to, handed him a roll of paper towels, sprayed the floor with cleaner and made him clean up his own blood. (Greenville, S.C.’s WYFF-TV)
Tasermania
The latest extreme sport is Ultimate Tak Ball. Originally called “Ultimate Tazer Ball,” the full-contact sport involves teams with four players, each equipped with a stun gun and whose only protective gear is goggles and a mouthpiece (and presumably a groin cup). Players score by putting a 24-inch ball through goals at each end of the 200-by-85-foot rectangular field. Inside an 8-foot semicircular “shock zone” around each goal, defending players may use their stun guns against the ball carrier.
The UTB Tasers produce a 300,000-volt stun, which is significantly less than what would be required to kill, and do not fire probes like law-enforcement models. “It’s not technically a police-grade Taser,” Eric Prum, one of UTB’s founders, noted. “That being said, the first thing the {players} will tell you is that they hate getting tased. Those things really do hurt.” The league consists of four teams: the L.A. Nightlight, the Philadelphia Killawatts, the San Diego Spartans and the Toronto Terror. Since Canada bans the sport, the Terror doesn’t play home games. (Guns & Ammo)
Overstayed His Welcome
After Martin Batieni Kombate, 44, was released from the Coconino County, Ariz., jail, he refused to leave. Officers asked him to leave four other times, and each time he refused. When he finally declared he had no intention of departing, he was arrested and charged with trespassing. (Flagstaff’s Arizona Daily Sun)
Hoodwinkery
Accused of stabbing a bartender in LaCrosse, Wis., Anquin St. Junious, 32, later suffered a beating that hospitalized him. While St. Junious sat motionless in a wheelchair, his attorney asked Circuit Judge Scott Horne to release his client from jail because he can’t move his arms, can’t walk for more than 15 seconds and has a hole in his throat that is susceptible to infection if he remains in custody. Contradicting the claim was surveillance video showing St. Junious doing pushups in his jail cell. The judge refused to release St. Junious and promptly doubled his bond. (LaCrosse Tribune)
Police investigating a cross burning in the driveway of a mixed-race couple in Panama City, Fla., assumed it was a hate crime. Two days later, the wife, Donna Williams, who is white, said she found handwritten notes taped to the front and side doors, warning her “that I better not leave that nigger.” It was signed “KKK.” Wondering, “When did the KKK start supporting black and white interracial marriages,” she noticed the handwriting was similar to her husband’s. When police questioned LB Williams, 50, he admitted setting the fire and writing the note, hoping to frighten her so she wouldn’t divorce him. (Panama City’s News-Herald)
After prison psychologist Laurie Ann Martinez, 36, reported that a stranger beat, robbed and raped her at home in Sacramento, Calif., police investigators spent hundreds of hours on the case before concluding that Martinez faked the crime. Authorities said she split her own lip with a pin, scraped her knuckles with sandpaper, had a friend punch her in the face and even wet her pants to make it appear that she’d been knocked unconscious. Martinez, her friend and two co-workers eventually admitted the whole episode was a setup aimed at convincing Martinez’s husband that the couple needed to move to a safer neighborhood. Instead, they filed for divorce six weeks after the incident. “If all you wanted to do is move,” police Sgt. Andrew Pettit said, “there’s other ways than staging a burglary and rape.” (Associated Press)
Lawmakers of the Week
Oklahoma state Sen. Ralph Shortey introduced a bill that would prohibit the manufacture or sale of any food in which aborted fetuses were used to develop any of the ingredients. Shortey admitted that he knows of no company that uses human fetuses in food research but said he drafted his measure based on “suggestions” he read on the Internet. (Associated Press)
Protesting a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia state Sen. Janet Howell attached an amendment requiring men to have a rectal exam before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication. The Republican-controlled senate passed the mandatory ultrasound measure but rejected Howell’s amendment by a vote of 21 to 19. (The Huffington Post)
Costly Oops
Responding to a complaint of high weeds in Newport News, Va., the city sent a crew to mow the property. It learned afterward that the land was protected wetlands. Facing an expense of at least $7,000 a year for wetlands monitoring and other costs, the city decided to buy the 37-acre property for $950,000. (Associated Press)
Windbaggery
Police arrested a carpenter in Zimbabwe, according to Lawyers for Human Rights, after loyalists of President Robert Mugabe reported overhearing the man question whether Mugabe still had the strength to blow up balloons at his 88th birthday celebration. (Associated Press)
Show-Off
Sharon Smiley, 48, was fired from her job as a receptionist and administrative assistant at a Chicago real estate company because she punched out of work for lunch but remained at her desk to finish a project a manager had assigned her. When another manager told her it was time to go to lunch, she refused. Company policy at Equity Lifestyle Properties, where she’d worked for 10 years, requires hourly workers to take a 30-minute lunch break. Smiley filed for unemployment benefits but was ruled ineligible because she had been discharged for misconduct connected with her work. An appeals court called the ruling “clearly erroneous.” After receiving benefits for nine months, Smiley found a similar job that allows her to work at her desk during lunch all she wants. (ABC News)
Who’d Have Guessed?
Hurricanes could topple at least half of the offshore wind farms, each costing upward of $175 million, that the government proposes building in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University warned, because the wind turbines can’t handle high winds. (New Scientist)
