Daily Brickbat

Absurd news bites, served fresh every day.

Charles Oliver | November 30, 1999

(Page 7 of 17)

The Best Defense (8/26)
It began with an instructor at Karate for Kids teaching five students what to do when confronted by an armed attacker in an alley outside the school. It ended with the instructor and the students face-down on the ground in handcuffs. Albany, Oregon, police thought the class was an actual mugging or gang activity. Scott Turner, the owner of the school, says he doesn't have any problem with the police responding as they did. But he wonders why, after finding out was really going on, they charged his instructor and the students with disorderly conduct. They each face a $2,500 fine and up to six months in jail.

Real Neighborly (8/25)
Children can still play outside in Pinehurst, North Carolina, so long as their neighbors can't hear them after 8:30 p.m. The town has banned any recreational activities that neighbors might hear after 8:30 in the summer, 7 p.m. in the winter. The new rule came after one family complained about late night basketball games at a neighbor's house. But city residents who weren't involved in that dispute aren't happy about the new rule. We're being punished for two neighbors who can't get along," said Jamie Baddour.

Are You Eyeballing Me? (8/24)
When a Wellington, New Zealand, police officer pulled Michael Romanos over for not wearing his seatbelt, he noticed Romano wasn't wearing glasses. Romanos needs vision correction — it says so on his license—but he was wearing contact lenses. Sgt. Richard Hocken couldn't see the contacts, however, and Romanos refused to take them out. "I needed to have wetting solution to put them back in," Romanos said. So Hocken did what any policeman would do when faced with a motorist who might be driving without required vision correction, he asked him to drive several kilometers to an optometrist's office, where it was determined Romanos was indeed wearing contacts. Romanos still got a ticket for driving without his seatbelt.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys (8/23)
Pierce County, Washington, sheriff's deputies were looking for a suspect in a car break-in when they found Aaron Otto Hansen passed out in a sleeping bag outside a relative's home. The deputies, who were being filmed by the TV show "Cops", tried to wake Hansen and shouted at him to show them his hands. "You're gonna get tased, due," said one. When the deputy tried to pull the sleeping bag open, a disoriented Hansen pulled it back over his head and tried to push the deputy away. That's when that deputy and another knelt on Hansen and tased him repeatedly. As Hansen began to thrash about, one deputy called for a police dog that repeatedly bit at Hansen's leg, "leaving his pants shredded and his ankle bloodied," according to local media. The confrontation ended with Hansen begging the deputies to tell him what he did wrong. He was charged with two counts of assault for resisting the officers. Those charges were dropped the day his lawyer received the "Cops videotape. Hansen is now suing the deputies, the county and the cities of Lakewood and Tacoma.

Breathless (8/22)
Police showed up at Ashley Berden's home at 4 a.m. and demanded she take a Breathalyzer test. She faced a $100 fine if she didn't. The 18-year-old had left her purse at a party that police had busted for underage drinking, and that was sufficient for the Thomas Township, Michigan, police to demand a test. Under state law they didn't need a warrant to demand the test of someone under 21. And township police reportedly routinely raid parties and demand to test everyone under 21. The test on Berden showed she hadn't been drinking. Now, she and three others are suing the state, local police and sheriff's departments and the Central Michigan University Police Department, seeking to have the law permitting warrantless tests of those under 21 struck down.

Taking a Gamble (8/19)
The government of Chechnya has banned slot machines, saying they are unIslamic. Chechnya reportedly has more than 1,000 gambling halls, but the government, after consulting religious leaders, has ordered them closed.

Grassroots Politics (8/18)
Greg Cooper says he has the perfect lawn—green, no weeds, well-maintained. Even the local yards agent for the county extension service calls it "attractive." But St. Petersburg, Florida, authorities say there's a problem: It's artificial. Copper has covered his yard with Waterless Grass, a high-tech alternative to grass that never needs mowing. But the city code says yards must be covered with herbaceous sod or plant material, not plastic. Cooper must now convince the city council to amend the city code or go back to grass.

Collateral Damage (8/17)
Larry Chidester was asleep in his Springville, Utah, home one night when a loud crash woke him up. He went outside to investigate. Bad move. A Utah County Sheriff's Office SWAT team was raiding his next door neighbor's house, but when they saw Chidester, deputies went after him, too. According to a lawsuit the Chidester family filed, an officer yelled "There's one!" and officers tackled him and shoved his face into the ground. They then kicked in a side door, went into the home, entered the bedroom of Chidester's parents and threw his father to the floor. Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy admits the Chidester home was not the SWAT team's target. He says the Chidesters became involved in the raid "as an ancillary issue." "The warrant was for the house next door but in the service of that warrant they became involved ... they had contact with us," Tracy told a local newspaper.

Hospital Food (8/16)
A government official investigating the state-run portion of Trinidad and Tobago's health-care system says a hospital sandwich gave her food poisoning. Gladys Gaffoor says she was admitted to a private nursing facility after eating the sandwich.

Bush-League Legislation (8/15)
Missouri Senate Bill 280, signed into law earlier this year by Gov. Matt Blunt, combines the state cosmetology and barber boards in a cost-saving move. But tucked into the bill is a provision that requires parental permission before a minor can get a bikini wax. "Twelve- and thirteen-year-old little girls think they're eighteen and nineteen in this day and age. Sometimes they can become very rebellious, and if they think this is something that their folks can come unglued about, that's what they're going to do," said Darla Fox, executive director of the Missouri State Board of Cosmetology, which proposed the change.

Bird is the Word (8/12)
The village board of Greendale, Wisconsin, has ordered artist Al Emmons to remove a sculpture of Big Bird from the chimney of a duplex he owns. Neighbors complain the sculpture detracts from the historical nature of the area, and they say Emmons didn't have a permit to place the sculpture on his house. "That's what upset me the most. He wasn't given permission to do this," said neighbor Joseph Leedale.

No Room at the Inn (8/11)
Officials in Laos banned solo tourists from the capital of Vientiane during a recent regional ASEAN forum. Only those tourists traveling in groups arranged by local travel agencies were allowed in. The government also forced bars to close early, banned trucks and ordered women in the city to dress in traditional clothing or face fines. The actions were taken to make sure the city had the proper atmosphere for visiting dignitaries.

Child's Play (8/10)
Broward County, Florida, schools have banned running on playgrounds. That's just one of a number of changes on south Florida school playgrounds, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper. Gone are swings, see saws, and merry-go-rounds. (Moving equipment causes injuries.) Gone, too, are sandboxes. (Animals use them for litter boxes.) And even cement crawl tubes have been banned. (Vagrants may use them for shelter.) School officials say they have made the changes because of lawsuits. Since 1999, Broward County schools paid out about $561,000 to settle 189 claims for playground accidents.

All Hot and Sweaty (8/9)
Police in India's eastern state of Orissa know just how to deal with people who watch illegal dirty movies. They reportedly rounded up about 200 people watching a porn movie in one cinema and 400 people watching porn at another theater and made them do sit-ups in public and promise never to watch dirty movies again.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' I.D. (8/8)
Police arrested architect Joaquin Romero Aparicio during a trip to a Mexico City shopping mall. They believed he was drug lord Vicente Carillo. Aparicio spent a week in jail before DNA tests proved he wasn't Carillo. Just a few days later, Mexican police admitted the Javier Arellano they had arrested in Mexicali was not drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, but a car showroom employee with a similar name. Arellano was held and questioned for seven hours.