Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2009 June 1-31

Harvey and Lydia Borntrager had just pulled into their driveway, when a truck pulled up and several Goshen, Indiana, police officers raced out and knocked down their front door. Harvey asked what they were doing, and one officer said they had a search warrant. He asked Borntrager what the address was. He told him. The officer asked again. Borntrager repeated the answer. The officer then said they were at the wrong home. They were supposed to search the house next door.

Novelist Nedim Gursel faces up to one year in prison in Turkey, where he is on trial for insulting Islam. Prosecutors say Gursel's novel "The Daughters of Allah," which is set at the beginning of the Islamic faith, is blasphemous.

Newton, Massachusetts, school officials suspended Kathleen Cunningham, food services manager at Angier Elementary School, after she offered substitute meals to students who wouldn't eat the veggie burgers the school served. School officials say they lost $905,000 on food service last year, in part because of low participation.

For several days New Orleans police searched for a man accused of impersonated a police officer to force his way into several homes, where he demanded the residents show him where they kept drugs. He allegedly forced some of his victims to strip and touched one woman "inappropriately." The man they finally arrested was Darrius Clipps, a New Orleans police officer, not an impersonator. Clipps reportedly told officers he was conducting a drug investigation.

East Haven, Connecticut, police say they arrested a Catholic priest because he was holding an "unknown shiny silver object" in his hand. In fact, Rev. James Manship was holding a video camera that he uses to document police treatment of minorities. According to an Associated Press story, the video reportedly shows East Haven police Officer David Cari asking Manship, "Is there a reason you have a camera on me?" Manship replies, "I'm taking a video of what's going on here." Cari approaches the priest and says, "Well, I'll tell you what, what I'm going to do with that camera." The tape then goes blank.