Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2009 November 1-31

Former Broward County, Florida, sheriff's deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss faces 58 charges of sexual battery, false imprisonment, and stalking. Bleiweiss allegedly groped illegal immigrants he pulled over for traffic violations or stopped on the street.

Mountain Boy Sledworks has been making handcrafted sleds in Silverton, Colorado, for seven years. But a zoning dispute has led the city to order the company to stop production. The building inspector insists the sleds are a manufactured product, so their construction is a violation of local zoning. Mountain Boy owner Brice Hoskin says they are a craft product, which is permitted by the zoning.

In England, the Watford Borough Council has barred parents from watching their children while they play at two "adventure" playgrounds run by the council. The only adults allowed in the playgrounds will be council staff who have passed a criminal records check. All other adults, including parents, must stay outside the fence. Council members say the rule will protect children.

In England, it has been 10 months since Torron Eeles broke his arm, leaving it severely twisted. Eeles said surgery to repair the arm has been canceled four times: twice because of a lack of beds, once because doctors believed his blood pressure was too high, and once because he is a smoker. The National Health Service insists it only canceled the surgery twice: once because of his blood pressure and once because he ignored a doctor's orders to quit smoking.

In Lincolnshire, England, police officers, firefighters and paramedics refused to go to the aid of a man who had been struck by a car, knocked into a ditch and was lying in 18 inches of water. They deemed climbing down a 15-foot bank to the victim was too dangerous and called for a water rescue team more than 50 miles away. An autopsy determined that Karl Malton drowned while lying face down in the water.