Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2010 January 1-31

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, police officer Marcus Jackson has been charged with sexual battery, extortion, kidnapping, indecent exposure, and felonious restraint after allegedly assaulting two female motorists. Jackson was on duty, in uniform, and in his patrol car when the assaults were said to have happened.

Police arrested a 14-year-old boy at California's Crittenden Middle School for assault after he threw a football at another boy's leg during a football game. The boy who was hit was not hurt. The police report said the boy who threw the ball appeared to be angry, but officials offered no explanations for why the incident was serious enough to arrest anyone.

Strath Haven High School in Pennsylvania suspended Michael Hance for "defiance of authority." The senior was punished for wearing a Santa Claus suit to school shortly before Christmas.

Law enforcement officers arrested Jesse Ray Hardy Jr. in Pitt County, North Carolina, and shipped him to Guilford County, where he faced charges including breaking and entering and resisting an officer. Hardy made two court appearances and spent a week in the Guilford County jail before anyone figured out they had the wrong Jesse Ray Hardy Jr. The man they wanted shares the same name and home town as the one they arrested, but he is 23 years younger.

School officials in Kingston, Pennsylvania, have busted a football pool being run out of the teachers' lounge at a local middle school. District school superintendent Charles Suppon says it still isn't clear who set up the pool, but he added that school officials are talking to their attorney about possible punishment as well as whether the police should be brought in.