Brickbats
Sgt. Eliezer Pabon of the New York Police Department shoved a handcuffed 14-year-old boy through a store window after the boy mouthed off at him. The boy suffered a punctured lung and had to have glass removed from his heart. Pabon's punishment: He was stripped of five vacation days.
Jon Carey says the pond on his 10-acre home near Butte Falls, Oregon, is the best part of the property that he and his wife bought two and a half years ago. The pond has been there for 40 years. But now the Jackson County watermaster says it is illegal. State law gives the county rights to all rainfall, and the Careys are not authorized to collect it.
Two Washington state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it illegal even to touch your phone while driving. The bill would also more than double the fine for distracted driving from $124 to $350.
When Elmo Jones of Aurora, Colorado, divorced his wife, the court found that her son was not fathered by Jones and refused to award her any child support. Despite that, the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) began to garnish his military retirement benefits. When he complained, officials demanded he prove the boy was not his son. He sent them a copy of the court ruling and the results of a DNA test, but the agency continued to withhold his pay. Only after a local TV station began asking questions did the V.A. stop withholding the money.
Police in the United Arab Emirates have arrested a maid from Somalia for giving birth out of wedlock. The baby is being held in the prison nursery; the mother may visit only to feed him.
Thomas Opperman, the chairman of Germany's Social Democratic Party, has proposed fining Facebook 500,000 euros for each "fake" news story on the site. How will Facebook determine which news is fake? Opperman says the company should be required to set up a commission within Germany to allow citizens to file complaints.
A New York law that supporters claimed would protect boxers is killing the sport in the state. The law, passed last year, requires $1 million of insurance for each boxer who enters a fight, to cover life-threatening brain injuries. Promoters say they can afford that for big championship events but not for the small, local shows that are the lifeblood of the sport.
Domonique Yatsko, 9, was so proud when she killed her first deer in Ohio that her family had a photo of her with the eight-point buck put on a sweatshirt. But when she wore the shirt to school, she says one of her teachers "yelled at" her, told her killing animals was "not what we do," and demanded she take the shirt off. Superintendent Catherine Aukerman claims the teacher merely told Yatsko the shirt was upsetting other students and asked her to take it off.
Shortly before she left office in January, Patty Hajdu, Canada's Minister of Status of Women, called a proposal to legalize pepper spray so that women can better defend themselves "offensive" because it "places the onus on women to defend themselves rather than focusing on addressing and preventing gender-based violence."
Iesha Conley, a postal worker in Brooklyn, has been charged with stealing gift cards from the mail. She reportedly used one card to buy almost $100 in sex toys.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Brickbats."
