Weird News: Volume One

 Weird News:  Volume One

OH THOSE COPS!!

-    At a high-school basketball game in February, Oklahoma City

Police officer Eldridge Wyatt became dissatisfied that no fouls

were being called on "No. 21" and walked onto the court to point

out the player's elbowing to the referees.  When referee Stan

Guffey told Wyatt to leave the officiating to him, Wyatt arrested

Guffey.  Guffey was unarrested a few minutes later so that the game

could continue, but when a reporter asked Wyatt after the game what

had happened, Wyatt tried to arrest him, too.

PAY ATTENTION DUDES!

-    Lynne F. Herron, 33, was hired recently as a municipal bus

driver in Cleveland by the Regional Transit Authority.  She had

just been fired as a municipal train driver after an accident that

injured 14 people, which she caused by deliberately disengaging a

safety system.  The city's labor contract requires that anyone

fired for a train accident be rehired as a bus driver.

-    A West Chester, Pa., urologist reported in an issue of

`Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality' last year that a man had

checked himself into an emergency room with pain resulting from a

swollen and apparently lacerated scrotum.  Days after the doctor

repaired the patient's condition, the man confided that he had been

masturbating by holding his penis against the canvas drive-belt of

a piece of machinery at work during his lunch hour when he leaned

too close as he approached orgasm and suffered an industrial

accident.  He then used a heavy duty stapling gun to close the

wound.

-    Motorcyclist David Gripon was injured in a collision near

Escondito, Calif., in July when he lost control of his bike on

Interstate 15.  As Gripon came alongside a car with bare feet

sticking out of the passenger window, he reached out to tickle them

and ran into the car in front of him.

-    Montesano, Wash., government prosecutor Steward Menefee

announced in November that he would not seek a tougher penalty

against convicted murderer Lee Bake, because the required

"aggravated circumstances" were not present.  Bake had gouged the

victim's eyes with a screwdriver, stabbed her to death, and drunk

her blood.

-    Malaysian Deputy Interior Minister Megat Junid Ayob told an

anti-drug conference in January in Kuala Lampur that shortages in

heroin and cannabis have caused some addicts to get high by

sniffing fresh cow dung.  Addicts put a coconut shell over the

party, with a hole at the top for sniffing.

-    Recently in a New York City supermarket, according to a `New

York Daily News' story, a customer became upset that another woman

was abusing the maximum limit for items at an express checkout line

and precipitated a loud argument, which culminated with the angry

woman shouting at the queue-abuser, "I spit into your groceries." 

the alleged queue-abuser was the wife of reputed mobster John

Gotti.  Victoria Gotti said she "used connections" to trace the

woman's license plate, went to the woman's home, and dumped a box

of dog feces on her.

-    In December, Washington State Reformatory officials they had

erred in obliging a 53 year old inmate's job preference to work in

the prison's printing plant.  He was serving time for forgery, and

officials uncovered, during a routine inspection of his quarters,

forged birth certificates, marriage licenses, and a paycheck stub. 

An official said the prison tries to get inmates jobs "based on

their interests."

AS IN REAL WEIRD

-    Transsexual Baroness Maria Thyssen von Hexun, formerly James

Gonzales, was sentenced to four years in prison in Denver in

October, for bilking an elderly woman out of several thousand

dollars.  As her sentence was pronounced, the 6 foot, 220 pound

baroness rolled her eyes and objected, "I've been involved with

nothing but a bunch of jerks.  They don't listen.  They lose

things."  Her attorney told the judge that "these things happen,"

referring to the baroness' fantasies that she was a baroness.

REAL DUMB

-    Prison escapee James Sanders was captured by federal agents

at his home in Stinnett, Texas, in January after 17 years on the

lam, during which he had established a new life, married, and

fathered a daughter.  Agents were tipped off when Sanders, out of

curiosity, telephoned the FBI to ask whether they were still

pursuing James Sanders.

MAJOR BAD SPORT

-    In February, Marc Cienkowski, 26, confessed to the murder last

July of his friend, Michael Klucznik, 31, in Doylestown Borough,

Pa., after a dispute over a game of Monopoly.  Cienkowski shot

Klucznik through the heart, using a bow and arrow.  According to

the district attorney, "[Cienkowski] wanted to be the car rather

than the thimble or the hat."