Hey, you . . . out of the gene pool!
- Police in Wichita, Kansas,
arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he
tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
- A man in Johannesberg, South
Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face,
seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting
beer cans off each other's head.
- A company trying to continue
its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a
film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on
the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the
film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so
graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries
in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen
others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after
he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the
film.
- The Chico, California, City
Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500
fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.
- A bus carrying five
passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time
police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had
boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash
injuries and back pain.
- Swedish business consultant
Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish
economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be
copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper
in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the
shredder.
- A convict broke out of jail
in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his
girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went
out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had
him paged. Police officers recognized his name and
arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he
had stolen over the lunch hour.
- Police in Radnor,
Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal
colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a
photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was
placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button
each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the
truth. Believing the "lie detector" was
working, the suspect confessed.
- When two service station
attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the
cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call
the police. They still refused, so the robber called the
police and was arrested.
- A Los Angeles man who later
said he was "tired of walking," stole a
steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an
officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.
Last modified: 11/26/1997