Curses, foiled again

A man told police he was eating hot dogs in a park in Worcester, Mass., when another man approached, lifted up his shirt to show what appeared to be a handgun, grabbed one of the hot dogs and began eating it. “In doing so,” police Officer Joseph Francese noted in his report, “mustard spilled onto the suspect’s shirt.” According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, police identified Antonio J. Judd, 35, as their suspect after spotting him wearing the shirt with the telltale mustard stain. Judd pleaded guilty to larceny.

Welsh police said Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, attacked two men walking along a Swansea street in wigs, short skirts and high heels. The victims turned out to be cage fighters, who promptly punched their attackers to the ground and walked off. The Daily Mail said police identified Gardener and Fender from closed-circuit television footage of the incident. “You know it cannot have been a good night,” defense attorney Mark Davies told the newspaper, “when you get into a fight with two cross-dressing men.”

Way to go

When heavy rain caused flooding in Chattanooga, Tenn., Sylvester Kitchens, 46, bragged he could swim an overflowing storm ditch and dared an onlooker to bet him $5 he couldn’t. He got no takers, the Associated Press reported, but jumped in anyway. He bobbed along for about 150 feet before grabbing a chain link fence above the ditch. He lost his grip while family members tried to toss him a lifeline, and washed away into an underground culvert. Rescuers found his body four days later.

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.