Curses, foiled again
A man approached a clerk at a restaurant in Haverhill, Mass., declared he had a gun and demanded money from the register. When the clerk insisted on seeing the gun, the man fled. North Andover’s Eagle Tribune reported police found suspect Adam Alsarabi, 22, hiding in the woods, gunless.
Road worries
Accused hit-and-run driver Edward Cespedes- Rodriguez, 34, testified in a Portland, Ore., court that he didn’t see the victim because he was fumbling for a dropped cell phone. Kate Altermatt told the Oregonian she doubted his assertion considering she was wearing a 6-foot-tall bright orange bunny costume and riding a pedicab that was lit up with reflectors and a blinking red light. Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Karin Immergut agreed and found Cespedes-Rodriguez guilty.
Flame games
Chad Matthew Lever, 26, pleaded guilty to starting a fire that killed his mother in Breinigsville, Pa. Investigators said Lever was trying to get the woman’s cat in bed with her by flicking a lighter under the bed but didn’t see the cat, so he headed downstairs to look for it without realizing he had set the mattress on fire. His mother, an invalid, yelled that the mattress was burning, but Lever couldn’t get her out of the room and was overcome by smoke. Allentown’s Morning Call reported Lever, who received two years’ probation, told detectives he had played the lighter trick with the cat before and usually the flicker of the lighter scared it to jump onto the bed.
Unclear on the concept
Calvin Hoover, 21, called 911 in Marion County, Ore., to report someone had broken into his truck at a tavern and stolen cash, a jacket and some marijuana. The Statesman Journal said Hoover called 911 again to complain that sheriff’s deputies hadn’t arrived, but the dispatcher had trouble understanding him because he was driving, stopping several times to vomit. When deputies did show up, they charged Hoover with driving under the influence of intoxicants.
Melting pot follies
Citizens protested in Taos, N.M., after hotel owner Larry Whitten, 63, forbade Hispanic workers from speaking Spanish in his presence and ordered some to Anglicize their names. “I’m just doing what I’ve always done,” Whitten told the Associated Press after fired workers, their relatives and some townspeople set up pickets across the street from the Paragon Inn. He explained he asked workers to speak only English because he perceived they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish, which he doesn’t understand.
Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.
