Curses, foiled again
Stephen Frankie Daniel, 21, was caught robbing a gas station convenience store in Snellville, Ga., by police Lt. B.W. Brown, who happened to be waiting in line behind him. “The manager was laughing at the time he was putting the money in the bag because he was looking at me over the guy who was robbing him,” Brown said, noting that Daniel apparently didn’t notice Brown’s uniform or the plainly marked Snellville Police Department pickup truck parked outside the store. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Where Doo-Wop lives forever
Pittsburgh public television station WQED announced it’s devoting a new channel to airing pledge drives from its archives of “several hundred hours,” dating back to 1993. Besides its own pledge shows, WQED Showcase intends broadcasting ones from other public stations. “A lot of people really like pledge programming,” station president Deborah Acklin insisted. (Current)
Second-Amendment follies
Chaz Ursomanno, 22, was hospitalized with lifethreatening injuries after he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing his girlfriend a handgun. Naomi Ensell, 24, told Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies she asked Ursomanno to put the gun away, but he insisted the weapon was safe. To prove it, he held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. He then pointed the gun at his head a second time and fired. This time, it went off. (Associated Press)
Do bears drive in the woods?
Authorities said a bear broke into a 2002 Toyota Prius parked at a cabin in Lake Tahoe, Calif., then went on a rampage when it couldn’t figure out how to exit the vehicle. “You could look down and see the bear in the car, and its arms were just flailing all over the place, through the windows and everything,” said Brian McCarthy, 61, who watched with his family as the bear kicked, scratched, bit and tore at the car’s interior, ripped open the seats and bit a chunk out of the steering wheel. Then the bear shifted the Prius into neutral. It rolled backward out of the driveway, picked up speed, hopped a small rock wall and stopped on a neighbor’s porch steps. After the bear finally escaped, McCarthy reported the incident. “It’s definitely not a normal thing to hear about,” South Lake Tahoe police Lt. David Stevenson said. (Contra Costa Times)
Storm clouds
Brett Cummins, 33, a TV weatherman in Little Rock, Ark., was found in an unfilled hot tub with a naked dead man. The victim, Dexter Paul Williams, 24, was wearing a chain around his neck that Maumelle police Officer Gregory Roussie described as “silver in color and consistent with what I believed to be a dog collar.” Although a witness said the two had been drinking and snorting drugs when they climbed into the hot tub, police filed no charges, saying foul play isn’t suspected. Cummins resigned his job with KARK- TV anyway. (New York’s Daily News)
Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.
