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At least as old as 02-Sep-1992 14:14

• Arthur Gloria, 20, was arrested at a police station in Chicago as he was leaving, after having taken the written test to qualify for becoming a police officer. He had driven a stolen car to the exam and parked it illegally outside the station.
• *LATEST NEGATIVE CASH-FLOW ROBBERY:* A man held up a Circle K store in Waco, Texas, on Nov. 29 after first diverting the clerk’s attention by putting a $20 bill on the counter and asking for change. When the robber pulled a gun and demanded the entire contents of the cash register, the clerk put everything in a bag and handed it to the robber – all $15. The robber left the $20 bill on the counter as he fled.
• *SMOOTH REACTIONS:* James Patrick Summerville, 33, was arrested in Anne Arundel County, Md., in November after he chased and rammed a garbage truck with his car and fired two shots at it at 5:45 a.m. The truck’s driver had declined to wait for Summerville, who was carrying trash that he had forgotten to put out that morning.
• *UNDER ARREST:* 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 un-arrested a few minutes later so the game could continue, but when a reporter asked Wyatt after the game what had happened, Wyatt tried to arrest him, too.
• *LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE:* Huntington Beach, Calif., police Lt. Patrick Gidea reported in November that officers conducting an undercover drug purchase sting continued to make arrests of eager would-be customers even after large orange “police” signs were placed in the area. Said Gildea, “We actually had people coming up and getting in line (to buy cocaine) when we had people (under arrest and handcuffed lying) on the gound.”
• *LEAST COMPETENT PERSON:* Michael Stohr, 26, was arrested for counterfeiting in Madison, Wis., in September after clerks at a printing supply store tipped off federal investigators about a man who had been browsing around. Clerks said the man lingered in the store holding dollar bills up to a color chart and finally placing an order for a particular shade of green ink.

• *ANONYMOUS TIP:* 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.

News of the Weird, 25 July 1992 — At least as old as 24-Aug-1992 16:59

• Willie R. Love was charged in May with the stabbing death of apartment-house neighbor Karen Jaster, 39, in Madison, Wis. The two had been feuding over each other’s loud music, and Jaster had kept her stereo on full blast for 36 straight hours to annoy Love.

• Joe Chagra filed in April for readmission to the Texas State Bar. He faces long odds. Chagra resigned from the bar in 1983, just in time to avoid being disciplined, after he had been found guilty of conspiracy in the death of the federal judge who was scheduled to hear a drug charge against Chagra’s brother.

News of the Weird 4:41 PM 3/14/91 — At least as old as 04-Jun-1992 21:45

• Inmates at a prison in New South Wales, Australia, taking advantage of a wardens’ strike in May, broke into an office and telephoned an order for 18 tons of concrete to be delivered as a prank. While they were at it, they called out for 312 pizzas. (The concrete was sent back, but the prison had to pay for the pizzas.)
• Omaha attorney (and former judge) David Crawford broke his collarbone recently as he was demonstrating to his office staff how easy it would be to tip over cows as they sleep standing up. He had gotten down on all fours and asked a staff member to tip him over onto his side.
• Five armed inmates overpowered guards at a Venezuelan prison close to the Columbian border in April, commandeered a vehicle, and prepared to escape. However, none of the five, nor any of the several hostages they grabbed, knew how to drive a stick shift, and army troops soon obtained the men’s surrender.
• Gloversvill, N.Y., prison inmate Bruce Hillbourne, 30, apparently attempting to postpone a parole hearing in February, swallowed 24 size AA and A batteries, which had to be removed through surgery. His record is 36 batteries, which he swallowed while incarcerated in 1986.
• A Cuyahoga County, Ohio, judge recently awarded two rape victims damages from their assailant based on $50 per day for the rest of their lives. Nine other victims of the man have a lawsuit pending against him for $52 million. However, the man’s earning capacity is limited because he is serving the next 1,449 to 3,195 years in prison for the rapes.
• In Orlando, Fla., Joseph T. Hill was convicted in August of counterfeiting and faces up to 20 years in prison. Among his work was printing several million Polish zlotys, worth only about $300. Said a Secret Service agent, “He could have printed a boxcar full of them and not have enough to buy an expensive suit.”

• St. Paul, Minn., bank president Michael Brennan filed a $50,000 lawsuit in July against the city and a construction company for a 1989 mishap in his bank’s restroom. The construction company had shut off a sewer line without notifying the bank, and when Brennan flushed, he was suddenly washed out with “200 to 300 gallons” of raw sewage. The company offered only to buy him a new suit.

At least as old as 04-Jun-1992 21:45

• According to the Wichita Eagle in December, a woman, 20, was kidnapped outside her workplace, taken to a local mall and “forced to shop” for five hours before being robbed of her purse.
• The Stockton Record reported a California woman who was kidnapped by two armed men who took her to an isolated spot, “forced her to disrobe, laughed at her, then drove off.”
• A 27-year-old man was booked into San Mateo (Calif.) county jail after police spotted him leaving a store with a bag full of stolen goods. Also in the bag was a plastic, inflatable doll that police said the man must have brought from home.
• Three people were indicted in Nashville in September for a scheme in which they painted a postal collection box to make it a “temporary night deposit box” for a bank, then placed the box next to the bank’s regular night deposit slot and left an “out of order–please use temporary box” sign beside the slot.
• Rodney Earl Colbert had his 50-year sentence upheld by a Texas court in November for running down and killing Jane Fladeland in October 1988 in his pickup truck. Colbert later found he had run over the wrong woman. He had intended to run over a friend’s wife, who had just left her husband, because he wanted to “sort of teach her a lesson.”
• In November, John Lowdermilk, 37, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the death of Esther Williams, 18, in 1988. She had overdosed on a methamphetamine enema.
• David Lusco, 42, was ordered to jail after his December arrest for kidnapping near Moscow, Idaho. Allegedly, he had imprisoned his wife in their pickup truck, forced her to join him in disrobing, and driven off in a reckless rampage. When she escaped and donned a passerby’s coat, he chased her while wearing only a hat. When a judge ordered him to be held for 30 days, he replied, “I’m in jail for 30 days? If I ain’t crazy, I will be.”
• Louis Laslo, 37, was charged with kidnapping for an incident last year in Hellertown, PA. George Reid, 38, was trying to turn his car around in Laslo’s driveway when Laslo, arriving home, drove in hehind him and blocked his exit back to the road. He advanced on Reid’s car, removed the keys forcibly, and allegedly told Reid to hold his nose and hum “Yankee Doodle Dandy” while tapping out the beat on the steering wheel. Then Laslo went inside to call police to arrest the “trespassers,” but when police arrived, they arrested Laslo instead.

• After two hired killers failed in their task to murder the wife of Daytona Beach, FL, pool hall owner Konstantinos Fotopolous, a “tryout” was allegedly given to two others in October (Dierdre Hunt, 20, and Mark Ramsey, 19). Fotopolous, skeptical that either was strong enough for the job, persuaded Ramsey to let himself be tied to a tree so Fotopolous could fire live rounds at his feet to test his courage. However, before he could fire the shots, Hunt, angry at Fotopolous’ chiding her that she was too weak to kill anyone, allegedly shot and killed Ramsey. Fotopolous and Hunt have been charged with murder, and Fotopolous’ videotape of the entire incident was confiscated by police.

At least as old as 06-Jul-1992 13:02

• In April, Richard Dickinson, 25, got out of prison in Hobart, Australia, on an evening pass with two chaperons to attend a concert by his idol, Bob Dylan. Dickinson is in a prison for the criminally insane because in 1987 he stomped his mother to death to the tune of Dylan’s song, “One More Cup of Coffee for the Road,” after she told him to turn down the music.
• A federal magistrate ruled in November that the Alabama prison policy of allowing female guards to oversee showers by male prisoners is not “cruel and unusual punishment” for the men but a reasonably policy for security and equal employement opportunities for female guards.
• A court in Versailles, France, overturned an order banning dwarf-tossing, permitting 3-foot, 11-inch Manuel Wackenheim, 24, to return to work at the Eclipse nightclub in Morsang-sur-Orge, from which he had been banned by the mayor in October. The French interior minister had called such exhibitions “an intolerable attack on human dignity,” but later acquiesced because the ban would deny a “physically different” person a livelihood.
• The United States Tax Court ruled in favor of the Internal Revenue Service’s claim that Irwin Schiff would have to pay $92,000 in back taxes and penalties. Schiff is the author of “How Anyone Can Stop Paying Income Taxes,” the now-failed thesis that the IRS lacked the authority to tax anyone who did not file a return, a strategy he had employed since 1973.
• Carlos Carrasco, 24, was sentenced to 10 years probation for a bungled burglary of a liquor store in 1991. According to court records, Carrasco: cut his hand when he broke through the roof of the store; tried to throw a bottle of whiskey out through the hole he had created but missed, causing the bottle to fall to the floor, shatter, and set off a burglar alarm; fell onto the broken bottle, cutting himself again; left his wallet in the store; once on the roof for his getaway, fell off; left a trail of blood from the store to his home.

• Singapore’s environmental ministry banned chewing gum earlier this year. Tourists will be permitted “a few sticks.” Packs will be confiscated, and a fine of up to $6,000 imposed on importers.