WHEN GEEKS ATTACK
In March, a teenager was charged with attempting to rob the Fun 4 All comic book store in Southfield, Michigan, with a homemade bomb (that looked realistic but turned out to be harmless) and presenting a list of the specific collectors’ merchandise (not money) he wanted. After the clerk balked at the demands, the robber relented, paid cash for a few of the items on the list and left. When arrested later, he called the incident a “social experiment.”
BUSTED!
The manager of the Channel Islands Co-operative store in the British territory of Jersey acknowledged to BBC News in November that a shopper’s complaint was justified and that refunds would be made. The customer believed she had been overcharged by five pounds (about $8) because, while weighing fruits and vegetables, the clerk had been leaning over so that her breasts accidentally increased pressure on the scale.
PERVS ON PARADE
(1) Salt Lake County corrections officer Robert Monson, 38, was charged in December with having sex with a female he met while she was in lockup. According to the woman, the couple’s trysts were not impeded by her ankle monitor, which Monson insisted was “sexy.” In fact, shortly after the monitor was removed, the relationship ended. (2) A 50-year-old man was charged with indecent exposure near Yakima, Washington, in March when he jumped in front of a woman, genitals exposed, but otherwise dressed in a diver’s wet suit, mask and bright orange gloves.
ART AND SOLE
Scottish artist Jane Forbes, 47, won the “Shoe Is Art” competition in Dundee in late 2010 with a work (“Ad Infinitum”) that a University of Dundee spokesman called “awe-inspiring.” Forbes painted (and photographed) the same pair of shoes every day for 66 consecutive days, hypothesizing that subtle differences in her “mood” would be detectable in any variations in the paint jobs.
INCOMPETENT CRIMINALS
Timothy James Chapek, 24, was charged with burglary in March after he broke into a house in Portland, Oregon, and had a shower. Unknown to him, the resident was in another part of the house and came, with his two German shepherds and a gun, to confront Chapek through the closed bathroom door, while calling 911. Fearing the dogs and the gun, Chapek simultaneously dialed 911 himself, begging that officers come quickly and arrest him.
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