xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Gilbert D. Walker, 43, arrested (and then released) in Panama City, Fla., after crazily breaking into a neighbor’s house and chasing her with a dagger, said the problem was that he had drunk too much jasmine tea (July).
Heroin-cocaine addict Amanda C. Hagan, 29, brought to a Norristown, Pa., hospital after an overdose, said it was the hospital’s fault that she shot up again in her bed because it let in the visitor who resupplied her (June).
A 4-year-old girl was hit by a computer that came flying out of a 12th. floor apartment window, flung by a father angry that his 12-year-old daughter wouldn’t stay off the Internet (Seoul).
Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation:
(63) Genetic modification experiments using DNA from jellyfish to create some organism or other that lights up, such as an aquarium-pet zebrafish that glows yellow and green, created in Taiwan by the Taikong Corporation (June).
(64)The man with a police obsession who dresses as a cop and makes free-lance traffic stops with emergency flashers on his car, only to discover that the person he stopped is a real police officer, as happened when Clifford Holloway, 30, stopped off-duty officer Matthew Bandler in Kansas City, Mo. (June).
Fired Rochester, N.Y., police officer Clint Jackson, 24, convicted of fondling eight women during traffic stops, said he was contemplating a lawsuit against the police department for inadequate training (July).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD