xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Seriously Bi-Cultural: Tariq Khan, 12, of New York City, bubbled with enthusiasm (to a New York Times reporter in August) about his love of the Grand Theft Auto video game and the hip-hop music of Fat Joe, T.I. and 50 Cent — a month after becoming a prestigious hafiz by having memorized the entire Koran in Arabic (which he doesn’t understand all that well). He finished the regimen in less than two years of 40-hour workweeks, and if he retains his knowledge, he and 10 people of his choosing eventually get express passage to paradise.
University of Central Florida student Matthew Damsky was arrested in July and charged with starting a fire in his dormitory, just so that, he said, he could meet women during the evacuation.
During the Santa Ana, Calif., murder-conspiracy trial of Aryan Brotherhood prison leaders in July, the lawyer for defendant Barry “The Baron” Mills (who was convicted along with colleague Tyler “The Hulk” Bingham) made the point that the Aryan Brotherhood is more of a social club than a criminal gang and mostly enjoys just “playing cards, reading and crocheting,” according to a New York Times report.
The robber of a Bank of America branch in Tampa, Fla., in August is actually still at large, but according to witnesses, the bag of cash he took and stuffed down his pants as he fled had exploded, from the chemical dye pack inside, creating a temperature of about 425 degrees. Said a police spokesperson, “There’s no way that he was not injured.” (In his spirited post-ignition dash, the man jettisoned almost all the money.)
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD