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How To Tell If You’ve Had Too Much To Drink

forklift-van

Ashley Basich, 49, was arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in October and charged with DUI after police found her, late at night, using an industrial forklift to pick up and move a van that she explained was blocking her driveway. Problems: She works for the state forestry department and had commandeered a state-owned vehicle, she had a cooler of beer in the forklift and was operating it while wearing flip-flops (OSHA violation!), and the van “blocking” her driveway was her own. [Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Cheyenne), 11-2-2016]

Police Report

Inexplicable: (1) The police chief of Bath Township, Ohio, acknowledged the overnight break-in on Oct. 10 or 11 at the University Hospitals Ghent Family Practice, but said nothing was missing. It appeared that an intruder (or intruders) had performed some medical procedure in a clinical office (probably on an ear) because instruments were left in bowls and a surgical glove and medication wrappings tossed into a trash can (and a gown left on a table). (2) A 35-year-old man was detained by police in Vancouver, British Columbia, in October after a home break-in in which the intruder took off his clothes, grabbed some eggs and began preparing a meal. The homeowner, elsewhere in the house, noticed the commotion and the intruder fled (still naked). [WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 10-27-2016] [CTV News (Vancouver), 10-20-2016]

Compelling Explanations

Two men in rural Coffee County, Georgia, told sheriff’s deputies in November that they had planned to soon attack a science-research center in Alaska because peoples’ “souls” were trapped there and needed to be released (or at least that is what God told Michael Mancil, 30, and James Dryden Jr., 22, causing them to amass a small, but “something out of a movie” arsenal, according to the sheriff). The High Frequency Active Aural Research Facility, run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has long been a target of conspiracists, in that “the study of the Earth’s atmosphere” obviously, they say, facilitates “mind control,” snatching souls. [WALB-TV (Albany, Ga.), 11-1-2016]

Well, Of Course!

1) Motorist Luke Campbell, 28, was arrested near Minneapolis in September and charged with firing his gun at several passing cars, wounding one man (a bus passenger) — explaining to a bystander that shooting at other vehicles “relieves stress.” (2) Briton Mark Wright, 45, caught with illegal drugs taped to his penis following his arrest for burglary, told Newcastle Crown Court in September that he had “hidden” them there to keep them secret from his wife (perhaps identifying one place that she no longer visits). [Star Tribune (Minneapolis), 9-23-2016] [The Chronicle (Newcastle), 9-28-2016]

People With Issues

A 49-year-old man was partly exonerated by a court in southern Sweden in September when he convinced the judge that he had a severe anxiety attack every time he received an “official” government letter in the mail (known as “window envelopes” in Sweden). Thus, though he was guilty of DUI and several other minor traffic offenses while operating his scooter, the judge dropped the charge of driving without a license because the man never opened the string of “frightening” letters informing him that operating a scooter requires a license. [The Local (Stockholm), 9-3-2016]

Least Competent Criminals

Jacob Roemer, 20, was arrested in Negaunee Township, Michigan, after a brief chase on Oct. 29 following an attempted home invasion. The resident had confronted him, chasing Roemer into the woods, where a State Police dog eventually found him lying on the ground unconscious and bloody, after, in the darkness, running into a tree and knocking himself out. [Marquette Mining Journal, 10-30-2016]

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Jamie Moses

Jamie Moses founded Artvoice in 1990

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