NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Government in action: Small-town mayors

. For three weeks in September, budget-conscious Mayor Sallie Peake of Wellford, S.C., barred the police from chasing perpetrators of crimes in progress, even if officers drove at the speed limit. Officers were instructed, instead, to arrest suspects later in their homes. (The mayor, under siege, rescinded the policy on Sept. 24.)

. Mayor Stu Rasmussen, 61, of Silverton, Ore., elected last year even though he dresses openly as a woman, drew criticism from officials of a community group in July when he addressed students while wearing a miniskirt and a swimsuit top. Critics suggested he should dress at least in “professional” women’s clothes when speaking to youth groups.

. New York City, which is sued more than 1,000 times a year, has a policy of settling some lawsuits quickly to avoid the risk of expensive judgments.

The New York Daily News reported in October that more than 20 lawsuits, going back several years, were filed by members of the East 21st Street Crew (a well-known Brooklyn gang notorious for selling crack cocaine), and that the city has settled every time, paying out more than $500,000. The “civil rights” lawsuits were over possibly illegal searches and for criminal charges that the city later dismissed. 

Ludicrous police reports

. St. Paul, Minn., police were called to the 1300 block of Desoto Street in July by a 43-year-old man, who demanded that a report be filed because he had found a slice of half-eaten pizza near his fence and thought it represented someone’s intent to “harass” him.

. A nine-hour, 16-officer search of the home of alleged drug kingpin Michael Difalco, near Lakeland, Fla., in March, apparently was not exciting enough. Surveillance video (from Difalco’s security system) released by police in September showed that the easily distracted officers also took time out to play spirited frames of bowling on Difalco’s Wii game. Since the detectives were unaware of the camera, they uninhibitedly pumped their fists and shouted gleefully with every strike. Police supervisors acknowledged the unprofessional behavior but said the search nonetheless was productive. 

Things you thought didn’t happen anymore

Bombastic financier R. Allen Stanford was able to maintain secrecy in the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme he allegedly operated for years out of a bank in Antigua because he and Antigua’s chief bank regulator had met in secret in 2003 and taken an actual “blood oath” of loyalty. The hematic bonding was revealed by Stanford’s No. 2 executive, James Davis, who pleaded guilty in August in federal court in Houston 

Fetishes on parade

Gary Moody, 49, was charged in federal court in Portland, Maine, with lingering inside a pit toilet in the White Mountain National Forest. He admitted to having “an outhouse problem.” Moody was not caught in the act, but because he had pleaded no contest to a similar incident in 2005, he was a prime suspect and eventually confessed. 

Least competent criminal

Daniel Taylor Jr., 33, was arrested in Elizabethton, Tenn., in September following a domestic disturbance complaint against a neighbor. A sheriff’s deputy had gone to Taylor’s house by mistake, wrongly thinking it was the source of the complaint, but Taylor immediately surrendered to the deputy anyway, and turned around to be handcuffed. When the deputy inquired why Taylor thought he should be arrested, Taylor said he assumed the deputy had come to arrest him for violating probation on earlier charges. The deputy took Taylor to the station before resuming the domestic disturbance call. 

Embarrassing incidents

. Zach Schultz of Denver became the most recent victim of wind, costing him his car. While driving down Colorado Boulevard in July, he tossed a lit cigarette out the window, but it landed in the back seat and set the car on fire, and he was not able to save it.

. Sylvester Jiles, 24, became the most recent casualty among former inmates who try to break back into prisons (in Jiles’ case, to seek “protection” from threats to his life on the outside). In August in Brevard County, Fla., Jiles was hospitalized for a heavy loss of blood that resulted when he fell into the razor wire inside the wall. 

A News of the Weird Classic (November 2004)

“Anal-wart researcher” (visual inspection being the only way to detect anal cancer from the human papillomavirus) heads Popular Science magazine’s second annual November list, in 2004, of the worst jobs in science. However, “worm parasitologist” can be just as challenging, especially for anyone studying the Dracunculus medinensis (which can settle in humans to a length of 3 feet and then must be removed carefully after its thousands of offspring burst through the skin). Other contenders: “tampon squeezer” for the study of vaginal infections; a Lyme-disease “tick attractor” (who must sing, to keep bears away, while trolling in the woods); and “monitors” at warm-climate landfills (where garbage has been reduced to steamy, liquid condensates). 