Business As Usual

GREENFIELD, Calif. – Police have arrested a Greenfield man for allegedly arranging to sell his 14-year-old daughter into marriage in exchange for $16,000, 100 cases of beer and several cases of meat. Police said they only learned of the deal after the 36-year-old man went to them to get his daughter back because payment wasn't made as promised. The man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of human trafficking. Officers also arrested an 18-year-old man on suspicion of statutory rape. Investigators believe the girl went willingly with the man, but she's under California's legal age of consent and can't legally marry. Police say arranged marriages involving underage girls have become a problem in this small Central Coast farming community.

Even Fat Ninjas are Stealthlike

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A ninja, or at least someone dressed like one, is lurking in the shadows of Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office says a heavyset man with a visible potbelly and a ninja costume unsuccessfully tried to steal two different ATMs over the past two weeks. Security video from the automated teller machines showed the unidentified man dressed in a black ninja outfit with a hood that showed only his eyes. Authorities say the first attempt was made at a bank on Dec. 29 and the second at a Walgreens on Tuesday. Authorities did not say how the man tried to steal the machines.

They're on to me...

SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian man broke into three adult shops, had sex with blow up dolls named "Jungle Jane" and then dumped his plastic conquests in a nearby alley, local media reported Wednesday.

"It's totally bizarre. It's a real concern that someone like that is out on the street," said one of the owners of the adult sex shops in Cairns in northern Queensland state.

"He has been taking the dolls out the back and blowing them up and using the dolls and leaving them in the alley," the owner, who gave the name of Vogue, told the Cairns Post newspaper.

Police told the Cairns Post that scientific officers had taken DNA samples, fingerprints and pictures of the crime scene.

Man Waits in Line to Rob Bank

STOW, Ohio – A man may have tipped his intentions when he stood in line at an Ohio bank wearing a ski mask before staging a holdup. Police in Stow near Akron say 24-year-old Feliks Goldshtein of Highland Heights was arrested minutes later on Thursday following a brief car chase. Police say the teller asked the man to take off the mask before being served. At that point the man displayed what turned out to be a toy gun and told the teller to give him all the money. He made off with an undisclosed amount. Police Captain Rick Myers says it's unusual for a masked robber to wait in line at a bank. Goldshtein was held at the Summit County Jail Friday on charges of aggravated robbery and failure to comply with a police order. Municipal Court records don't identify an attorney for Goldshtein.

3 hour standoff gives cops a break

SALT LAKE CITY – Salt Lake City police were in a three-hour standoff outside a shed behind a Salt Lake City home before finding out there was nobody inside. The standoff started Thursday after police got a report from a woman living inside the house that she thought she saw her roommate's estranged boyfriend enter the shed with a gun. Officers secured the area, but after clearing the house and sending K-9 dogs to the shed, they found it was locked and there was no one there. Some neighbors had been evacuated and police shut down a portion of a city street near the house.

Paintjob

Washington State — A man who reportedly told police he was trying to deter a friend from driving drunk by blasting the friend's windshield with paintballs wound up in jail. In the words of Kennewick, Wash., police Sgt. Ken Lattin: "This is a very creative way to prevent someone from drinking and driving, but not legal or safe."

Responding Tuesday night to a nearby resident's report of a man shooting paintballs at a car, police found the 41-year-old man, who explained his rationale.

The Tri-City Herald reported the man was arrested and booked into the Benton County jail for investigation of unlawfully discharging a weapon and an unrelated misdemeanor warrant.

"I dont go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth."

Baltimore Adoopts New Slogan

BALTIMORE (AP) ― Baltimore finished 2008 with 234 homicides, the city's lowest total since 1988. It took less than an hour to record the first homicide of 2009. Police spokesman Officer Troy Harris says a man was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds around 12:50 a.m. Thursday on a street near Patterson Park in East Baltimore. Police have no suspects or motive in the slaying. City officials are pleased with the 17 percent reduction from 2007's homicide total. But Mayor Sheila Dixon has said the city has "a long way to go." Baltimore remains one of the nation's most violent cities, with a homicide rate of about 37 slayings per 100,000 people. A majority of the city's murder victims have criminal records.

http://wjz.com/local/baltimore.murder.2009.2.898466.html

Arkansas - goes 2 days into new year until something stupid happens - new record

A University of Arkansas employee faces charges for recording a teenage girl in the shower even though his girlfriend told police she did it to get him in trouble. Kevin Dale Robinson, 35, was charged Tuesday with possessing or viewing matter depicting explicit conduct involving a child and video voyeurism. Robinson is accused on Oct. 6 of possessing nude images of a 16-year-old girl and using a digital camera to secretly record her while she was taking a shower. Robinson who works as a systems programmer for the UA's information technology services department, told Fayetteville police when he was arrested Nov. 12 that he did not take the video recording of the teenage girl.
He said his longtime girlfriend, Lela Churchwell, took the video herself in an effort to get him in trouble, according to the arrest report. He also produced for police an e-mail from Churchwell sent Oct. 21 in which she admitted to being a pathological liar and setting him up.

http://nwanews.com/nwat/News/72625/

Common Courtesy Saves Old Hag's Life

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said an 88-year-old woman fended off a naked intruder by grabbing the man's crotch and squeezing. Deputy Paul McRedmond said the man got into the house Tuesday through a sliding door. He backed the woman into her living room and pushed her face down onto a chair. That's when the woman reached behind and squeezed. The man tore free and fled. McRedmond said a county code enforcement officer who heard the police call on his radio spotted a car near the woman's house and passed on the license information to authorities.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28440587/

Minnesota Man - F'd In The "A"

CROOKSTON, Minn. - A Minnesota snowplow operator who drove a $200,000 loader into a frozen river has been fired. Mike Raymond was clearing snow from county parking lots early Monday when he decided to also clear off a boat ramp on the frozen Red Lake River in Crookston. Raymond says he wanted to make it easier for people who pull fish houses on trailers onto the river. He so happens to have a fish house on the river himself — but told the Grand Forks Herald that's not why he wanted to clear the area.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28434906/

Zamboni FAIL

PORTLAND, Maine - In other Zamboni News, A Portland man faces a drunken driving charge after police found him aboard an idling Zamboni inside the Cumberland County Civic Center. Police and firefighters were alerted by an alarm at about 2 a.m. Tuesday that somebody was inside the arena, which is home to the Portland Pirates hockey team. Police officers discovered a 22-year-old man attempting to operate the Zamboni, which had crashed into a wall inside the civic center's storage area. Police said the man appeared to be intoxicated, and that he had also operated two forklifts and damaged a sprinkler system, interior walls and a hockey net.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28439002/

Polish Contractors Suck

A Polish building contractor working at London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital was given his marching orders after a security guard caught him having sex with a Henry Hoover, the Sun reports. The unnamed perv was supposed to be locking up the site, at hospital admin offices, but was instead discovered in the staff canteen "naked and on his knees with the smiling cleaner". The "horrified" guard told the chap to "clean himself and the hoover", then ejected him from the premises. The unnamed vacuum-molestor later told his bosses he was actually cleaning his underwear, describing this habit as "a common practice in Poland". His employer, HG Construction, was having none of it. The company said: "That behavior is not acceptable, though it gave a few people a laugh."

http://whatsthecrack.net/Polish-builder-sacked-for-humping-hoover

Kiwi Billed For Being Smug

James Storrie was charged $140 on his monthly mobile phone bill
for being arrogant. Telecom Corp., New Zealand's largest phone
company apologized to Storrie for charging him a fee for being
an "arrogant bastard," which was printed clealy on his bill The phone company is investigating as to how that charge appeared that way. Martin Freeth, Telecom
spokesman, said, "We've apologized and taking steps to stop
anything like this...it's an aberration."

Convicts Escape As Guards Chase Rabbit

Over 30 Ugandan prison inmates, who were digging in a garden,
managed to escape when their guards ran off to chase a rabbit.
Apparently the rabbit shot out of a nearby bush and all five
guards set off in pursuit.

Chinese launch full scale search for mugger

A policeman was mugged by a man right outside the police station
in Hong Kong. The policeman was shown a knife and the man took
the officers gun and twelve rounds of ammunition. A statement
made by the police said that the officer was on guard duty
outside of the police station when the man approached him. He
also took his police radio. The attacker is trying to be
located by the police officers. The police officer was not
hurt during the mugging though his manhood like most Chinese men is in question.

A picture is worth...

BISMARCK, N.D. – Police get calls about drunken drivers all the time, but rarely do they come from the alleged offender. A 17-year-old girl in Bismarck called 911 on New Year's Eve "to report herself driving under the influence," police Lt. Randy Ziegler said. "I've never heard of such a thing happening, and neither has anyone here."

The girl told authorities her location shortly before midnight Wednesday and officers found her in a parked car near downtown, Ziegler said. She failed a sobriety test and was arrested for failing to have control of her vehicle while intoxicated.

The girl, whose name was not released because of her age, was not cited for drunken driving, Ziegler said.

"Her keys were in her purse and she was parked," Ziegler said. "She did tell us that she had been driving around for hours."

The call probably was a plea for help, he said.

"She told us her life was spiraling out of control, and she had spent the majority of time drinking over the past two weeks," Ziegler said.

The girl was released to her parents Thursday.