Category Archives: Bad Luck
2 more of our nation’s brightest …. Printer theft leads to high-speed chase
Slidell police say an off-duty officer used “spike strips” following a high-speed chase to catch a couple fleeing the scene of the theft of an ink-jet printer.
A Slidell Police Department spokesman says a loss prevention employee at Wal-Mart on Natchez Drive contacted them after spotting 48-year-old Clint Coslett (above, right) and his 32-year-old wife, Prilla Coslett, (above, left,) stealing a $37 computer printer.
Officials say when the husband (above, right) saw the responding officer arrive, Coslett put the 2006 Chevy Silverado in gear and fled, nearly striking the officer who was approaching the vehicle on foot.
According to investigators, the couple led Slidell cops on a high-speed chase across the city, “while throwing suspected methamphetamine and marijuana out of the vehicle.”
An off-duty officer on Shorcut Highway heard the pursuit over his police radio and pulled over in case the chase came his way, deploying his spike strips. Police say the suspects’ vehicle came to a stop after running over the tire-deflation devices, and the couple was arrested.
Officials say police were able to recover the suspected drugs thrown from the vehicle in the chase.
Prilla Coslett (above, left) is charged with aggravated flight from an officer, resisting by flight, theft of goods under $500, and obstruction of justice. Clint Coslett (above, right) fases the same charges, as well as possession of marijuana and aggravated assault on a police officer by use of a vehicle.
If you’re going to butt-dial someone, make sure it’s not 9-1-1 while you are breaking into a car
Accidentally butt dialing someone is embarrassing or inconsequential to most, but for two Fresno, Calif., men, their cell phone mishap landed them in jail.
The call, which went to 911, started like any other call to the police dispatcher, with the operator asking, “What is your emergency?”
But when no one answered, the operator didn’t hang up, instead staying on the line and listening to the pair, who police identified as Nathan Teklemariam and Carson Rinehart, both 20, as they talked about wanting to do drugs. It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to breaking into a car.
“Get the bolt and give me the hammer just in case,” one of the two voices on the phone said.
Shortly after that statement, the dispatcher heard a window shatter and the people on the phone started yelling that they found prescription drugs.
As the two were driving away, police were already in the area searching for the men based on clues that the 911 dispatcher was feeding to them.
The police finally tracked the suspects down and pulled them over. The suspects acted confused and questioned what why they were being pulled over, police said.
“Oh, he’s following me, dog,” one of the suspects said in the recording. “Wow, what the [expletive] did I do?”
As they were being questioned, the suspects allegedly denied any wrongdoing, but after searching the car, police said they found items that allegedly were taken from the burglarized vehicle.
After being cuffed, the suspects were finally told how they were caught.
“This fool really called 911?” one of the suspects said. “Damn.”
“I have never heard of something like this,” Sgt. Jaime Rios of the Fresno Police Department told ABCNews.com. “There have been times where the dispatcher hears something like this, but never has a call come in before a crime being committed and staying on all the way to the end.”
Rios said the suspects are being charged with burglary, conspiracy and possession of stolen property.
Chinese Woman Escapes Unhurt in Toilet Explosion
In Leqing City, in China’s Zhejian Province, at around 6:00 a.m. on May 1, 2013, a woman was using a public restroom when the toilet literally exploded. The blast so was so powerful that it blew the exterior wall outward, injuring another woman who was walking by. Amazingly, the woman inside was completely unharmed, protected by the room’s internal brick walls.
A local citizen speculated that the incident may have been caused by faulty electrical wires that sparked and thus ignited the methane gas that had filled up the stopped-up toilet.
Fortunately, May Day was a national holiday in China, so there were not many people on the street. The restroom was located in an industrial area of the city, so had this incident happened on a regular working day, things could have gone a lot worse.
Man sues after personal lubricant allegedly destroys his penis
A Philadelphia man filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Appeals alleging that a personal lubricant caused his penis to burn and swell causing permanent disfigurement and loss of sensation. According to the Courthouse News Service, Michael Lowe sued the The Kama Sutra Co. and Kamsut Inc. of Thousand Oaks California as well as the sex shop in Philadelphia where the lubricating and desensitizing gel was purchased.
Lowe said that prior to September 1, 2012, he had used Kama Sutra Pleasure Balm Prolonging Gel without incident, but on that day he applied the product before putting on a condom to have sex with his fiancée. During intercourse, the couple were interrupted. Lowe waited for his fiancée to return to bed, but experienced “excruciating pain and pressure in his penis,” according to the suit.
“He removed the condom and his penis swelled significantly. He sought emergency medical treatment and follow-up care thereafter,” reads the complaint.
The swelling irreparably damaged the tissues of Lowe’s penis and resulted in “permanent scarring and disfigurement of the penis, permanent loss of sensation in the penis, permanent loss of functioning of the penis, permanent nerve damage to the penis, permanent tissue damage to the penis, and the inability to ejaculate.”
Lowe, who is represented by Thomas Kline of Philadelphia’s Klein and Specter, is seeking damages for the injuries, as well as recovery of lost wages and recompense for pain, suffering and humiliation. The gel was defective, he said, and his injuries are the result of negligence on the part of the manufacturer and “were in no way caused by acts or omissions on his part.”
[image of man cupping genitals protectively via Shutterstock.com]
Witnesses: Anastasia Adair was handing assault rifle to husband when it fired, striking her in head
FEDERAL HEIGHTS, Colo. – Witnesses tell police a Federal Heights woman was killed when the new assault rifle she was showing to friends accidentally fired on Tuesday night
Witnesses and the husband told police the group had been drinking in the garage of the couple’s home at 10024 Elliot St. when 22-year-old Anastasia Adair, a new gun enthusiast, went upstairs to a bedroom to get her recently purchased assault rifle.
Anastasia was walking back down the stairs into the garage when she reached out to hand the rifle to her husband, Shane Adair, who was below her on the stairs. The gun fired, striking her in the head, two witnesses and the husband told police.
Shane Adair told police he’s not sure if he touched the gun as his wife reached out to hand it to him, Federal Heights Police Lt. Gary Toldness said. The gun fired a second time as the wounded woman fell forward on the stairs and her husband caught her in his arms, but that shot didn’t hit anyone, police said.
Anastasia was transported by ambulance to Denver Health Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, Toldness said.
The incident occurred around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday.
The trajectory of the fatal shot appears consistent with witnesses’ accounts of an accidental shooting, Federal Heights Police Lt. Gary Toldness said. But he said that the investigation continues and it may take months to complete ballistics tests and analysis of the bullet trajectory.
Toldness said the couple had been firing the rifle the day before the fatal shooting and Shane Adair told investigators it had a light trigger pull.
Anastasia Adair bought the assault rifle at the Tanner Gun Show in March, Toldness said. He didn’t know the specific model, but said it looked like an AK-47-type rifle.
The couple and their friends were socializing in the garage, where their Harley Davidson motorcycles are parked, Toldness said. Shane Adair works as a tattoo artist.
This is just SAD .. San Fransisco bacon restaurant must close because neighbors don’t like the smell of bacon
The bacon smell smelled so much of bacon, that now, the bacon must go.
A San Francisco bacon restaurant — called Bacon Bacon — must shut its doors after neighbors’ complaints about the smell of bacon revealed a fatal permitting issue, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Bacon Bacon, at 250A Frederick Street, will close its doors at the end of service Friday after its owner “failed” to negotiate with neighbors who took offense to the pork restaurant’s smell.
The smell led to the revelation that the restaurant lacked “proper health permits” last summer.
The restaurant may be able to secure a permit but the first time a hearing can be held is July. So the restaurant must close.
Neighbors claimed that the “porcine aroma” was overpowering and that grease was illegally disposed of in the sewers.
Neighbors also say that they offered to buy the restaurant owner a new air filter — but he declined.
Owner Jim Angelus says he’ll revive the restaurant’s food truck — when he can find an approved kitchen location in which to prepare meals.
Good News: Fire ants are being displaced. Bad News: By another invasive ant
Invasive “crazy ants” are displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. It’s the latest in a history of ant invasions from the southern hemisphere and may prove to have dramatic effects on the ecosystem of the region.
The “ecologically dominant” crazy ants are reducing diversity and abundance across a range of ant and arthropod species — but their spread can be limited if people are careful not to transport them inadvertently, according to Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research program at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences
The study by LeBrun and his colleagues was published in Biological Invasions.
“When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,” said LeBrun. “Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound.”
LeBrun said that crazy ants, by contrast, “go everywhere.” They invade people’s homes, nest in crawl spaces and walls, become incredibly abundant and damage electrical equipment.
The crazy ants were first discovered in the U.S. in 2002 by a pest control operator in a suburb of Houston, and have since established populations in 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida, and a few sites in southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana.
In 2012 the species was formally identified as Nylanderia fulva, which is native to northern Argentina and southern Brazil. Frequently referred to as Rasberry crazy ants, these ants recently have been given the official common name “Tawny crazy ants.”
The Tawny crazy ant invasion is the most recent in a series of ant invasions from South America brought on by human movement. The Argentine ant invaded through the port of New Orleans in about 1891. In 1918 the black imported fire ant showed up in Mobile, Ala. Then in the 1930s, the red imported fire ant arrived in the U.S. and began displacing the black fire ant and the Argentine ants.
The UT researchers studied two crazy ant invasion sites on the Texas Gulf Coast and found that in those areas where the Tawny crazy ant population is densest, fire ants were eliminated. Even in regions where the crazy ant population is less dense, fire ant populations were drastically reduced. Other ant species, particularly native species, were also eliminated or diminished.
LeBrun said crazy ants are much harder to control than fire ants. They don’t consume most of the poison baits that kill fire ant mounds, and they don’t have the same kinds of colony boundaries that fire ants do. That means that even if they’re killed in a certain area, the supercolony survives and can swarm back over the area.
“They don’t sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,” he said. “There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It’s very expensive.”
LeBrun said that in northern Argentina and southern Brazil, where the ants are native, populations are likely held in check by other ant species and a variety of natural enemies. In the U.S. there is no such natural control.
Here the crazy ants can attain densities up to 100 times as great as all other ants in the area combined. In the process, they monopolize food sources and starve out other species. LeBrun said the crazy ants, which are omnivorous, may also directly attack and kill other ant and arthropod species.
The overall result is a significant reduction in abundance and biodiversity at the base of the food chain, which is likely to have implications for the ecosystem as a whole.
“Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant, which is the 300 pound gorilla in Texas ecosystems these days,” said LeBrun. “The whole system has changed around fire ants. Things that can’t tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished. New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that.”
LeBrun said a great deal about the Tawny crazy ants remains unknown, including their potential range. So far, most of the colonies are in fairly wet environments with mild winters, near the coast, so it may be the case that they can’t thrive in drier or colder climates, and that fire ants will remain dominant in those areas.
The spread of the Tawny crazy ants may also be limited, even within the more hospitable climates, by caution from humans. The reproductive members of the species don’t fly. So when left to their own devices, crazy ant colonies can only advance about 200 meters a year. That means they’re dependent on humans to colonize new areas.
“They are opportunistic nesters,” said LeBrun. “They can take up residence in everything from a house plant, to an empty container left outside, to an RV. So they’re easily transported by us. But the flip side of that is that if people living in or visiting invaded areas are careful and check for the crazy ants when moving or going on longer trips, they could have a huge impact on the spread.” Nursery products also appear to be a key way these ants spread, so both buyers and sellers should be watchful for these ants.
LeBrun said that cutting down on the number of transplantation events could slow the spread by years or decades. And that extra time could give the ecosystem time to adapt and researchers time to develop better control methods.
“We can really make a difference,” he said, “but we need to be careful, and we need to know more.”
South Carolina ain’t for walking around nekkid on the beach
A Virginia couple has been arrested on a South Carolina beach after police say the couple was found nude.
North Myrtle Beach police say the couple said they had gone skinny-dipping and returned to find their clothes missing.
Twenty-one-year-old Jasmine Kim Walton of Potomac Falls, Va., and 22-year-old Kyle Martin Schnoebelen of Fairfax, Va., were arrested shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday.
Walton has been charged with public disorderly conduct and public nudity.
Schnoebelen was charged with public nudity.
It was not clear if they have attorneys.
Pamela Devitt Mauled To Death By Pack Of Pit Bulls, Owner May Be Charged With Homicide
Los Angeles authorities are investigating whether several pit bulls seized from a man suspected of growing marijuana in his home were responsible for attacking and killing a 63-year-old woman on her morning walk Thursday.
The victim was identified Friday as Pamela Maria Devitt, of Littlerock, a high-desert community about 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the Antelope Valley. She died in an ambulance on the way to a local hospital.
The dogs dragged Devitt 50 yards, “scalped” her and ripped off one arm, a spokesman for county Supervisor Michael Antonovich told KCAL-TV.
The fatal attack is being investigated as a possible homicide.
Alex Jackson, 29, was arrested on suspicion of cultivating marijuana at the house where the dogs were seized. He is a “person of interest” in Devitt’s death, said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.
A motorist saw several dogs attacking Devitt, who was face down on the ground about 9:30 a.m. She honked to scare them away but the dogs then came after her car, biting its tires, said sheriff’s Lt. John Corina. The driver then called 911.
“When the first deputy on scene saw one dog still attacking the woman, he tried to chase the dog away,” Corina said. “The dog ran off into the desert, then turned around and attacked the deputy, the deputy fired a round at the dog and tried to kill the dog, and the dog took off into the desert.”
Armed with a search warrant, deputies and animal control officials later seized six pit bulls and two mixed-breed dogs from Jackson’s house.
DNA tests will determine whether some of the dogs were involved in the attack. If they were, they could be put to death.
Neighbors told KTLA-TV that the dogs had been aggressive in the past, and that they had video of them hopping the fence where they lived.
One neighbor said the dogs had attacked a man on a horse with two children earlier in the week.
“If there’s people on horses or elderly people walking, they attack them,” said the neighbor, who did not want to be identified.
“It’s really scary,” Diane Huffman, of Littlerock, told KABC-TV. “I don’t know what to think. I really think I’m going to be getting a gun to protect myself.”
Bumble Bee Tuna Fined After Employee Cooked To Death Inside Industrial Pressure Cooker
SANTA FE SPRINGS – A seafood plant employee died Thursday after he was cooked in an oven in an industrial accident, authorities said Friday.
Bumble Bee Foods officials identified the man as Jose Melena, a 6-year employee of the business.
He was 62 years old, according to Whittier police.
The incident took place shortly before 7 a.m. at Bumble Bee Foods, 13100 Arctic Circle, Whittier police officials said in a written statement.
The initial investigation indicated that, “he was fatally injured when he was cooked in an oven,” California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said. Cal-OSHA has launched an investigation into the the circumstances of what officials are calling an accident.
The cooking device that injured the man was described in coroner’s documents as a “steamer machine,” Dietz said.
It was unclear how the man ended up inside the industrial cooker.
“This is a horrendous tragedy,” Monterroza said.
Rescuers who responded to a 9-1-1 call pronounced the man dead at the scene, police said.
In a written statement, Bumble Bee Foods vice president of human resources Pat Menke expressed condolences to Melena’s family.
“The entire Bumble Bee Foods family is saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Melena family,” he said.
“Operations at Bumble Bee Foods’ Santa Fe Springs processing plant
have been suspended since yesterday morning to allow for a thorough investigation,” Menke said. “We expect to be able to resume operations on Monday.”
By OSHA policy, an investigation is to be completed within six months, Monterroza said. It will include visits to the tuna-canning plant, extensive interviews and a review of company safety documentation.
“Once all of the facts are gathered, at that point, a determination will be made if California health and safety regulations were violated,” she said.
A finding of violations would result in civil penalties assessed against the employer, Monterroza said. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office will determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
