ME fire chief wasn't just drunk, but annoying, too, police say

Lovely story from Maine, where a local fire chief is accused of driving his truck, lights shining and sirens blaring, around his neighborhood in an apparent effort to annoy a neighbor. Oh, and police say he was drunk, too!

Hat Tip: Many thanks, kmb!

Blunt wants more laws against illegal immigrants

The Missouri governor wants the legislature to pass laws that would require school districts and city-county governments to see if their new employees are illegal immigrants.

Canadian police versus 250-pound, naked, self-proclaimed devil-worshipper on meth, pot

Surprisingly, the police won. But the guy did punch one of their K-9s.

And did I mention this happened near a zoo?

Hat Tip: Many thanks, You're A Mean Drunk R2D2!

Sextuplet "mom" arrested

From Independence PD: Sarah Everson, 46 years of age, was arrested today at approximately 1130 hours at an apartment near 18th and Ash in Independence, MO. 

Sarah Everson, aka Sally Hazel, was arrested after information that she was staying at an Independence apartment with a friend was relayed to the Independence Police Department from the TIPS Hotline (474-TIPS). Ms. Everson was arrested without incident.

She is currently being held at the Jackson County Jail on a warrant for Felony Theft with a $100,000 bond. The warrant resulted from the Grain Valley Police Department investigation concerning the receipt of funds for her sextuplets. It was later determined that there were no sextuplets.

MI woman, 61, aims gun at husband, hits TV instead

Snip:

During the 911 call, he said he was scared and wasn’t coming out of the house because she was upstairs.

The wife then got on the phone, saying to the dispatcher, “he pushed me over the edge that was all.”

She said she was fed up that he was taking out his problems—a family member dying and his recently stroke—out on her.

"He’s taking it all out on me,” she told the dispatcher.

“No, I’m not,” he protested.

Baltimore man gets prison for killing tire thief

The charge is involuntary manslaughter, and the defendant -- a former convict -- was forbidden from having a gun in the first place. Police say he shot the tire thief, who was running away, once. Original sentence was 10 years, but half of that was suspended.

The saddest thing I've read today

In New York, a 9-year-old boy died after he ran back into his burning house. He was trying to save his dog, his pet lizard and a fish.

Jesse Timmendequas

Jesse Timmendequas, 46, raped and killed Megan Kanka, 7, after he lured her to his house by saying he wanted to show her a puppy. Her death inspired Megan's Law.

And because the case is from New Jersey, his death sentence has just been commuted to life in prison.

It's official: New Jersey bans the death penalty

But, seeing as how they haven't executed anybody since the 1960s, it feels a little pointless.

CA man, age 90, dies after standoff with police

It was basically suicide-by-cop -- he came out of his mobile home with a gun and aimed it right at the police, the San Diego Union-Tribue reports. What's unusual here is the age. Most standoffs I see involve younger, stupider people.

But it's like the article points out: People 85 and over have the highest suicide rate in the country.

WA mom leaves naked baby in bowling-alley restroom while she shoots pool, police say

Yep, Junior was just sitting there in his stroller, police said. Another woman found him and waited a half-hour before calling police. Kiddo has severe diaper rash and several red bumps on his body -- Grandma says those are probably flea bites.

Is Drew Peterson getting a raw deal?

The judge won't let him get his cars or guns back, which isn't a huge thing. But there have been a lot of leaks from the investigation -- and some of them have been waaaaay off-base. (Like the bit about Peterson asking two truckers to haul around one of his blue boxes.)

NJ prisoners "pull a Shawshank"

Two New Jersey prisoners escaped from a county jail this weekend by removing cinder blocks and hiding the holes with posters of women in bikinis. (They also put dummies under their blankets.)

Hat Tip: Many thanks, T-Bone!

NY millionaires convicted in slavery case

On all charges. Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani and wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, were accused of making two housekeepers work 18-hour days and cruelly punishing the women if they messed up. (One housekeeper said they made her eat chili peppers until she vomited, then made her eat the vomit.)

File photos of the Sabhnanis via The AP.

Open Thread ... Monday

The Open Thread is up and running on a lovely Monday morning -- thanks for spending a little time here today!

This is James Hart, back from a week's vacation. Thanks again to Sara Shepherd for minding the store while I was gone, and thanks to everybody who helped her out last week.

Please sign your comments, and please avoid profanity, as well as racially and sexually abusive language. I read the OT, but if you need to contact me directly, my email is jhart@kcstar.com.

New charges filed against Israel Mireles

Mireles, if you don't remember, is wanted for questioning in the Emily Sander homicide from El Dorado, Kan. The 24-year-old reportedly fled the area with his pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend -- authorities believe the baby is Mireles', which is why they've charged him with aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

How did everybody behave at Arrowhead?

Everybody was pretty well-behaved, Sgt. Rick Sticken said. Police made one arrest each for disorderly conduct, trespassing, DUI, hindering/interfering with police and stealing. (A guy reportedly grabbed an official Chiefs helmets from a vendor, and a bystander tackled him.) Officers handled one ejection.

There were three fender-benders. And there were four reports of car break-ins. In most of those cases, a purse was stolen, even though the victim had hidden it under a blanket or coat.

Sometimes, thieves hang out in parking lots and watch their victims hide valuables, Sgt. Sticken said. It's probably better to leave those sorts of things at home, if you can't carry them with you.

(Thanks again to Sgt. Sticken for his help this fall!)

Pretty in pink? Not in Kansas City

The AP has a story about jailers painting their cells pinks, hoping the color will have a calming effect on the prisoners. Loved this bit about Kansas City ...

County jails in Arizona, Tennessee and Texas have had similar makeovers, but last year, the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department abandoned pink for institutional gray. Jail officials there said the pink hue had no discernible effect on prisoners but annoyed the jail staff.

Saw this via Tony's Kansas City.

Photo via The AP.

Saudi king saves rape victim from 200 lashes

Remember the story about a Saudi woman who was sentenced to 90 lashes after she and a male friend were gang-raped? (She merited the punishment, the Saudi judiciary said, because she was alone with a male who wasn't a relative.) She then got 200 lashes and six months in jail when she complained.

After a great deal of international outrage, the Saudi king has pardoned the woman.

You might be a stupid criminal if ...

... you decide to steal a truck for its tires.

... you have to wreck the truck because you don't have the right tools to take the tires off.

... you have to burglarize a school to pay your legal bills.

... the police catch you while you burglarize the school because you forgot to bring walkie-talkies for your lookouts (girlfriends).

Hat Tip: Many thanks, kmb!

CA police overlooked woman's body in wrecked car, sent it to junkyard

In Los Angeles, rescuers completely overlooked an elderly woman after her car wrecked. They found her son and took him to the hospital. But the body of the woman, who was hidden under an air bag, was taken to a junkyard with the car. Police didn't go looking for her until relatives said two people had been in the car.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, You're A Mean Drunk R2D2!

Suicidal people love national parks

So much so that parks officials are setting up a tracking system for suicides at their sites across the country. The Denver Post has a weird, lovely story about park rangers trying to stop people from offing themselves.

Quick-thinking rangers at the Grand Canyon used a ruse to lure two young men bent on suicide from a cliff edge in 2004. They pretended a little girl was lost and enlisted the aid of the pair, who had left suicide notes in their stolen vehicle. They were taken into custody when they came away from the cliff.

Too much prison time for kiddie-porn viewers?

That's what some experts argue in this Washington Post article. They say most people who view child pornography don't actually go out and molest a kid.

"Sending people to prison for five or 10 or 15 years for looking at pictures is killing an ant with a sledgehammer," said Peter Greenspun, who defended Charles Rust-Tierney, the former ACLU head sentenced to seven years in prison for downloading hundreds of images. "These people are being put on sex-offender registries, they are being ostracized from the community, for looking at pictures."

The story quotes two different studies. One says one-third of people trafficking in kiddie porn also molest kids -- a different study says 85 percent do. Law-enforcement officials say they're not going after people who accidentally download an image or two -- they're going after folks who build entire libraries of the worst kind of child porn imaginable.

"You can't wrap your brain around what we're talking about here," said Bonnie S. Greenberg, a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland. "We're not talking about a 16-year-old who looks like she could be 19. We're seeing prepubescent children who are being raped, babies, toddlers being tied up."

TX woman's condition upgraded to "alive" after wreck

The woman got into a crash with a drunk driver this weekend near San Antonio, KSAT reports. Nobody noticed she was alive until the medical examiner's office came to pick up her body. The woman, who is in critical condition, waited two hours -- much of that under a yellow tarp -- before she was taken to the hospital.

Will the National Center for Missing Adults close?

There's a good chance it will, according to the Arizona Republic. The center -- not to be confused with the better-funded National Center for Missing & Exploited Children -- has a lot of debt, and the federal government has stopped giving it money. (The center is asking for $4 million per year; Missing & Exploited Children gets about $35 million annually from the feds.)